Time
for America to impose
a Middle East deal
By JONATHAN
POWER
December 12, 2001
LONDON - Perhaps one can see an end to the war in
Afghanistan, even to Osama bin Laden himself, but can
anyone see an end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict?
America has shown that with its awesome armoury that
defeat is swift for anyone who publicly dare step into
the ring for a round or two, which the Taliban, by giving
refuge to bin Laden, decided to do. (Of course, it is
another matter if Qaida now bunkers down in secret cells
all over the place.) But who is going to deliver the
decisive blow with Palestine/Israel? This is a war of
attrition that could knock on and drag on until not much
is left standing.
On the Palestinian side the outcome certainly could be
a degree of material destruction that could make much of
the country rubble; on the Israeli side it is more likely
to make it simply unliveable. While the buildings and
infrastructure may be left standing many people,
especially those with marketable professional skills, may
decide this is no place to bring up a family and simply
pack their bags. Already there are 30,000 Israeli
emigrants living and working in San Francisco's South Bay
area alone.
So bad is the situation that the American envoy,
General Anthony Zinni said last Sunday, a mere two weeks
after his arrival in Israel, that he was considering on
pulling out. Yet when he arrived he said he would stay as
long as it took to restore calm and restart peace talks.
So what next?
Where for starters does Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
go? He could order his secret service to assassinate
Yasser Arafat, as many of his advisers have been pushing
him to do. That would shake things up. It could hand
power to Hamas, the most powerful of the militant groups
who could then strike a deal with Sharon that nobody in
Palestine would dare challenge. But that is a long
shot.
It would more likely lead to both a more intensive
intifada and to a fratricidal conflict within Palestine
itself. Although so far the militants have not shown much
interest in being associated with Qaida, would they
refuse an offer from a Qaida cell that decided to make
Israel pay? Sharon who gambled and lost in the Lebanon
would be a fool to gamble again with taking the life of
Mr Arafat.
At some point Sharon has to stop playing politics and
ask himself why Arafat walked away from the Camp David
deal and more particularly from that worked out
afterwards in Taba in Egypt a few months after Intifada 2
had got going? There can only be two explanations. The
first, which Sharon himself seems to believe, that Arafat
does not want peace with Israel, that his secret agenda
is the one that he revealed in a sermon in a South
African mosque a few years ago: to drive Israel into the
sea. The second is to believe that Arafat would have
clinched the deal if the then Israeli prime minister,
Ehud Barak, could have delivered on it. But with an
election looming and the immoveable Sharon the likely
winner Arafat would have gambled all, only to have it
thrown in his face. Barak, who wasted time on an
impossible deal with Syria and a drawn out negotiation
over Israel's occupation of the south of Lebanon, had
simply left it too late.
The first explanation is no explanation. Palestinian
rhetoric at its worst has always contained the
end-of-Israel expletives. But a deal on the lines of Camp
David/Thaba, if finalized by Arafat and Sharon, would be
set in cement. The Palestinian educated, professional
class would not stand for playing with it. Neither would
other Arab governments. Whatever the doubts in
governments such as Saudi Arabia or Syria, they would go
along, as they eventually felt compelled to over Egypt's
historic rapprochement with Israel twenty-four years ago.
Besides, it as this point that a great deal would deserve
to be guaranteed internationally- not just by the U.S.,
but by Europe and Russia too.
What was the Thaba deal? It is worth reiteration: a
Palestinian state to control 95% of the West Bank and
Gaza; Israeli settlers to be concentrated on about 5% of
the land which Israel would annex, with Palestine being
compensated with Israeli land in the Negev desert; the
Arab neighbourhoods of Jerusalem, including those in the
Old City to be absorbed by Palestine; the Haram al-Sharif
mosque to be under Palestinian sovereignty and the
Wailing Wall under Israeli; and Palestinian refugees to
be either compensated with money, settled in Palestine
or, on a case by case basis, in Israel.
For sure, there were bits and pieces still to be
negotiated: the Negev desert was not a good substitute
for loss of part of the West Bank and the refugee deal
needed to be fleshed out. But compared with what Barak
first put on the table all these concessions were Israeli
milestones. Moreover, given the right political climate
in Israel- a right wing being led with an element of
foresight- they are sellable to the electorate.
Short term political perspectives have to go out of
the window - Sharon waiting for a week without violence
before he will talk; Arafat refusing to spell out in
public at home his vision of a deal; and President George
Bush waiting until he has defeated Qaida.
Bush has to stand up, with Europe and Russia at his
side, and tell Sharon and Arafat, this has to be your
deal and we are going to make it stick.
I can be reached by phone +44
7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2001 By
JONATHAN POWER
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