"Mideast
Summit Failed but the Will to Negotiate Remains" by Geoffrey
Kemp
from The San Diego Union Tribune, July 30, 2000.
Although the Camp David Middle East peace talks ended Tuesday with no agreement, the quest for a final settlement is still very much alive. All the parties have agreed that negotiations will continue. The problem is that we may be running out of time.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak faces a political crisis at home. Palestinian President Yasser Arafat is 71 and has pledged to declare a Palestinian state on Sept. 13 with or without an agreement. Perhaps most important, Bill Clinton leaves office in January, 2001. The Israelis and the Americans have tried to lay the blame on Arafat for refusing to show flexibility in the two-week-long negotiations, but Arafat returned to a hero's welcome in Gaza for not capitulating to U.S. and Israeli pressure. Meanwhile, his aides are trumpeting the positive achievements and the progress that were made at the meetings.
What we can say is that for the first time the most senior Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have come to grips with the complex and emotional final status issues that must be resolved if there is to be an end to the conflict. Both sides now need to persuade their respective constituencies that difficult and painful compromises are necessary.
We do know that Barak made some major concessions to the Palestinians at Camp David in order to achieve a deal, including suggestions that parts of East Jerusalem could be subject to joint control and that Palestinians might get sovereignty over parts of a reconfigured city that could become the capital of the Palestinian state. Indeed, the furor in Israel over Barak's potential concessions on Jerusalem has yet to peak.
Although there will be more stories coming out in the days ahead, with new spins and twists on these particular issues, several items are clear:
Arafat will never be offered sovereignty over all of East
Jerusalem. He will have to compromise. To do this will require careful nurturing of
Palestinian and Arab opinion, which in turn means support from key Arab leaders,
particularly from Egypt and Saudi Arabia, to indicate to Arafat that they will provide him
with cover if he accepts less than optimum terms. Palestinian sovereignty over the Muslim
holy places in the Old City would seem to be the minimum the Muslim world would accept.
Regarding the political situation in Israel, it is clear that the
right-wingers -- those who supported a Greater Israel incorporating all the West Bank and
Gaza -- will now have to reconcile themselves to losing much of the West Bank and
uprooting as many as 50,000 settlers if any peace treaty is to be obtained. In other
words, even if a Likud government were to return to power in Israel, it would have to make
concessions to the Palestinians that would have been unacceptable five years ago.
Bill Clinton has been a key player in the peace process. Neither
George Bush nor Al Gore, depending on who wins the election, will have the time, the
knowledge, nor perhaps the enthusiasm, to dive into the nuances of an open-ended peace
process that could end in failure. They will have other pressing priorities, including
putting together a new administration and focusing on the serious responsibility of
working with key allies in Europe and Japan, while establishing satisfactory relationships
with the two powers that really are important to America's vital interests -- Russia and
China.
Nevertheless, there is enough time left for the Clinton administration to complete a deal between the Palestinians and Israel provided that Barak survives his political crisis, that Arafat adopts a more flexible negotiating policy, and there is no major violence in the region.
Barak's survival skills will be severely tested in the coming weeks. He will need to show extraordinary agility if he is to stay in power long enough to meet again with Arafat and cement a deal. If he does get a final agreement with Arafat, he will possibly be able to get acceptance for it from the Israeli people, if not the Knesset. The Knesset is about to go into recess until late October, though it could be called back into session if 30 members vote to do so.
Assuming Arafat is ultimately willing to be more flexible, he needs to sell a final deal to a number of different constituents, beginning with the Arab and Muslim world. How to help Arafat compromise is therefore a key task, and here the U.S. role is crucial. Too heavy a hand could backfire, but too weak a hand will be equally unproductive. The Muslim world could help by emphasizing that the key issue is the control of and access to the holy Muslim sites in East Jerusalem rather than the status of the entire Old City. A compromise on the status of the Muslim holy sites is possible.
Arafat's other major problem is the Palestinian Diaspora. In this context, the fate of the Palestinian refugees is almost as important as Jerusalem since it is this constituency that contains the most radical Palestinians. The Palestinians want Israel to acknowledge the right of the Palestinians to return to the homes they left in 1948. For Israel, this is an existential issue because the return of a large number of Palestinians would threaten the Jewish identity of Israel.
Containing violence is essential given the radical elements in both the Muslim world and in Israel who oppose major concessions and are prepared to use force to provoke conflict. It is therefore vital that Israel and the Palestinian Authority continue to cooperate on security issues. Some gloomy scenarios predict that the Palestinian security forces themselves will engage in military operations against Israel. It is well known that Israeli settlers are in possession of formidable arsenals and are prepared to resist any efforts to change the status quo.
In the broader context, regional escalation could happen if widespread violence between the Israelis and the Palestinians erupts. Many Palestinian radicals are using the example of how Hezbollah evicted Israel from South Lebanon as the model for future confrontation. They argue similar tactics can drive Israel out of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
But the comparisons are foolish: Israel wanted to get out of Lebanon. It had no emotional ties to the territory. Israel is much more ambivalent about the West Bank, which has both ideological and strategic importance. As for Jerusalem, most Israelis believe it should never again be divided and must remain under Israeli rule.
If elements of Hezbollah in Lebanon, aided and abetted by Palestinians, were to use the pretext of a conflagration between Israel and the Palestinian Authority to attack Israel, the consequences would be disastrous. Israel would use major military force to stop and punish such action. This, in turn, could quickly lead to engagements with both Lebanese and Syrian military forces.
The stage then would be set for a wider Arab-Israeli confrontation with the Arabs united against Israel, though with various degrees of commitment. Either way, such an outcome would poison the atmosphere for months, if not years, and would be threatening to American strategic interests throughout the Middle East. After all, oil remains a vital commodity and the Persian Gulf is still a strategic prize. It is a region we cannot abandon. Saddam Hussein remains a threat and we continue to have major differences with Iran.
Serious violence between Israelis and Palestinians would have another negative impact on the peace process. In such a crisis, Ehud Barak would probably have to form a national government bringing in hard-line members of Likud, including the party leader, Arik Sharon. Sharon has made it clear that Likud would never agree to the concessions Barak was prepared to make to the Palestinians at Camp David. Hence, the peace process would be on hold until Israel could schedule new elections and form a government willing to go back to the bargaining table.
The next few weeks will probably determine whether or not there can be a peace settlement in the Clinton era. The incentives have never been higher, but then neither have the stakes. Arafat must be sure that his independent state is viable -- and recognized by the majority of Diaspora Palestinians and the Arab world. Barak -- indeed all Israelis -- must be assured that a final settlement with the Palestinians is the end of the conflict with them. Period. No more concessions; no more compromises; no more disputes over unresolved questions.
If not, then Barak or whoever may follow him, will not get enough political support in Israel to make a deal. The Clinton administration must be prepared to argue strongly to the Congress and to the Europeans and other rich countries that a final settlement is going to require billions of dollars of aid over the next decade if a peace treaty is to be effective.
No one should underestimate the difficulties that lie ahead, but the alternatives to an agreement are, as President Clinton has stated, "unthinkable." Yet in the Middle East the unthinkable happens. Fortunately, sometimes this means positive change. Ten years ago it was unthinkable that most Israelis would recognize the inevitability of a Palestinian state.
Likewise, the acceptance of Israel by the Arab world is becoming more normal. The pragmatists on all sides understand that if there is no end to this historic conflict, the region will lose a great opportunity to move forward and benefit from the opportunities of the new global economy. Yet there remain many voices in the Arab world who still harbor romantic notions of confrontation, while Israel, too, has its share of extremists who are prepared to use violence to stop a peace treaty.
One can only hope that reason will prevail, but hope alone is no guarantee.
(Geoffrey Kemp is director of regional strategic programs at The Nixon Center).
