No break in storm clouds over Middle East
Patrick Seale
There is no relief in sight for the Palestinians or for the Israelis. This is the
clear, but depressing, message to come out of Washington, London and Paris. The daily
Israeli incursions into Palestinian territory, the killing and capture of activists, the
siege of Palestinian cities, the brutal interrogations, the cruel checkpoints, the
building of electrified fences, all these are set to continue together with their
mirror-image, Palestinian suicide bombings.
As a Washington source put it to me: “(The Israeli attacks on) Jenin, Nablus and
Bethlehem were bad, but not bad enough. Something truly catastrophic would need to occur,
like a large-scale massacre in Gaza or perhaps even the threat of a regional war, before
the international community cries “Enough!’” For now, no external
intervention is being contemplated to end the bloodshed. And evidently, there will be none
until things get much worse.
This week, envoys are again converging on the region CIA Director George Tenet, US
Assistant Secretary of State William Burns, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, EU
foreign policy chief Javier Solana, and no doubt there will be others. But their task is
to “assess the situation” again, not impose a settlement.
The conflict figures high on the agenda of the Quartet that is the informal
consultative group of the US, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations. Senior
officials in several capitals are said to be grappling with the problem. But there is no
sign of real political will to resolve it. US President George W. Bush continues to repeat
that he wants to see a “two-state solution.” But he seems to have no idea how to
go about implementing his “vision.”
The truth is that whatever Bush may want, American diplomacy suffers from severe
constraints. The Congress is overwhelmingly pro-Israeli, American public opinion has been
alienated by the suicide bombings, and the administration’s current obsession with
terrorism plays into the hands of Pentagon hawks and Israeli hard-liners who believe that
the Palestinian intifada can be crushed by brute force.
The EU is equally unready to intervene forcefully. Three of its members, Britain, Germany
and The Netherlands, oppose the use of sanctions against Israel, or any other form of
pressure.The rise of the right in several European countries, accompanied by the
accusation of renewed anti-Semitism, further inhibits the EU from intervening in the
conflict on the side of the Palestinians, as many Europeans would like.
Local Arab and Israeli leaders are also largely responsible for the deadlock. According to
most observers, Yasser Arafat has lost all credibility in Israel, even on the left of the
political spectrum. He has been so criticized and demonized and held personally
responsible for all the terror attacks Israel has suffered that it is now virtually
impossible for any Israeli to conceive of making peace with him. As one Western official
put it, “Arafat is finished. A new face is urgently needed on the Palestinian
side.”
Marwan Barghouti, the former Fatah leader on the West Bank, is a man frequently mentioned
as a possible replacement, but he is languishing in an Israeli jail, where he is no doubt
suffering the sleep deprivation and other ugly forms of ill-treatment which Israel
routinely inflicts on Palestinian prisoners.
In the view of Western officials, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is an even bigger
obstacle to a settlement than Yasser Arafat. Sharon is ideologically and temperamentally
committed to a “Greater Israel” and to preventing the emergence of a Palestinian
state, causes to which he has dedicated his life. He is considered totally incapable of
negotiating peace on any terms which the Palestinians could accept.
According to these sources, it is therefore utterly futile to hope for a peace settlement
between Arafat and Sharon. One or the
other or preferably both would first have to be removed from the scene. But how is
this to be done?
It is no secret that the current Western and Israeli pressure to reform the Palestinian
Authority is intended to marginalize Arafat, if not to get rid of him altogether. The
Palestinian leader, however, is a seasoned fighter who is expected to resist all attempts
to dislodge him. If there is to be reform including fresh elections to Palestinian
bodies, a new government, more transparency and accountability, and a reconstituted
security service he intends to control the entire process and remain firmly at the
helm.
If ousting Arafat will be difficult, getting rid of Sharon will be even more so, as he is
now enjoying considerable popularity among all shades of Israeli opinion, even on the
left. Faced with the terror attacks, many Israelis have come to believe that they are
fighting a war for their country’s very existence, in which Sharon’s brutal
military tactics are justified.
Western officials visiting Israel this coming week will seek to assess whether Haim Ramon,
a candidate for the Labor Party leadership and a well-known dove, has enough personal
support to rally the peace camp and defeat the Likud at next year’s elections. Ramon
is said to be planning to campaign on a platform of unilateral Israeli withdrawal from
most of the territories and of “separation” from the Palestinians. But in
Israel’s current mood, Ramon will have an uphill struggle to win acceptance as a
national leader able to lead his country out of the present deadly crisis.
Meanwhile, hardly anyone now believes that the international conference or, more modestly,
the meeting of foreign ministers, as proposed by US Secretary of State Colin Powell, has
any realistic chance of being held. Saudi Arabia and Egypt have told Washington that they
will only attend if the main purpose and agenda of the conference is the creation of a
Palestinian state. Needless to say, Sharon has declared his opposition. He has, moreover,
set ludicrous conditions for Syria’s participation, such as withdrawal from Lebanon,
an end to its support for Hizbullah and the expulsion of “rejectionist”
Palestinian factions conditions which Damascus has, not surprisingly, contemptuously
rejected.
In the absence of a peace initiative, the Israeli-Palestinian duel of wills is set to
continue, with its predictable toll of misery, destruction and death. Israeli hard-liners
now talk of the need to reoccupy Palestinian territories, root out all
“terrorists,” and “finish the job” started with “Operation
Rampart” in March.
In the meantime, Israel is instituting apartheid-like measures, which will stifle
the Palestinian economy once and for all. It is planning to close off all the major
West Bank cities, partition the region into eight separate areas, and subject all movement
of goods between Palestinian cities and between Israel and the West Bank to the so-called
“back-to-back” system: Goods will have to be unloaded from incoming trucks to be
checked and then reloaded onto local trucks.
It is unlikely, however, that this will end Palestinian resistance. According to
Palestinian sources, the resistance will operate on two levels: a steady barrage of
low-level attacks in the form of drive-by shootings of soldiers and settlers, attempted
raids on settlements, and suicide bombings inside Israel proper.
On a higher level, the resistance will attempt to carry out attacks against major Israeli
targets, such as the recent sophisticated but unsuccessful attempt to blow up
Israel’s principal fuel depot. Just as Israel is seeking to crush the intifada by
striking fear into the hearts of ordinary Palestinians, so the Palestinian resistance is
seeking to make ordinary Israelis fear for their lives.
In other words, there is no end in sight to this cruel war, which has devastated
Palestinian society and seriously damaged Israel’s once-booming economy. Tourism and
investment have dried up, the shekel is on downward slide, and Israel’s gross
domestic product is likely to fall by about 5 percent this year.
When will an American president have the political courage to lead his Israeli ally out of
this wilderness? Patrick Seale is the author of
Asad (1988), the biography of the late Syrian President Hafez Assad. He wrote this
commentary for The Daily Star
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