Will Obama deal with the Middle East mess?

The Jordan Times
Hasan Abu Nimah

Recently, there have been signals from Israel indicating attitude change. The first was from Israeli President Shimon Peres during a visit, late October, to Sharm El Sheikh, where he was reported by the Israeli paper Haaretz to have informed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak of Israel’s acceptance of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative.
Few took that hint seriously, knowing well that Israel is not in the habit to grant such a major concession beforehand and without exacting a heavy price for it. Normally Israel saves its cards until the very last minute of intensive negotiations.

Additionally, it is evident that Peres does not have any executive power to offer such a concession, and it was unlikely that he was carrying an Israeli government message at a time when Israeli politics have been thrown in turmoil, with a resigned prime minister at the top of a caretaker powerless government and a country approaching decisive general elections.

The Peres gesture was not that clear; he wanted to normalise economic and political relations with the Arab world first, or to have a normalisation process run parallel to a new round of negotiations, which is a well-known Israeli position.

Mubarak’s response was that the Arab initiative is clearly requiring that normal relations come after the envisaged conflict settlement, not before it. But Peres has again reaffirmed his support for the Arab initiative at the Saudi-sponsored United Nations inter-religious conference in New York last week. Addressing his words directly to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Peres commended the initiative - which is of Saudi origin - saying: “I wish that your voice will become the prevailing voice of the whole region, of all people.”

To add further support to the promising trend, there was a report in The Sunday Times (November 16, 2008, by Uzi Mahnaimi and Sarah Bexter), speaking of the possibility of President-elect Barack Obama pursuing an ambitious peace plan in the Middle East involving Israeli withdrawal to pre-1967 lines on all Arab fronts in exchange for recognition of the Israeli state by all the Arab, and possibly all the Muslim, states. The Sunday Times adds that Obama tends to throw his support behind the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which is endorsed by the Arab League, as well as the Israeli foreign minister and leader of the Israeli Kadima Party, Tzipi Livni.

Obama had earlier received advice, as included in The Sunday Times report, from one of his principal campaign advisors, Dan Kurtzer, affirming that since the Israeli strategy aiming at reaching peace agreements with Arab states individually proved unsuccessful, it should be replaced with the collective approach, best offered by the Arab initiative.

While this sounds truly promising, and can be good cause for optimism, it cannot be taken at face value. I would only mention one primary reason. While the Arab initiative is quite vague on the issue of refugees, which can be a grave problem at a certain stage later, the initiative is very clear on territorial matters, which can be a problem too. But leaving the refugees issue aside for the moment, the initiative requires “full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon”. The initiative also demands the implementation of Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, on all Arab fronts, as part of any final settlement.

This sounds perfect. If only this clause of the Arab initiative were truly implemented, or were to be truly considered for implementation, on such basis, it would resolve three major final status issues: the borders, Jerusalem and the settlements. It would also advance the negotiations on the Syrian track to the very final and concluding stage.

Any such Israeli withdrawal would mean the removal of all Israeli illegally built settlements in the West Bank and the Golan Heights, without excluding a single stone; it would imply the return to the Palestinians of East Jerusalem to its pre-1967status, as it was under the Jordanian administration; and it would define the borders between Israel and its Eastern neighbours. The borders in this case would be the same as they were in June 4, 1967.

Could it be possible that any of those on the American or the Israeli side, or anyone else who may applaud the possibility, have this in mind when flying messages about the acceptability of the Arab initiative? Obviously not. Most likely, Israeli “moderates” hope to use the initiative as a negotiating framework which may end up securing normal relations with the Arab world in return for a recycled, worn-out project of the many which has repeatedly failed. Neither could a total withdrawal be the understanding of any of the Obama advisers who would be forging new ideas for the president for a renewed effort to revive a Middle East peace.

If the text of the Arab initiative is clear, the implications, as generally agreed, are not. All sides, including the Arab side, unfortunately accept that the implementation would not adhere strictly to the text, and it is so vague that both sides hope to adapt the initiative to their needs.

The “moderate” Arab political discourse, particularly that of the Palestinian Authority, often accepts “minor border modifications” to the 1967 lines, as well as land compensation. How minor is minor is difficult to determine when there is tacit acceptability - and a President Bush written guarantee - that the major settlement blocks would have to be annexed to Israel against land compensation in the Negev wasteland.

The large settlements blocks occupy much more land than anything that can be termed as minor. Since there is no mention of any such border modification or of land swap in the Arab initiative, any premature unilateral offer only indicates lack of seriousness on the Arab side in adhering to its own text and its own major political decisions. That is both a counterproductive and an ill-advised strategy.

It does also render the Arab claim that their initiative is for implementation and not for negotiation null and meaningless. No one believes that anymore, because the Arab side contributes to a policy of evasion as it continues to give contradictory indications as to its approved and declared positions.

Despite the soothing signs, the chances of a genuine revival of a long-disabled peace process do not sound real. Most likely, they will continue to rely on old projects and count on further attrition of an already depleted Palestinian and Arab position.

The Arab Peace Initiative is a perfect framework, even if some parts of it need to be further negotiated, although in a spirit of resolving rather than creating problems. What should not be negotiable is the clause that talks about withdrawal from all the occupied territories and the removal of all the settlements, which are, all, illegal.

There were two precedents and they should be kept in mind: one in Sinai, where every settlement was removed and destroyed as a prerequisite to the peace treaty with Egypt, and the other in Gaza, where Israel realised finally that the settlement project there was a great security burden which no military capability could afford.

There will come a time when the West Bank and Golan Heights settlements will become untenable too. Already they are a serious barrier to meaningful negotiations; each one of them is a landmine on the road to peace, as Uri Avnery described them in one of his caustic articles recently.

It might sound crazy to call for total withdrawal and total removal of settlements as a prerequisite to peace in Palestine and Syria, but it will be mere fantasy to expect progress towards any kind of settlement otherwise.

Comment: I am surprised it took so long for them to use the "a precedent was set..."