MIDDLE EAST: Chances Slim for Revival of Peace Process

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis - Dilip Hiro

LONDON, May 3 1998 (IPS) - On the eve of high level negotiations between Israeli, Palestinian, U.S. and British leaders, there appears only a slim chance of an end to the year-long stalemate in the Middle east peace process.

The talks, opening Monday, bring together for the first time Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and for the European Union, British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

A feeling of despair accompanied the downbeat statements issued by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak last Tuesday after his talks with Netanyahu in Cairo, and by King Hussein of Jordan the following day.

“Failure to move forward at the London talks could have serious consequences, and prospects are not bright,” King Hussein said in Copenhagen at the end of his state visit to Denmark. “Obviously there is so much that needed to be have been done but has not been done, and now is the moment of truth.”

Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians have been deadlocked ever since the Netanyahu government gave a go-ahead to build the Har Homa Jewish settlement at Jabal Abu Ghunaim in occupied Arab East Jerusalem on Feb. 26, 1997. It piled up a further humiliation on the Palestinians by presenting, on Mar. 8, its first redeployment plan, stemming from the agreement Netanyahu had concluded with Arafat in the West Bank town of Hebron two months earlier.

The Netanyahu-Arafat accord was a variant of the Comprehensive Interim Agreement between Israel and the PLO – popularly called the Oslo II Accord — signed in September 1995 by then Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin and Arafat at the White House in Washington in the presence of U.S. president Bill Clinton, Mubarak and King Hussein.

Among other things the Oslo II Accord divided the West Bank into A, B and C areas. In Area A, the Palestinian Authority (PA) was to exercise full control over civil affairs – covering 40 spheres of activity – and ‘security’. Area A, consisting of seven Palestinian cities, accounts for four percent of the West Bank

In Area B, the PA was to exercise control over civil affairs and public order, with Israel taking charge of overall security. Area B, covering 465 villages, occupies 23 percent of the West Bank, and accommodates 63 percent of its Palestinian population of nearly two million.

In Area C, Israel was to exercise full control over security, including Palestinian public order, territorial jurisdiction and Jewish settlers, with the PA taking charge only of Palestinian civil affairs. Area C takes up 73 percent of the West Bank.

By the time Netanyahu was elected the prime minister in June 1996, the PA exercised full control in all West Bank cities, except Hebron where, Netanyahu’s predecessor, Shimon Peres, the Labour leader, had unilaterally deferred Israeli withdrawal.

Following the renegotiated deal with Arafat in January 1997, what Netanyahu offered the Palestinians in terms of Israeli troop redeployment was miserly. It covered only nine percent of the occupied West bank, containing merely 50 villages and 20,000 people; and the bulk of it – seven percent – pertaining to the B Area where the PA already enjoys joint control.

So what Netanyahu agreed to cede to the PA was a mere two percent of the C Area which it controls exclusively. . The Palestinians, who had been expecting Israeli military withdrawal from 30 percent of the West Bank, saw the meagre Israeli offer as an ominous sign that Israel would deny them enough land for a viable state, their ultimate aim.

What is remarkable is that, more than one year on and despite U.S. pressure, Netanyahu has refused to budge an inch.

The chief American mediator, Dennis Ross, and Martin Indyk, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs and former US ambassador to Israel, have come up with a plan which requires the Jewish state to withdraw from 13 percent of the West Bank. This plan is believed to be acceptable to Arafat as well as Mubarak.

During his meeting with Netanyahu, the Egyptian president advised Netanyahu to respond positively to the US initiative which, in his view, was the minimum of what was necessary to revive the peace process. But the Israeli leader was obdurate. He maintained that Israel’s security needs precluded more than nine percent of the remaining West Bank land being handed to the PLO at this stage.

“We have a letter signed by US Secretary of State Warren Christopher (Albright’s predecessor) that Israel, and Israel alone, will make the determinates of redeployment (in the West Bank) based on its security needs,” Netanyahu said. “It cannot be that Israel is expected to do things which will sacrifice and endanger its security.”

Well aware of the written assurance given by Christopher, Shimon Peres, the main Israeli architect of the 1993 Oslo I Accord, has argued that it was crucial to consult the Palestinians on the troop redeployment since confidence building measures are a vital part of the peace process.

In contrast, Netanyahu has never been a believer in confidence building steps. As the opposition leader in 1993, he condemned the Oslo I Accord and, being an over-ambitious politician, once he secured high office he has been keen to consolidate his position.

During the year-long stalemate in the peace process, Netanyahu has improved his standing among his supporters by weathering a series of crises.

A year ago it appeared that the Roni Bar On scandal would lead to Netanyahu’s judicial indictment and political downfall. The scandal revolved around the accusation that he had appointed a poorly qualified lawyer, Roni Bar On, as the attorney-general on the understanding that the latter would drop corruption charges against a leading political ally of Netanyahu.

Shortly after Netanyahu’s first year in office in June 1997, his finance minister resigned with much damaging recriminations. Disputes over the budget allocations and proposed legislation to authorise only orthodox rabbis to carry out conversions to Judaism caused a noisy and damaging division in the cabinet. But Netanyahu managed to survive.

Finally in January, foreign minister David Levy resigned, withdrawing the backing of his five-member Gesher group to the Netanyahu government and reducing its backing to 61 in a house of 120 members.

Netanyahu, however, remains unconcerned. He knows that when it comes to a crunch, the two-member ultra-right Moledet group, which want to expel all Palestinian Arabs to Jordan, which is currently not part of his government, would back him.

Little wonder then, after his trip to Cairo, Netanyahu asked “If I don’t capitulate to these demands (by the US), will I be branded an obstacle to peace?

“Of course they will all point the finger (at me). So what? I will do what I think is important to achieve a secure peace, a just peace – for Israel.”

Such bravura goes down well with Netanyahu’s followers in Israel but, if he refuses to be flexible in London, then the peace process will end formally – with dire consequences for the region.