MIDEAST: The Ground Shakes, but Little Moves

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Ferry Biedermann

JERUSALEM, Nov 10 2003 (IPS) - Bloodshed and political developments once again marched hand in hand over the past weekend in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Developments on the ground are moving rapidly at a time when there may be a growing international determination to see the conflict ended.

Acting Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia announced that he has formed a new cabinet, one of the conditions for advancing peace talks. But the much contested control over security forces will remain in the hands of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

As if to underscore the fragile state of any political initiative, at least 12 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in a range of incidents over the weekend. The victims included two boys aged 10 and 14.

The political developments and the violence come against a backdrop of shifting international attitudes.

Qureia is talking to militants to renew a cease-fire. He wants to include the Israeli side as well this time. This could lead to a resumption of the peace process set out in the international ‘roadmap’.

Two contradictory forces, especially in the United States, are influencing this initiative.

On the hand many observers, including recent Palestinian visitors to Washington believe that the administration is ‘disengaging’ from the conflict in the run-up to next year’s presidential election.

On the other hand there are growing signs that the Bush administration is willing to consider two of the main criticisms that have been levelled at the roadmap and its implementation. First, Israeli settlement activity has to stop, and secondly the plan needs a more clearly defined goal.

Israel was stunned last week by public support from U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell for an unofficial peace plan put forward by prominent politicians, academics and intellectuals from both sides. These Geneva accords would have Israel withdraw almost completely from occupied territory in exchange for the Palestinians giving up their demand for return of refugees to Israel.

Powell’s support for the unofficial Geneva accords was seen as a swipe at the lack of movement on the part of the Israeli government, which had vehemently criticised the agreement.

"The U.S. remains committed to the President’s two-state vision and to the roadmap," Powell wrote in a letter to the two main backers of the Geneva accords, former Israeli and Palestinian cabinet ministers Yossi Beilin and Yasser Abed Rabbo.

He added: "But we also believe that projects such as yours are important in helping to sustain an atmosphere of hope in which Israelis and Palestinians can discuss mutually acceptable resolutions to the difficult issues that confront them."

Powell’s support represented the third indication in less than a week that U.S. thinking on the Middle East may be undergoing a change.

Paul Wolfowitz, the Under Secretary of State of Defence and a known hardliner, unexpectedly praised yet another unofficial joint Israeli-Palestinian peace plan similar to the Geneva accords, though less detailed.

That plan was drawn by Palestinian professor Sari Nusseibeh and former Israeli intelligence chief Ami Ayalon. "One of the keys to achieving peace is to somehow mobilise majorities on both sides so the extremists who oppose it can be isolated," said Wolfowitz.

Nusseibeh and Ayalon have started a petition drive to garner support for their plan. So far some 100,000 Israelis and 60,000 Palestinians have signed.

Back in Ramallah after his U.S. trip, Nusseibeh said he was surprised by the interest that officials in the Bush administration had expressed in his and Ayalon’s ideas. He said he found great interest in the proposal "in places such as Congress, the media and some organisations."

As with the intelligence community’s memo, the secret may lie in Wolfowitz’s views on the U.S. position in the region. Wolfowitz referred to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict in a speech at Georgetown University last week as a huge obstacle to U.S. efforts to improve relations with moderate Muslims.

It also became known that the heads of both the U.S. Bureau of Intelligence Research and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have indicated to the Senate Intelligence Committee that pressure on Israel over the construction of settlements could help the U.S. position in Iraq and in West Asia.

The U.S. has always officially opposed Israel’s settlement policy but only once in the early 1990’s did an administration impose some limited penalties over the issue.

Israel is still fuming over a poll among people living in the European Union published last week in which most declared Israel the greatest threat to world peace. Israeli politicians such as former foreign minister Shimon Peres vehemently took the EU to task over this in talks with visiting Europeans over the weekend.

The Eurobarometer poll ordered by the EU executive showed that 57 percent of all Europeans consider Israel the gravest threat to world peace. The U.S., Iran and North Korea followed at 53 percent.

The fact that both Israel and the U.S. sat so high on the list prompted a prominent Israeli spokesman to explain the results in the light of the strong Israeli-U.S. ties.

"Usually we hear that America is hated because of its support for us," says Zalman Shoval, former Israeli ambassador to the United States and now a close advisor to Prime Minister Sharon. "We are singled out partly because of our support for America, which is hated by elements in the Arab world that are against all that it stands for, and by the European radical left."

Shoval does not see a shift in the U.S. approach to the conflict. "Wolfowitz does see that the resolution of the conflict may pave the way for better relations with the Arab world," he says. "But he would never ask Israel to take unilateral steps that would endanger the security of the country."

The Bush administration still holds on to the now stalled roadmap to peace. The international peace plan was launched earlier this year but floundered in the summer as violence from both sides continued, and the Palestinian government of Mahmoud Abbas fell.

Sari Nusseibeh thinks it is important to get international support for what is essentially their grassroots campaign. But despite the positive responses from within the administration, he is not optimistic about U.S. involvement.

"There is a feeling of disengagement that will probably last until after the presidential elections," he says.