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Breakthrough or Band-aid?
By Hermann Frederick Eilts
Ambassador Eilts pursued academic endeavors at Boston Universityfrom1979 to1993 after a distinguished thirty-two-year diplomaticcareer that saw him named successively as U.S. ambassador to SaudiArabia and Egypt. — Ed.
It a hastily convened white house ceremony on October 23, 1998, a new Israeli-Palestinian agreement, dubbedthe “Wye Memorandum” after its locus of negotiation in Maryland,was solemnly signed by Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahuand Palestine Authority (PA) leader Yasir Arafat. President WilliamClinton, who had played a major and impressive role in forgingthe Wye document, signed as witness. A sadly ailing King Husainof Jordan, twice called upon during the Wye talks to intervenewith the two principal protagonists, benevolently looked on. TheWye memorandum was the fourth in a series of implementing documentsof the Oslo I agreement of 1993. The once promising stages ofthe Oslo-envisaged schedule of actions are far behind schedule. In large part, this is due to the Israeli elections of 1996 whichbrought into power in Israel a minority Likud coalition governmentdependent upon extremist right wing minor parties. Apart fromNetanyahu’s own intransigent views, he is dependent upon theserightist elements of the Israeli political spectrum and will remainso.
The self-immolating Hamas bombing in Jerusalem on November 6,1998, at once complicated and eased Netanyahu’s ratification problem. How could Israel, in the face of such Palestinian actions, beexpected to honor obligations to a PA clearly unwilling or unableto enforce security? A fair question which the Palestinian Hamasand Jihad extremists consciously seek to underscore as they pursuetheir ideologically driven quest to “reconquer,” whatever thatmay mean, the Israeli-occupied areas of the West Bank and EastJerusalem. Netanyahu and the generation he represents, Israeliswho are largely sectarian in basic outlook, have little patiencefor traditional holy sites, be they Jewish or, even less so, Muslim. Orthodox Jews, however, represent important constituency concerns;their continued loyalty is necessary to maintain the Likud coalitionin office.
The Wye memorandum comes fives years after the conclusion of OsloI in 1993, negotiated by the Norwegians with patent American skepticism,but then embraced by the Clinton Administration in a much heraldedWhite House ceremony. The Clinton Administration deserved no creditfor the substance of Oslo I but was happy to appropriate it forpublic relations purposes. Ironically, so were the Israelis andthe Palestinians. In the ensuing three years, the Clinton administration’sprimary concern has been process rather than substance. AmbassadorDennis Ross, who unquestionably deserves commendation for hisindefatigable efforts, nevertheless viewed his primary role asa “facilitator” in promoting direct talks between the partiesrather than as a mediator. Past precedent had graphically demonstratedthe inadequacy of limiting American involvement to any such simplego-between role.
Although Ross and his colleagues had reluctantly and gingerlyengaged in limited substantive involvement in the Hebron agreement,mainly in delineating the Shuhadac dividing street line betweenIsraeli and Palestinian parts of that volatile town, the ClintonAdministration still preferred to eschew any partnership rolein the ongoing negotiations. Not until Secretary Albright, inAugust 1998, realistically assessed the deleterious effects ofthe long-stalled peace talks on the overall U. S. position in theMiddle East with respect to desired Arab cooperation against Iraqand Iran, did a more active U. S role finally materialize. An Americanproposal was then belatedly developed on what the U. S. consideredto be a mutually equitable second stage Israeli withdrawal fromWest Bank territory as envisaged in the original Oslo agreement. Not unreasonably, it would be closely racheted to more effectivePA actions against Palestinian terrorists. In thus shifting itsstrategy, the Clinton administration was reverting to the patternof the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations. It had belatedlylearned that the only prospect for any success in Arab-Israelinegotiations, however painful, is direct and substantive U. S. engagement. Process, while important, is no substitute for substance.
With increasing violence in the West Bank and Palestinian terroristactions directed at Israelis in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and elsewhere,coupled with a threat by Arafat to declare an independent Palestinianstate on May 8,1999, the date by which the Oslo I arrangementswere to have been completed, the Clinton administration had perforceto adopt new procedures. It was aware that Netanyahu had warnedthat if the Palestinians did so, Israel would feel free to re-occupyGaza and West Bank areas that had earlier been returned to Palestiniancontrol. The Netanyahu warning must surely have sent a shock tothe Israeli military. Notwithstanding its obvious professionalcompetence, it recalled that the prolonged occupation of predominantlyPalestinian areas was a casualty-prone dead end. If ordered todo so, it would of course comply, but most senior commanders didnot relish the prospect.
From an Israeli point of view, Palestinian terrorism—largely conductedby Islamist fundamentalist groups like Hamas and Jihad—had tobe effectively curbed by the PA. ln theory, that is a fair demand,though it might be noted that the Israeli military, when it stilloccupied Gaza and all of the West Bank, had also been unable toprevent all terrorism. Nor have Israeli police or intelligenceservices been able to prevent Palestinian terrorists from penetratingpresumably tight Israeli security controls. Even more disturbing,but also symbolizing the difficulties of preempting terroristacts, some such Palestinian perpetrators have actually come fromIsraeli controlled parts of the West Bank.
The Labor government’s turnover of control of most of Gaza anda very small part of the West Bank, consistent with Oslo I, transferredto the PA the frustrating task of detecting, ferreting out, andstopping Palestinian terrorism against Israel. Disorganized asit is, it faltered in that endeavor. So long as Arafat still aspired to coopt Hamas to the peace process,he was reluctant to act strongly against Hamas’s youthful militantarm, the Izz al-Din al Qassam brigades. Arafat was slow to learnthe lesson, but after Wye there has been a roundup of Hamas leadersand its ideological chief, the quadriplegic Shaikh Ahmad Yassin,is currently under house arrest.
Arafat was being asked to take steps against Hamas and Jihad followers,who constitute some twenty or more percent of the Palestiniancommunity in Gaza and the West Bank, at a time when the economyof both regions is abysma—a daunting task at best. Doing so risksinciting civil war among Palestinians. Clearly nothing would pleaseNetanyahu and his supporters more than if this were to happenor if, as a result of suppressive Palestinian police actions,Arafat’s PA is further condemned at home and by internationalhuman rights groups. Requisite repression of Palestinian dissidentgroups, in the face of prevailing economic penury and scant hopesfor a meaningful Palestinian territorial state, hardly helps Arafat’salready jaded image at home. For reasons of domestic politics,neither Arafat nor Netanyahu finds it politically palatable tocurb their respective extremists. This is the sad fact of theequation. Yet both the Likud government and the Clinton Administrationview effective suppression of putative Palestinian terrorism againstIsrael as the test of the PA’s ability to rule over any Palestinianentity. In contrast, Israeli extremism is largely ignored.
For Arafat, the issue also has a different dimension. He needs“land for peace” as stipulated in the Oslo I agreement, whichwould ultimately constitute a Palestinian state. In his ailingcondition, he desperately wants some kind of Palestinian statein his lifetime. To be sure, under the previous Labor government. much of Gaza and the seven principal Palestinian cities of theWest Bank (excluding Jerusalem) were ultimately transferred toPA jurisdiction. Paradoxically, these towns, while constitutingonly two percent of West Bank territory, contain about ninety-eightpercent of the two million Palestinian West Bank inhabitants. Netanyahu can thus logically argue that virtually all Palestiniansin Gaza and the West Bank are already under PA jurisdiction, eventhough the exclusively controlled PA land area is Lilliputianin size.
Additionally, some twenty-seven percent of the West Bank is jointlycontrolled at present by Israel and the PA. In Gaza, sixty percentof that desolate land strip, where a million and a half Palestinianslive, is in PA hands while forty percent, where some 3,000 Jewishsettlers live, is under Israeli control. The contrast betweenIsraeli and Palestinian living standards in Gaza is acute.
Aggravating the issue were the Jewish settlements that had beenestablished in the West Bank since 1973 and their status in anypossible Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. The number of Israelisettlers outside Jerusalem, many of American origin, has increasedto about 160,000 from what were less than 70. 000 at the time theCamp David agreements of 1978. Thus, the demographics of the WestBank have materially altered in the past two decades. The Israelisetters in the West Bank are among the most militant of the Israelipopulation and are determined to resist any attempts to returnterritory to the Palestinians.
Other Palestinian demands included the belated opening of theGaza airport, which has been built with European and Arab moneyand whose already-built, rather grand ornamental structures stood,Ozymandius-like but unused, for a year or more in western Gazabecause of disagreement on control procedures; the beginning ofconstruction on a Gaza port; and free transit arrangements forPalestinians between Gaza and Jericho in the West Bank. For Israel,these were useful bargaining chips, though critical security considerationsare also involved. For the Palestinians, these represent sovereigntysymbols, as well as desperately needed economic necessities.
Netanyahu reluctantly agreed to the American proposal that 13. 1percent of the West Bank be transferred to PA jurisdiction, thoughthree percent of this area will be considered a jointly administerednature preserve on which the Palestinians will not be allowedto build. The requisite anti-terrorist plan was developed withCIA participation; its implementation is also to be monitoredby CIA personnel. Only in this way, Netanyahu argued, can therebe any assurance that the PA will not resort to past “revolvingdoor” tactics in incarcerating Palestinian terrorists and shortlythereafter releasing them. Netanyahu also demanded the reductionin size of the various disparate Palestinian security agencies,which have grown like topsy and which are seen as a potentialthreat to Israeli security.
No agreement could be reached at Wye on the third withdrawal stipulatedin the Oslo I agreement. Netanyahu wished this to be fused with “final status” talks. Whenpressed to honor the Oslo commitment, he indicated that no morethan an additional one percent of territory could be returnedin any such third withdrawal. Arafat agreed to reduce his securityforces to no more than 28,000 officers and men and, separately,to try to collect all weapons held by private Palestinians.
An effort on his part to obtain Netanyahu’s agreement to disarmIsraeli settlers failed. Arafat also agreed to the formal removalof the anti-Israeli clauses of the Palestine National Charterthrough a series of steps leading to such revocation by the PalestineNational Council. Of the 3,500 Palestinian prisoners detainedby Israel, Netanyahu agreed to the phased release of about 750. Those “with Israeli blood on their hands” in the Israeli formulation,however, will remain imprisoned.
Many Israelis, including a few Likud followers, have reluctantlycome to recognize that there can be no real peace in the MiddleEast without a Palestinian state. Such a state will have to bedemilitarized, and its economic viability is questionable. Sooneror later the economic union envisaged in the 1947 UN resolutiondividing the former British Palestine mandate still makes thebest long-term sense. Nor is it feasible that any substantialportion of the two and a half million Palestinian refugees nowscattered throughout the world can hope to return to what willat best be a tiny Palestine state. Most will want compensationfor lands that they or their parents lost when they fled in the1948 war. If compensation is to be paid, Israel will assuredlydecline sole responsibility. It will contend, as it has in thepast, that any such Palestinian claims have to be balanced againstlosses sustained by Israelis who fled from North African and MiddleEast countries in the wake of the 1948 war. All parties will expectthe United States to contribute substantially to a compensationfund, which is hardly likely to find much favor with the Congressor the American public. The issue will remain protractedly unresolved
In supplementary letters to the Wye accord, certainly to Arafat’sdiscomfiture, the Clinton administration assured Israel that itwill not substantively intervene in the “final status” talks ortake a position on an independent Palestinian state This augurspoorly for those upcoming crucial talks. The Wye memorandum talksmay have been a heroic short-term effort, but its longer-termeffects are likely to be ephemeral. The most contentious Israeli-Palestinianissues still loom.
The seeming improvement in the Israeli position in the MiddleEast that had developed under Rabin and Peres has been lost byNetanyahu and his Likud government. U. S. efforts to salvage itat the Doha economic summit of December 1997 were a fiasco. Someof these Arab states would like to improve ties with Israel, butdare not do so in the absence of any meaningful progress on theIsraeli-Palestinian peace front. It will take time and a morepositive attitude towards Arabs and Muslims than Netanyahu hasthus far shown to restore that once hopeful trend. (Oct. 1998)