The Peace Process: A Great Step Forward

By Ami Isseroff

To everyone in the countries of the region, it is clear that the peace process may be about to take a great step forward. This is not necessarily good, since we appear to be standing on the brink of a deep abyss.

Palestinian-Israeli talks resumed this week and promptly became bogged down over interim settlement issues that are largely irrelevant to the final status agreement that is supposed to be concluded in just a few months. PNA Chairman Arafat met with U.S. President Clinton and is quoted as saying that Israeli PM Barak does not want peace. Clinton, anxious to conclude a deal during his term of office, told Arafat that he wants to get through the difficult issues now.

Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Albright came to the Middle East to set up a summit meeting. She was apparently rebuffed by the Barak government, which was not in a mood to be pressured after Palestinian riots in which PNA soldiers opened fire on Israeli soldiers. That was last week. This week, Israeli negotiator Ben-Ami told journalists that the time is ripe for a summit now. This is the Middle East. Events and positions are not always amenable to logical explanation.

The "difficult issues" that Clinton wants to solve in a few months are no less difficult than they were in 1993. The framers of the Oslo agreements hoped that the "process" would bring both sides together, changing the atmosphere and making the old problems less difficult. Instead, both sides used the time since 1993 to jocky for points and to reinforce their mutually incompatible positions.

The difficult issues are the status of Jerusalem, the status of the Palestinian refugees, the status of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza strip, and the amount of territory to be ceded to the Palestinians. Both sides agree that Jerusalem is the number one issue. Yasser Arafat has said again and again that he means to have a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem – not in suburbs like Abu – Dis as Israel has offered. In Israel it is clear that any move to divide Jerusalem would bring down the government, and that no agreement that grants Palestinian sovereignty in East Jerusalem could pass the required referendum vote. PM Barak, for his part, has often reiterated that Jerusalem will remain the undivided capital of Israel.

It is clear that on the one hand, Israel will never accept the demands of Palestinian extremists for repatriation of millions of Palestinian Arab refugees in Israel, since this would mean national suicide. On the other hand, it is equally clear that no peace agreement can be viable if it does not solve the refugee problem. Peace is not compatible with having millions of people living in miserable camps. It seems as though both sides have almost deliberately drawn up their positions in such a way as to preclude any possibility of settlement.

Deals have been offered, and deals have been reportedly rejected. Rumors about percentages of land, settlements in Jerusalem and other issues abound, and are used by both sides in a propaganda war. The approximately 70% - 72% (or 66% plus 14% ruled jointly) of the land offered by Israel reportedly, was not enough to be acceptable to Palestinians, but even that may be too much to meet with the approval of the Israeli public.

Which way will we leap? It is anyone's guess. The Israeli government may be derailed, as noted lasted week in this column, for reasons that are not directly related to the peace process. However, that crisis may be near resolution. The government seems about to conclude a deal with the Ultraorthodox Shas party that will be the equivalent, for good government, of what the 1938 Munich agreement was for the self-determination of Czechoslovakia. Shas is slated to  get more millions for their educational network and the legalization of their pirate radio stations. The deal has revolted the Israeli public. A recent poll shows that 57% would prefer a government with the dovish Meretz party over one that includes Shas, and nearly 70% believe that Barak's handling of the coalition crisis has been a failure.

The government sees these concessions as the only way to make it possible to continue the peace negotiations to a successful conclusion. It is likely that Shas, which earlier voted for new elections, will now withdraw their support for the new election law, since their "final demands" have been conceded to them and since polls show they stand to lose about 6 of their 17 seats in the Israeli Knesset if elections were to be held today. However, it is far from certain that Shas, which draws its support from right wing elements, will agree to support any meaningful concessions in the peace process in the future.

One leap we may be making could be dissolution of the Israeli government and its replacement to one that is much more intransigent than the present one. Another leap could be to unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state in September. Either or both of these could leave us all in a dreary twilight of ongoing conflict, or worse, lead to open and armed violence. A different leap could be to a peace settlement that leaves open the "difficult" issues. This would be an uneasy peace in which neither side trusts the other, and with good reason. A peace of this sort might or might not be better or even different from no peace at all.

It is hard to imagine that the issues of Jerusalem and the refugees, stalled for 50 years and increasingly buttressed by dangerous claims of prestige and honor on both sides, will be solved by the magic of a summit meeting or two. It is just possible though, as shown by the reconciliation between North and South Korea that took place this week. Good things do happen sometimes. Just a month ago Israel was carrying on a war in Lebanon, and almost every right-wing Israeli commentator predicted disaster for the towns of northern Israel when Israel withdrew from Lebanon. Commentators on the extreme left were convinced that the Israeli withdrawal was the prelude to a large war to be started by Israel. So far, both sides have been wrong. With luck, a commodity usually lacking in the Middle Eastern politics, the border will remain quiet and people will soon feel that it is natural that it should be so.