Friday, Feb 23, 2007

Gulf News

The US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appears to be an intelligent, well-intentioned woman who, like a number of her predecessors, would genuinely like to make a personal contribution to the cause of Arab-Israeli peace.

But after no fewer than eight visits to the region, she has failed to advance the peace process by the tiniest of tiny steps. Why?

The reasons are many and complex, of which the most glaringly obvious is that she has been knifed in the back by the hawkish pro-Israeli Eliott Abrams, the White House's main adviser on Middle East affairs, but also that President George W. Bush himself has failed, at a critical moment, to support her.

Rice headed last weekend for Occupied Jerusalem, Ramallah and Amman declaring that she wished to discuss the contours of a future Palestinian state and provide the Palestinians with a "political horizon".

This was widely read to mean that the United States had taken note of the Makkah Accord, concluded between Fatah and Hamas under Saudi auspices earlier in February, and was prepared to give the proposed new Palestinian national unity government a chance.

It seemed that Saudi Arabia's mediation had managed not only to avert a full-blown Palestinian civil war but also to allow the lifting of the crippling international boycott of the Hamas government, which has reduced the Palestinians to abject penury over the past year.

The hope was that the much heralded summit on February 19 between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, which Rice was to chair, would jump-start talks on substantive issues such as borders, refugees and Occupied Jerusalem.

In the event, of course, nothing of that sort happened. The meeting turned into an acrimonious shouting match.

Olmert accused Abbas of "betraying" him by doing a deal with Hamas, a movement Israel wants to destroy not co-opt. Abbas retorted angrily that he had given Olmert no such promise and that his priority was to stop an intra-Palestinian war.

Private assurance

The outcome had in fact been decided before Rice even touched down in Israel. Olmert had phoned Bush on February 16 and had secured a private assurance from him that the Makkah Accord changed nothing and that the US would join Israel in continuing to shun Hamas.

In the Israeli view, Makkah had actually set back the cause of peace by legitimising Hamas!

Olmert was able to crow that the US and Israeli positions were identical. His spokeswoman, Miri Eisin, ruled out any talks on a final peace deal with Abbas if he went ahead with plans to form a new cabinet that included Hamas.

Poor Condoleezza Rice! She evidently lacks all authority in dealing with the Middle East.

She should not waste her time and arouse false hopes by going there, since her boss has embraced the Israeli view that the democratically elected Hamas government is a "terrorist" organisation in league with Iran and Syria - hardly different, in fact, from Al Qaida - and that it must be eliminated from the scene before any progress can be made. The Israeli tail continues to wag the American dog.

Although attempts are being made in Europe and elsewhere to re-launch the peace process, Israel has no intention whatsoever of concluding a peace with the Palestinians which would involve withdrawing to anywhere near the 1967 borders. It will stop at nothing to prevent serious negotiations taking place.

It would take extraordinary courage and personal commitment for a US president to halt Israel's creeping annexation of Palestinian land - because of the overwhelming support for Israel in the Congress, in the American media and in Washington's many right-wing think-tanks; because of major funding by American Jews of both Democratic and Republican election campaigns; and because of the powerful influence of pro-Israeli officials embedded inside the US administration.

Bush, meanwhile, is wholly absorbed by the calamitous war in Iraq, by the Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan, and by his dangerous game of chicken with Iran. This is where the legacy of his presidency will be decided, as well as the future of America's hegemony over the vital oil-rich Gulf.

As his record of neglect of the Arab-Israeli conflict over the past six years has shown, he sees no strategic threat to American interests if it remains unresolved. In his view, Israel can be left to settle the conflict in its own time and on its own terms.

What of the Europeans? Is there any hope that the European Union might step in to fill the vacuum created by Israeli obduracy and American indifference?

Norway is the only European country to say that the Makkah Accord satisfies the three conditions posed by the Quartet for lifting the boycott of a national unity Palestinian government - namely recognition of Israel, renunciation of violence and acceptance of past treaties between the PLO and Israel.

Several other European countries share this view privately but are too timid to say so publicly. Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair has remained silent, although he earlier trumpeted his determination to devote his last months in office to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Grave mistake

The EU has, in fact, failed as spectacularly as Rice. It made the grave mistake of following the Israeli-US lead in isolating the Hamas government and withdrawing budget support.

But, anxious to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe, the EU set up a so-called "Temporary International Mechanism" to channel funds to Palestinian hospitals and clinics, to secure energy supplies and access to water, and to provide social services to the poorest Palestinians.

Far from promoting peace among Palestinians - let alone Israeli-Palestinian negotiations - these EU policies encouraged Fatah to seek to regain power from Hamas by force and have, as a result, driven Hamas into the arms of Iran and Syria.

The EU should follow Norway's example in accepting the Makkah Accord as satisfying the Quartet's three conditions and put its full weight into dragging Israel to the negotiating table.

According to a report this month from the US Institute of Peace, most Israelis are prepared to accept a withdrawal from most of the West Bank that will lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state. But Olmert and his right-wing supporters will not budge unless real international pressure is brought to bear on them.

Israel likes to refer to potential Palestinian militants as "ticking bombs" and does not hesitate to murder them. Israelis should perhaps reflect that the greatest "ticking bomb" of all, which must one day blow up in their faces, is Arab and Muslim outrage at their callous treatment of the Palestinian population under occupation.

Patrick Seale is a commentator and author of several books on Middle East affairs.

Gulf News 2007. All rights reserved.