Lowering our sights

I doubt if any conflict over a disputed territory has generated as many proposals, drafts, plans, accords and agreements as the Arab –Israeli Conflict.

Viewed in historical perspective it appears Jews and Arabs met to forestall a conflict of interests at a time when it was far from clear who they were representing and who could ratify and implement the agreements they reached

It has been argued that peace plans were being discussed more than ninety years before the present intractable "Conflict." Understandings and plans were drawn up long before there was a significant Jewish presence in Palestine (the region known later as Mandatory Palestine) and before the indigenous Arabs in that region realised that they constituted a separate national entity.

The Feisal - Weizmann Agreement signed in January 1919 is no more than an historical footnote. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to overlook the exchange of letters that preceded it and the text of the agreement itself.

"The two main branches of the Semitic family, Arabs and Jews, understand one another, and I hope that as a result of interchange of ideas at the Peace Conference, which will be guided by ideals of self-determination and nationality, each nation will make definite progress towards the realisation of its aspirations."

Feisal bin al-Hussein bin Ali al-Hashemi made this observation in 1919 shortly before the Paris Peace Conference. Feisal had concluded a series of meetings with Chaim Weizmann and was seeking international support to set up a Pan-Arab nation.

Feisal's seemingly pro-Zionist sentiments were expressed in another remark he made about the same time. "The Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement."

However a letter in the British Foreign Office archives, declassified at a later date, reveals that Feisal was "coached."

British diplomat Mark Sykes had written to Feisal about the Jewish people "...this race, despised and weak, is universal and all powerful and cannot be put down." Under such circumstances, the secret British communication contended, Feisal would be well advised to cultivate the Zionist movement as a powerful ally rather than to oppose it. In the event, Weizmann and Feisal established an informal agreement under which Feisal would support dense Jewish settlement in Palestine while the Zionist movement would assist in the development of the vast Arab nation that Feisal hoped to establish.

Another version of the letter has a slightly different preamble - "We know that the Arabs despise, condemn and hate the Jews, but the Jewish race is universal, all-powerful and cannot be put down."

Weizmann first met Feisal in June 1918, during the British advance from the South against the Ottoman Empire in World War I. As leader of an impromptu "Zionist Commission", Weizmann travelled to southern Transjordan for the meeting. The intended purpose was to forge an agreement between Feisal and the Zionist Movement to support an Arab Kingdom and Jewish settlement in Palestine, respectively. The wishes of the Palestinian Arabs were to be ignored, and, indeed, both men seem to have held the Palestinian Arabs in considerable disdain. Weizmann had called them "treacherous", "arrogant", "uneducated", and "greedy" and had complained to the British that the system in Palestine did "not take into account the fact that there is a fundamental qualitative difference between Jew and Arab". After the meeting Weizmann reported that Feisal was "contemptuous of the Palestinian Arabs whom he doesn't even regard as Arabs".

However, a secret British-French agreement concluded earlier left no room for Feisal's pan-Arab ambitions.

After the Paris Conference Feisal returned to Damascus and led a rebellion. against the French. He had himself crowned King of Greater Syria in March 1920. A few weeks later the French deposed him. In an effort to compensate Feisal for his loss the British offered him the Kingdom of Iraq, which he reluctantly accepted.

In July 1933, a few weeks before his death, Feisal went to London where he expressed concern regarding the situation in Palestine. In particular the Arab-Jewish conflict , increased Jewish immigration to Palestine as well as the declining Arab political, social, and economic situation. He asked the British to limit Jewish immigration and land sales, for fear that “otherwise in the near future the Arabs would either be squeezed out of Palestine or reduced to economic and social servitude.”

It seems Feisal's Zionist sympathies were short lived.

The British too had their regrets. In 2002, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw observed "A lot of the problems we have to deal with now, I have to deal with now, are a consequence of our colonial past. The Balfour Declaration and the contradictory assurances which were given to the Palestinians in private at the same time as they were given to the Israelis (Jews) - again, an interesting history for us but not an entirely honourable one."

US special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell's visit this week was intended to kick-start the indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinian Entity. The new round of so-called "proximity talks" was announced soon after Mitchell’s arrival. This new indirect approach hasn’t aroused much enthusiasm. In fact there is scepticism on both sides about the chances of reaching an agreement. Mitchell will shuttle between Israeli and Palestinian leaders for four months hoping to find common ground for an agreement.

Yaakov Katz is the Jerusalem Post’s military correspondent. In addition he reports for Jane’s Defence Weekly. Surveying Israel’s vigilance in the face of multiple threats Katz listed the threats posed by Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran counterbalanced by an unprecedented level of security. Quoting a summary issued by the G.S.S (General Security Service) he said, "2009 marked the quietest year in a decade and the first in which no Palestinian suicide bombing was carried out in an Israeli city."

Israeli calculations in assessing the risk posed by Iran are also calibrated against its difficult relationship with its chief ally: the United States.

Israel is repeatedly chastened, but never disciplined for its failure to make concessions to the Palestinians, particularly with regard to constraints on settlement construction.

Vice President Joseph R. Biden fully expected his visit to Israel this week to be a flag-bedecked state occasion to offset President Barack Obama’s displeasure with the lack of progress in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Addressing the prime minister the vice president spoke of “our absolute, total unvarnished commitment to Israel’s security. Bibi, you heard me say before, progress occurs in the Middle East when everyone knows there is simply no space between the US and Israel. There is no space between the US and Israel when it comes to Israel’s security.”

Maybe so, but a major chink appeared this week in relations between the two nations.

Hours after Joseph Biden's vowed unyielding American support for Israel's security our Interior Ministry announced a plan to build 1,600 new housing units for Jews in East Jerusalem. Vice President Biden condemned the move as “precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now.”

Israel's interior minister, Eli Yishai, who heads the Shas religious party in Netanyahu's coalition government, said the timing of the plan's approval was coincidental. "There was certainly no intention to provoke anyone and certainly not to insult the vice-president of the United States,” Yishai said and added that the announcement should have been made later.

At this juncture I should mention that US administrations and recent Israeli governments have been” at odds” with regard to building in East Jerusalem. Prime Minister Netanyahu has stressed that the building freeze doesn’t apply to East Jerusalem. Since the U.S. has never accepted Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem it claims the freeze should also apply to the eastern part of the city. It must be said that the building of new dwellings in East Jerusalem goes on every day (excluding Saturdays and High Holidays.) I’m sure the Americans know that, however the ill-timed announcement really annoyed Biden. He responded by leaving the prime minister "hanging" for no less than an hour and a half, as the latter, along with his wife Sara, were waiting for him for dinner.

The sole explanation for such tardiness in American diplomatic behaviour is that it was an expression of extreme displeasure.

The Economist commented as follows -” A sheepish-looking Binyamin Netanyahu, let his aides claim implausibly that he had been unaware of the building decision.”

It’s clear Netanyahu didn’t intend to embarrass his distinguished guest.

Maybe our prime minister is simply a schlemiel, an inept bungler

On the other hand It’s inconceivable that Eli Yishai didn’t realise how damaging his announcement would be. Just the same he emerges from the incident as the champion of the intransigent right wing parties, while

Netanyahu is preoccupied with “survival tactics” trying to keep his precarious coalition government together.

Netanyahu probably finds consolation knowing that incidents like the East Jerusalem building project have occurred in the past. Former Secretary of State James Baker III complained that every time he came to Israel a new settlement was built. Baker was exaggerating of course, but he wasn’t far off the mark.

An editorial in al-Quds al-Arabi, an Arabic-language daily published in London that often echoes mainstream Arab opinion, said the agreement proved that rigor mortis has set into the Arab and Muslim worlds. The Palestinians, it seems, must wait for their state for a good while yet.

While hopes for reaching an agreement with the Palestinians are ebbing away, an article that appeared in the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs was thought provoking to say the least. The only path to peace is an Armistice now claims Arab affairs analyst Ehud Yaari. A Hebrew version of the article appeared as a feature article in last Saturday’s weekend edition of Yediot Ahronot. Yaari an astute, long-standing and respected observer of this region has interviewed all the players in the Middle East,. He enjoys the advantage of many contacts, good relations with fellow journalists, politicians and analysts on the “other side”.

Mindful of the present dangerous impasse Yaari believes the best option is to seek a less ambitious agreement. He advocates an accord that transforms the situation on the ground and creates momentum for further negotiations by establishing a Palestinian state within armistice boundaries.

Such an agreement would stop short of actually resolving the final-status issues of Jerusalem, the fate of the Palestinian refugees and permanent boundaries.

He claims “giant steps generally result in deadlock.”

Ehud Yaari explains -“A small sovereign state within the pre-1967 boundaries has never been the fundamental goal of Palestinian nationalism; instead, Palestinian national consciousness has historically focused on avenging the loss of Arab lands.”

The Palestinians too have their own proposals.

One option, proposed by Abdel Mohsin al-Qattan, former chairman of the Palestine National Council, would be to maintain the territorial integrity of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and govern it through a weak, jointly run central government and two strong autonomous governments — without necessarily demarcating geographic borders between them. Another popular solution among Palestinian leaders is a unitary state that, for purely demographic reasons, would eventually be controlled by an Arab majority.

Needless to say, Israelis would never accept either scenario

"Consequently," concludes Yaari "Israel must offer the Palestinians statehood for less than peace before the Palestinians and their leaders abandon the two-state model altogether."

Furthermore "the drive towards Palestinian statehood should be accompanied by firm commitments from Israel and external bodies to pursue final-status talks once the state has been established. Both parties must abandon the old slogan of 'Nothing is agreed upon until everything is agreed upon.' This would allow the negotiators to implement agreements without making them conditional to the resolution of all the other points of contention. Just as the Arab states recognised the armistice lines with Israel in 1949 without resolving other issues, Israel could recognise a Palestinian state without immediately settling other outstanding issues.

A major component of armistice talks should be to deal with the status and rights of the 3.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza and only later to address the issue of the ±6 million Palestinians living in exile."

Yaari predicts that, " Hamas will surely criticise any armistice agreement for not encompassing the entire territory beyond the pre-1967 lines and will keep denying the legitimacy of the current Palestinian Authority leadership. That said, Hamas has been advocating the notion of a long-term hudna, or armistice, for many years, and the organisation is already maintaining a de facto hudna along the borders of the Gaza Strip. It is highly unlikely that Hamas would resort to military attacks against Israel to sabotage an armistice deal, and it is doubtful that it could ever mobilise popular opposition to an interim agreement that speeds the dismantling of Israeli settlements and transfers more land to the Palestinian."

With regard to Israeli support for his armistice concept Yaari says, "Because a large majority of Israelis still support a two-state solution, the Knesset would probably approve any interim agreement reached by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and the P.A. The first step toward reaching such an agreement would be direct negotiations between Israel and the P.A. — with America’s participation — regarding the fate of both the West Bank and Gaza. Instead of concentrating on an ineffective freeze of settlement construction, diplomats should focus on reaching a deal in which those settlements within the new armistice boundaries of a Palestinian state would actually be removed."

Anticipating opposition to his ideas Yaari predicts, "Sceptics of an interim approach will argue that the official position of the P.A. has not changed: It continues to insist on a final-status agreement and rejects the concept of a Palestinian state within provisional boundaries; however, overcoming the P.A.’s long-standing rejection of any provisional agreement with Israel is not an impossible task. The promise of breaking the current stalemate through a process that produces early and tangible results, with the support of Arab states, could encourage the P.A. to reconsider its position. Besides, there are numerous incentives that can — and should — be offered to the P.A., such as guarantees to keep moving toward a final-status settlement, a Security Council Resolution calling on the parties to sign an armistice agreement, a huge aid package for the new Palestinian state and further actions to isolate Hamas."

Elaborating further Yaari states that, "in Israel, too, there is bound to be strong opposition to this approach from right-wing parties and the settler lobby. Settlements at the armistice phase would either be dismantled or stay under the authority of Israeli military commanders (depending on their location in relation to the new armistice boundaries). This would clearly signal to the settlers that their long-term prospects of remaining deep inside the West Bank are slimmer than at any time since the Oslo Accords, and would encourage non-ideological settlers to seek alternative homes within the settlement enclaves slated to become part of Israel proper. A government programme to assist them could go a long way toward reducing the number of settlers residing in Palestinian-majority areas.

If any settlements are dismantled, the Israeli right will likely take to the streets in great numbers, and the Netanyahu government could be toppled by a rebellion within the Likud party; however, it would be considerably easier to confront such opposition over a limited armistice deal than over a final-status agreement requiring the evacuation of most of the settlements. The Israeli government would be able to make a strong case that while it has not reached an “end of conflict, end of claims” agreement, it is moving cautiously toward a two-state solution without conceding Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem, although an interim arrangement in the city is required, too."

“Signing an armistice agreement would be the greatest breakthrough in Arab-Israeli peacemaking since the 1994 peace treaty with Jordan. Instead of allowing such issues as the refugees and the status of Jerusalem to delay the establishment of a Palestinian state, it would constitute a major step toward ending the occupation, fundamentally reconfigure the conflict and make the prospects for a final-status agreement far brighter than ever before.”

So far Ehud Yaari’s armistice now proposal has raised only a ripple of interest. It’s challenging, different and requires time to assimilate.

Have a good weekend

Beni 11^th of March, 2010.