A coming battle over the shape of the Middle East

By Patrick Seale
Special to The Daily Star
Monday, November 22, 200

The fate of the Palestinians - whether or not they are ever to get a state of their own - is likely to be decided by the outcome of a major political battle in the coming months. This is not, and has never been, a purely local conflict involving only Palestinians and Israelis. It is a struggle which, having strained international relations for much of the past century, will only be settled by international agreement. At stake is not only the peace of the Middle East but also the future of the worldwide movement of Islamic militancy and of America's deeply troubled relations with the Arab and Muslim world.

After the long and bloody stalemate of the past four years, U.S. President George W. Bush's re-election for a second term and the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat are widely seen as creating an opportunity for a new departure in Israeli-Palestinian relations. Bush himself has repeated his commitment to the creation of a democratic Palestinian state living side by side and at peace with Israel. He has hinted that he intends to spend some "political capital" to bring it about. But what these words mean in practice is still unclear.

Who are the contestants in the coming battle? On one side are the many forces opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state. They include Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, his Likud party and its various religious allies, and the armed settler movement of which Sharon is the prime architect. These forces enjoy the backing of Washington's pro-Sharon neoconservatives, many in key positions, and of America's evangelical Christian constituency.

In spite of its undoubted power, this camp is today under considerable pressure. Sharon does not want negotiations with the Palestinians, and will do his utmost to avoid them, but he may find it hard to delay or prevent elections for a new Palestinian leadership, due on January 9, on which Bush seems to have set his heart. No doubt Sharon is counting on some act of terrorism or inter-Palestinian violence to get him off the hook.

In the U.S. the neocons are on the defensive, because they are widely blamed for the Iraqi quagmire. Leading neocon officials like Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, his Pentagon colleague Douglas Feith, and Eliott Abrams, director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council, cannot be sure of their political future. The appointment of Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state and of Stephen Hadley as national security adviser has dashed Wolfowitz's hopes of promotion to one or other of these posts.

Feith is under a cloud for fabricating and peddling false intelligence to push the case for war in Iraq. Abrams, in turn, is a highly controversial figure wholly committed to the far-right Israeli cause. Sending him to negotiate with Sharon over settlements is like Sharon negotiating with himself. Keeping such men at their posts would signal that Bush is not serious about wanting real progress on Palestinian statehood.

Ranged against Sharon's right-wing alliance is a new international coalition. It includes the dispersed and weakened forces of the Israeli left; influential "old guard" members of America's foreign policy establishment, like Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft, James Baker, Anthony Zinni and many others, deeply disturbed by Bush's foreign policy; and European leaders, with at their head French President Jacques Chirac.

In his joint press conference 10 days ago with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush said that he hoped to see a Palestinian state emerge within the next four years. The French quickly took him to task. "A Palestinian state cannot wait" until 2009, French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier told the daily Le Figaro. Europe, he said, was ready to help the Palestinians conduct presidential, municipal and legislative elections. All Palestinians should take part, including those of East Jerusalem. Europeans, he added, were "unanimous in telling the United States: this is the moment to write a new page..."

On the same day, Brzezinski, former President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, spelled out in the French daily Le Monde his ideas for a peace settlement, which he wanted the U.S. and Europe to define and promote jointly so as to influence Israeli and Palestinian public opinion. His plan was as follows: no right of return for Palestinian refugees; the incorporation into Israel of settlements along the 1967 line, inhabited by some two-thirds of the settlers, in return for Israeli territorial compensation to the Palestinians elsewhere; Jerusalem as a shared capital; and a demilitarized Palestinian state.

Where do Bush and Blair stand on these issues? They would seem to position themselves somewhere between the two camps. At their Washington press conference both spoke effusively of the need for the Palestinians to embrace "democracy" - but without once mentioning the formidable obstacles Israel has thrown up in their path: the assassination of militants, the collective punishments, the lack of free movement, the hardship and humiliation endured at over 700 checkpoints, the relentlessly expanding settlements, as well as the separation barrier.

Like Iraqis, Palestinians are less concerned with democracy at present than they are with national self-determination. They want to run their own lives, free from Israeli domination and occupation. The debate among Palestinians is essentially about how to free themselves from Israel's yoke: some say only armed struggle will do it; others advocate peaceful negotiations, though well aware that past negotiations yielded little and that Sharon will do everything to avoid them.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad have decided to boycott the elections for the chairman of the Palestinian Authority - which they despise as a product of the abortive Oslo Accords - but they have called for municipal and legislative elections to demonstrate their popular support and win a place in a united leadership. They will not give up "armed struggle" unless they receive assurance of a Palestinian state at the end of the road. They need sight of a "political horizon," something Sharon is determined to deny them.

The key question is this: By putting the onus on the Palestinians to embrace democracy, are Bush and Blair setting them a virtually impossible task and therefore, in effect, giving Sharon a free hand to pursue his "Greater Israel" ambitions? If this is the case, more bloodshed can safely be predicted.

Or, on the contrary, are Bush and Blair setting a trap for Sharon and the Israeli right-wing, forcing them to concede the holding of Palestinian elections, in the expectation these will produce a legitimate Palestinian leadership able to demand and conduct negotiations with Israel, leading to eventual statehood?

In spite of their spiritual and ideological zealotry, Bush and Blair are canny politicians. They are aware that the only way to pacify the Middle East, cool the worldwide Islamic insurgency, and even perhaps leave Iraq with their "honor" intact, is to move toward a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. But this needs careful packaging, so as not to arouse violent protest from Sharon's friends.

Bush says he wants to reach out to Europe, where he plans to visit in the new year. Is Rice a neocon or really a "moderate" in disguise, who will now practice what Powell preached? Only the future will tell.

Patrick Seale, a veteran Middle East analyst, wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR