Pressure for Peace

By Robert G. Hazo

There have been occasions in history when conscience apparently triumphed over self-interest, or when statesmen saw that making compromises in the short run could obviate larger concessions in the long run. Since such instances are rare, however, a good rule of thumb to apply to national conflicts is that "power yields nothing without demand."

It is obvious that pressure from a majority of the Palestine National Council, who are prepared to give Arafat's proposal a chance, as well as from both the Soviets and some major Arab states (especially the oil producing ones), went into preventing rejectionists from blocking the concessions adopted in Algiers in November.

Most Middle East specialists agree that only similar pressure will move any Israeli government to make the minimum concessions acceptable to a majority of the Palestinians: a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with its capital in East Jerusalem. This is true even though a majority of Israelis, and perhaps American Jews as well, are now willing to endorse trading land for peace if Israel's security is guaranteed.

Seven Forms of Pressure

There are, in my opinion, seven forms of leverage that might propel any Israeli government toward such a peace agreement. They are listed in the order of their efficacy, not in the order of their likelihood:

1. A direct confrontation with the Israeli lobby in the US involving the use of economic leverage by an American president to force settlement of the Palestinian as well as the Arab-Israeli conflict. Even if it is viewed as improbable, this form of pressure is by far the most likely to succeed. Though presidents have frequently avoided such showdowns, it remains a fact that no US president has ever lost a direct confrontation with the lobby. Those who dared and won were Dwight Eisenhower, who threatened to remove tax exemptions on bonds and gifts for Israel if it did not withdraw from Sinai in 1956; Jimmy Carter regarding arms sales to the Saudis and Egyptians; Ronald Reagan regarding the Bitburg visit and the AWACS sale to Saudi Arabia; and now, dialogue with the PLO.

Another such battle would touch off massive congressional opposition. However, any president using the bully pulpit to explain directly to the American people why priority must be given to American rather than Israeli interests would win. Even before the profound shifts in American public opinion in 1988, pro-Israeli convictions did not run deeply outside the American Jewish community and followers of certain fundamentalist Christian leaders. A forthright and well-documented presidential appeal to patriotism, showing that American economic and geopolitical interests, as well as America's good name, are in jeopardy because of Israeli expansionism, would succeed.

Use of Economic Pressure

2. Collectively, the Arabs are capable of exerting enormous economic pressure on the US to lever Israel into a settlement. The so-called moderate governments have not exercised this option because they look to the US for security. Offending the US might quickly become the lesser evil, however, if either a secular or Muslim fundamentalist charismatic leader should rally the Arab masses to put pressure on their current governments to change policy or be overthrown. Under such circumstances, Arab leverage would not be exercised via oil, given the current glut, but rather through reduction of the current huge volume of Arab purchases of American goods and services, and removal of Arab government investments in US Treasury notes that help finance the current US deficit.

3. After the Camp David treaty removed Egypt from the military equation, Syria set for itself the goal of strategic parity with Israel. Syria's failure to date to become a credible military threat to Israel is probably because its supplier, the Soviet Union, has held back weaponry in the interest of world detente and because Syria has serious economic problems. There have, however, been sketchy reports that Syria may be developing chemical or biological weapons of its own. There are other reports along these lines concerning Libya. That the Israelis take such reports seriously is confirmed by their effort to let the world know that everyone in Israel is now supplied with a gas mask.

Israel is also building defenses against Syrian (and other Arab) missiles. Europe is a regular supplier of arms to the Arabs and the appearance of Chinese missiles in Saudi Arabia is not without significance. The real obstacle to Arab military parity is the history of Israeli preemption when an Arab country is even suspected of preparing a serious military threat. That was the case when Israeli aircraft attacked an Iraqi nuclear reactor near Baghdad. Given the will to do it, however, such a buildup can be achieved. When achieved, it need never be used to defeat Israel, but only convince Israeli strategists that another war would involve unacceptable losses.

4. Steadily growing public criticism of Israel is formally recorded in polls and readily apparent from observation of call-in shows on radio and TV, and in letters to the editor. Writers for the American Jewish press are deeply concerned with this. The Rev. Jesse Jackson brought criticism of Israel into the open among both blacks and whites, a great many of whom resent the more than $3 billion in taxpayer funds which they feel should be put to use in the US rather than Israel.

In the interim, US opinion about Israel is also likely to change if the average American feels endangered, via a US-USSR confrontation over the Middle East, or deprived as during the oil boycott. There also are highly significant public opinion movements within the American Jewish community such as the potential split between liberal national Jewish organizations and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

5. Thoughtful Israelis already are deeply concerned about Palestinian demographic pressure. There is no widespread interest in annexing the West Bank and Gaza and granting its inhabitants citizenship. Nor is there a majority in Israel willing to allow a Palestinian state. Approaches to the problem include the Peres proposal to grant autonomy to densely-populated Palestinian areas (what the Palestinians call being given the right to collect their own garbage), or deportation of Palestinians from occupied territories, for which there is a substantial precedent from Israel itself in 1948, and very much smaller but significant precedents since them, most recently as a result of the uprising. If an open advocate of "transfer" like Ariel Sharon were to gain power, deportation of a large portion of the two million Arabs living under Israeli rule would be such a draconian measure that external forces, whether from the superpowers or from Arab states that do not want a mass migration of Palestinians into their countries, would surely appear to stop it. Meanwhile the demographic pressure will continue to grow.

6. If the intent of the intifadah is to cause the Israelis trouble and let them know that the Palestinians mean business, even at the risk of life and limb, it has succeeded. Estimated costs of the extra forces mobilized to quell the uprisings as well as of damage to the Israeli economy already exceed $1 billion in one year. Even if the uprisings become less frequent and much of the Palestinian population again becomes dormant, which seems likely without help from the outside, the cost to the Israeli government will remain high because at any moment the uprising can break out again, as spontaneously as it began.

Intifadah's Influence on World Opinion

7. World opinion obviously has been profoundly influenced by Israeli brutality in dealing with the intifadah, and before that by the atrocities committed during the invasion of Lebanon and the siege of Beirut. Already there are not more than a handful of governments that would vote against Palestinian self-determination or a state of their own.

Secretary George Shultz, in his hapless way, increased sympathy for the Palestinian cause when he prevented Yasser Arafat from addressing the United Nations. His efforts led to a final vote of 153 to 2 to transfer the UN General Assembly session on Palestine to Geneva so that the new Palestinian position could be heard. Once heard and initially rejected by Schulz, the pressure from other countries, from his colleagues in government, and likely from the president and president-elect, must have been very strong to force a reluctant Schulz to execute a 24-hour about-face caused, he claims, by small verbal changes.

Almost 60 countries, at this writing, have received with recognition or encouragement the Algiers declaration of a Palestinian state now willing to reconcile with Israel. Low intensity positive world opinion, including that of the Catholic Church, has been in the Palestinians' corner for some time now. If it shifts to high intensity because of some new horror, or begins to affect opinion in the US and Israel, or if it is translated into economic sanctions on Israel, then it may, indeed, improve the chances for real, lasting change.

Abba Eban, surely one of the most reflective of Israeli political figures, described the intifadah as a situation that cannot get better without a major change in the status quo. On the other hand, if the status quo is maintained, sooner or later it will catalyze one or more of the pressure points listed above.

In this sense, if in no other, time is Israel's enemy. So are those misguided American "friends of Israel" who, following Israel's lead, are seeking to dissuade the new administration from taking the first steps essential to getting both Israelis and Palestinians to sit down and negotiate the peace agreement both sides so desperately need.

Robert Hazo is chairman of the Middle East Policy Association. He has lectured extensively on the Middle East both in the US and abroad.

Seven Possible Pressure Points on Israel

Economic leverage applied to the Israelis by the US.
Economic leverage applied to the US by Arab states.
A credible military threat to Israel by some of the Arab states.
A shift of opinion in the US, Israel, or both.
The demographic pressure of the Palestinians living under Israeli rule.
The pressure of rebellion by Palestinians living under Israeli rule.
World opinion backed by boycotts or sanctions.