Silent in Gaza: The European Factor in Israeli-Palestinian Peace

By Robert K. Olson

Yasser Arafat's conversion on the road to Stockholm last year shows that there is more to the Middle East peace process than superpower intervention. It also reminds us that Europe and Europeans are as involved and quite as effective as Americans—more so in this case.

The trouble is that the US has dominated the peace process for so long and so completely that Europe's role and influence are either unknown, ignored, or worse, dismissed as irrelevant. Who has heard or read anything about Europe's role in the past year's portentous developments launching Arafat's turnabout, the beginning of US-PLO talks, the Shamir and Mubarak plans, and a seemingly benign Soviet diplomatic campaign.

Although the reasons for American indifference, or even official hostility, to the European role are never mentioned openly, they have become part of the diplomatic folklore.

There has not been much on the subject from The New York Times or The Washington Post, nor from the networks or news magazines. A review of official statements by Secretary of State Baker and his predecessor, George Shultz, over the past five years, or by Assistant Secretaries William Kelly and Richard Murphy, reveals no reference, direct or even oblique, to the European role, nor interest in the Middle East peace process.

This is nothing new, as any European can testify. Nor is it because Europe has been silent or even up to its old deference to the US on Middle East matters. Au contraire. It is simply because when Europe speaks, no one in North America listens.

Although the reasons for American indifference, or even official hostility, to the European role are never mentioned openly, they have become part of the diplomatic folklore pervading this almost ancient issue. Top of the list is American unilateralism, the conviction that if Middle East policy wasn't made in Washington, it doesn't exist. As one European diplomat put it to the author, it's the only way the US knows how to operate. US diplomacy has, at least since 1956, assumed a proprietary air and resents European "meddling" or interference in whatever "delicate" negotiations are ongoing.

There is also the pervasive belief, aired by both Europeans and Americans, that the US is the only power that can "deliver" the Israelis, or that has sufficient influence in both camps. And there has been from the Europeans universal and automatic deference to the US—mixed with varying degrees of resentment—as the paramount military and political power in the Middle East. All of which surfaces in Washington as a magisterial authority on Middle East issues not lightly to be impaired.

This is unfortunate, for Europe is as profoundly concerned as the US. It has also been as actively involved during the 1980s as has the US, and in some ways even more so. Diplomatic historians may well determine that Europe has been the eminence grise all along, moving the peace process slowly ahead. And, in the future, the decisive outside influence on the peace process may well be not the US, but Europe.

Europe's Stake in Mideast Peace

The European stake in the Middle East in general and in Arab-Israeli peace in particular is measurably greater than that of the US. Violence in the eastern Mediterranean is not 5,600 miles away but next door, as close to Europe as is Nicaragua or Panama to the US. Europe has been the principal locale for Middle Eastern terrorism. Muslim populations are invading Europe as relentlessly as are Latin Americans the US.

During 1988, 44 percent of Western Europe's oil imports came from the Persian Gulf, compared to 23 percent of US imports. European Community trade with Middle East countries during 1987 amounted to $69.3 billion, almost three times the $23.8 billion in US-Middle East trade. The figure would be even higher if non-EC Western European trade were included.

At their 65th ministerial meeting in February 1987, EC ministers put the matter succinctly:

"The member states of the European Community have particularly important political, historical, geographical, economic, religious, cultural and human links with the countries and peoples of the Middle East. They cannot therefore adopt a passive attitude toward a region which is so close to them, nor remain indifferent to the grave problems besetting it.

What, then, has Europe been doing about the peace process? For one thing, PLO representatives have been talking not only with US representatives at Tunis, but also with their counterparts in Paris, Bonn, London and, probably, Athens, Madrid, Rome, Brussels and other European capitals. Ever since French President Mitterand met with Yasser Arafat in 1982, the PLO has sought to influence the United States by influencing European powers and publics. Hence PLO information offices are now being upgraded here and there in European capitals to missions, while the PLO enjoys full diplomatic status in Eastern Europe.

In the future, the decisive outside influence on the peace process may well be not the US, but Europe.

The Venice Declaration, produced by the nine EC member states in June 1980 to express the basic EC position on peace negotiations, was specifically re-endorsed at the Madrid Summit this past summer. It calls for recognition of Israel's right to exist within secure borders on the one hand, and, on the other, recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination. It also states that the nine (now the 12) EC states are "prepared to participate within the framework of a comprehensive settlement, in a system of binding international guarantees including on the ground. " This no longer seems extraordinary, but in 1980 the US (and Israel) thought it was outrageous. So Europe got no thanks for its pains.

The origins and evolution of the Venice Declaration are an important chapter in the diplomatic history of Western influence or lack of same-on the peace process. The Venice initiative failed, however, for the same reasons the Reagan initiative of 1982 failed. It was simply displaced by events, including the crucial pause while the world waited for Israel to withdraw from the Sinai, followed by Sadat's assassination, the Falklands War, and the war in Lebanon.

Furthermore, when he assumed office, French President Mitterand, in a 180-degree turnabout in French policy, simply washed his hands of the whole idea of a European policy independent from that of the US and Camp David. Since the Venice Declaration had largely resulted from French activism within the EC, this effectively put the whole initiative on ice.

Most of the years that followed were distinguished by the absence of further significant initiatives from either Europe or the US, confronted in the Middle East by the Iran-Iraq war, the rising incidence of terrorism and the appalling disintegration of Lebanon.

In 1986, however, the EC inaugurated a trade and aid strategy designed to improve living standards on the West Bank and Gaza. This was essentially a political act to reduce Palestinian economic dependence on Israel, and to emphasize the EC conviction that the West Bank and Gaza constitute separate entities and should not be subject to the Israeli farm monopoly, Agrexco.

Under this scheme, the EC increased its aid to the territories and extended duty-free status to their exports. Israeli opposition was overcome when the European Parliament held up approval of the EC-Israeli trade agreement.

In February 1987, EC foreign ministers led by Belgium's Leo Tindemans gave their full backing to an international peace conference to be held that year. The proposal was welcomed by the Arabs, the PLO, and the Soviets, but not by the US or Israel. Tindemans had to concede defeat by the year's end.

Nevertheless, in February 1988, the foreign ministers meeting in Bonn issued their strongest statement to date, exceeding previous statements by openly condemning Israel in the harshest terms. In doing so, it also broke from the EC's docile acceptance of Washington's dominant role in the process.

Then everything changed at the end of 1988 with Arafat's acceptance of UN Security Council Resolution 242, recognition of Israel's right to exist and renunciation of terrorism, and the resulting US agreement to talk with the PLO. Although, suddenly, everything seemed possible, the US was in a lame duck period and there were fears that the momentum would be lost by default.

The EC Launches Its Own Campaign

So the EC launched a diplomatic campaign of its own. Beyond filling a presumed vacuum while the Bush administration was settling in, the EC wanted to establish Europe more prominently as an actor on the world stage. In the words of one diplomat, "It is a sort of Tarzan-yell for Europe."

The Troika of foreign ministers which actually conducts EC foreign policy on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, representing France, Greece and Spain, set off immediately for talks with all concerned. These included a visit to Israel, a meeting with Yasser Arafat in Madrid, and subsequent visits to Arab capitals.

In Israel, French Foreign Minister Dumas stated that the visit was "prompted by our conviction that a new era is opening in the Middle East."

A month later, reporting on the Troika travels, Dumas stated that "all the capitals we visited, especially the Arab ones, stressed the importance of the part Europe can play in the Middle East conflict." He said the Troika (in which, since mid-1989, Ireland has replaced Greece) should now initiate discussions with the US and the USSR because Europe is switching from making declarations in Brussels to an active diplomacy in the field.

Since those events in late 1988 and early 1989, however, the EC has done almost nothing. Insiders said the Middle East was barely touched upon during Mitterand's visit to Washington in May 1989. Secretary Baker's active American role temporarily took the wind out of the European sails, touching off old fears that with delicate negotiations underway between Israel and Egypt, it was no time to be rocking the boat.

Nevertheless, the new European attitude undoubtedly will surface the moment the current US initiative seems to have run its course. Last March, British State Secretary William Waldemar visited Israel and expressed that attitude clearly. Western Europe, he said, is the economic superpower of the region. "In a world where the polarity of military power between America and Russia is becoming in many ways less important than the pluralism of economic power, he explained, "the world from Maghreb to Iraq will inevitably ... find its economic magnet in Western Europe."

Waldemar's statement raises the question of why, in a region adjacent to and economically dominated by Europe, the US is still the dominant political and military power. The premises that the US is the only major power with influence on both sides (meaning with the Israelis), and that the US can stare down the Soviets, both are vulnerable to any number of questions. Has the US really demonstrated "leverage" with Israel? What exactly is the US "standing" in the Arab world? If the Cold War is winding down, is the US needed to offset the Soviets in the Middle East? And what is the significance of burden sharing, especially in the Gulf?

European initiatives have little military significance. The EC has no divisions, fleets, nor the power or will, to mount a major military operation in the region. As Mideast states continue to arm at an alarming rate with potentially destabilizing weapons, a powerful US commitment is practically guaranteed for the foreseeable future.

A European contribution to real peace can best occur through the introduction of new thinking to break out of the present political military impasse. The current candidate is the idea of an Eastern Mediterranean Benelux of Israel, Palestine and Jordan—for starters—probably tied to the EC with associative status.

Europe's role, therefore, may emerge not out of political or military power but out of the natural attraction of its economic strength.

This would create an economically viable entity out of three non-viable states, no mean achievement. Pie in the sky until a political settlement is reached. But it is, nevertheless, being discussed in a friendly way not only by Americans and Europeans but by Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians.

This, to return to Waldemar's statement, is the type of thing which Europe has been hinting it is prepared to underwrite. Europe's role, therefore, may emerge not out of political or military power but out of the natural attraction of its economic strength.

Meanwhile the US and Europe must avoid the kinds of rivalries in the Middle East which have thwarted peaceful evolution in the past. Growing European economic strength and authority in the Middle East could either produce conflict or accelerate political accommodation and economic growth, depending upon the extent to which the US takes Europe into account as a full partner. This is less a matter of surmounting differences then of overcoming the indifference which has characterized the past.

Robert K. Olson, a retired US foreign service officer, is studying the role of Europe in the Arab Israeli peace process under a grant from the US Institute of Peace in Washington, DC Opinions, findings, conclusions and recommendations in this report are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the USIP.