February/March 1996, Pages 83-84

Waging Peace

Center Hosts Thomas Stauffer

The Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine, a Washington DC-based research organization, hosted former Harvard Professor Thomas Stauffer on Dec. 13 for a briefing entitled "Water and War" in Israel/Palestine. Stauffer, an internationally recognized authority on water and energy issues, discussed contentious water-sharing problems that were not solved during second-stage negotiations mandated by the Oslo accords, and therefore were referred to final-stage negotiations.

He said that nearly 50 percent of Israel's water is taken from areas captured during the 1967 war. Since then, Palestinian residents systematically have been denied equal access to water that, according to international law, belongs to them. Instead, Israel continues to divert water from the West Bank, Gaza and the Sea of Galilee (Lake Kineret) to Jewish settlements in the occupied territories and into Israel itself.

Nearly two-thirds of Israel's enormous water consumption, Stauffer said, is used for Israeli agriculture, and two-thirds of that use is, according to Stauffer, "widely uneconomical" and a "deadweight loss to Israel's economy." He cited a report by Israel's comptroller which said that Israeli agriculture is overly subsidized and water-intensive. The report suggested that Israel would make more money if it abandoned its agriculture altogether, using the money for more profitable ventures. Stauffer maintained that Israel's theft of water from the Palestinians is a pivotal issue in the upcoming Oslo III negotiations, saying, "There will be no peace without water being returned and there is no way that Israelis will do that without being forced."

—Shawn L. Twing

High Election Turnout and PLO Charter Changes Vital to Peace

The Middle East Institute brought together one expert on Israel and another on the Palestinians Jan. 17 to give their assessments of the Arab-Israeli dispute in light of two recent events: the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Palestinian elections. Robert Satloff, executive director of the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and Shibley Telhami, director of the Near Eastern Studies program at Cornell University, said Arab-Israeli peace depends on both Israelis and Palestinians embracing the newly created Palestinian Authority.

A major factor in determining Israeli acceptance of the Authority, Satloff said, is whether the PLO amends its charter to recognize Israel as a legitimate state. Without this recognition, he said, there is little chance that greater autonomy will be granted to the Palestinians. Satloff said the fate of Shimon Peres' election hopes also rests heavily on the Palestinian National Council amending its charter. "This is the one issue that Peres has drawn the line on," Satloff said. "He has made it clear that a change must be made in the charter if things are going to keep moving forward and he will lose many of his ideas for peace without an amendment." Currently, the PLO charter calls for the destruction of Israel.

Peres' lack of credibility on security issues makes the charter amendment even more critical for him, Satloff added. If there are no changes in the charter, the Israeli people will be further convinced that Palestinians don't want peace and Israelis may opt for a more hard-line candidate in the elections this year. "Peres is not 'Mr. Security' as Rabin was called," Satloff said. He added that other Labor candidates are stressing security issues and courting the more conservative vote. "Yossi Beilin, assumed to be in the center of Labor politically, is going to settlements with guarantees that they won't be moved," Satloff said. "With Peres so far left, there has been a large gap in the political center of the Labor Party. In the next few months, we'll see which candidates fall into that spot." Primary elections are scheduled for the Labor Party April 7 and general elections are planned for Oct. 28.

Shibley Telhami was more concerned about how the Palestinians would accept the new government. He said the success of the Palestinian Authority depends on Palestinians in large numbers participating in and respecting it. The first test of this acceptance was the Jan. 20 election. Speaking three days before the vote, Telhami said the election process would not be successful unless a great majority of Palestinians participated. "If fewer than 65 percent of Palestinians vote, it will be considered a failure," Telhami said. "The degree of participation will continue to be a key factor—are they buying into this process or not?" In fact, voter turnout was 90 percent in Gaza and 85 percent in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian election commission.

One aspect of the new government that concerned Telhami was the exclusion of minority and opposition parties from the process. Unlike the Israeli parliamentary system, where even parties with two percent of the vote are represented in the Knesset, only the top vote-getters win seats on the 88-member Palestinian Authority Council. This means that some candidates and parties may have no representation at all on the Council. Telhami said non-representation can be especially dangerous with extremist groups like Hamas who may find violent ways to assert their policies. "If extremists have no voice in the process, they will have no choice but to take violent action," he said.

Even if Hamas had not boycotted the elections, Telhami said, the group had little chance of winning any seats because it is supported by fewer than 20 percent of Palestinians. Appeasing such groups with one or two Council seats may deter violent actions in the future. "They may need to rethink a political structure that keeps extremists out," he said. "They are going to find real problems with that system."

Although Telhami believed the election would be a positive step toward Palestinian autonomy, he said it may make peace negotiations with Israel more difficult. Under the new system, Arafat will be subject to the will of his constituents, who might not approve of the terms for peace. As leader of the PLO, Arafat was virtually free to make decisions for the Palestinians without fear of contradiction. Now, "Arafat will be less compromising [with the Israelis] because he will have more accountability to the people," Telhami said. "The elections will actually make leading more difficult for him."

One issue that Telhami believes hurt Palestinian support for the PA was the assassination by the Israeli Shin Bet secret service of Yahya Ayyash, well known for his use of explosives in attacks against Israelis and a folk hero to many Hamas supporters. Telhami said the killing had "tremendous impact" on Palestinians, who were reminded that their self-rule can be violated by Israel. "If Israel can pursue anyone they want in the territories, then go in and assassinate him, Palestinians are going to see a major weakness in their autonomy," Telhami said.

—Geoff Lumetta