Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 1998, Page 68

Diplomatic Doings

ADMINISTRATION ISRAELISTS DEFEND POLICIES IN WASHINGTON DEBATES WITH ARAB AMBASSADORS

Three Arab envoys got in the most telling shots in a half-day Nov. 12 conference jointly sponsored by the Washington, DC quarterly Middle East Insight and the College of William and Mary which pitted them against one Israeli ambassador and the State Department's top three Israelists. The conference, entitled "America and the Middle East Peace Process: Interests, Responsibilities, and Limitations," was held in the Madison Hotel in Washington, DC and consisted of two panel discussions on Israel and Palestine and on Israel, Lebanon and Syria, and a speech by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Martin Indyk concentrating on the U.S. dispute with Iraq.

The first panel included Director Hasan Abdel Rahman of the Palestine Information Office in Washington, DC, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Dore Gold, and Aaron David Miller of the U.S. State Department. Gold spoke first, blasting the Palestinian Authority for not fulfilling its mandate to provide security. He further pilloried the Palestinians for taking their grievances against Israel to the United Nations. Said Gold, "The place to settle is at the negotiating table, not to export differences to the U.N."

PA representative Abdel Rahman lost little time refuting Gold's charges. "Israel," he said, "is behaving like a child who kills his parents and asks for mercy because he is an orphan...Nowhere did AmbassadorGold say anything about Israeli responsibility," Abdel Rahman continued, hammering away at Israel's actions to prejudge the final status negotiations, such as building the Har Homa settlement on Jabal Abu Ghneim and the holding of 2,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons without charges.

The Palestinian envoy also pointed out that, contrary to Gold's assertions, U.S. security officials have certified that the PA has exerted 100 percent efforts to fight terrorism.

Miller, a Hebrew-speaking former student in Israel, listed reasons why, in his opinion, the U.S. should remain as the main facilitator in Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. He cited U.S. "success" in the past 20 to 30 years and said the U.S. enjoys the most influence with all parties. "The U.S. cannot, must not, will not abdicate" its current role, Miller declared. He added that the U.S. must continue to fine-tune its diplomacy to defuse and insulate crises, while continuing to aid both sides to create common ground, and build a stable framework and a sustainable mechanism for continued negotiations until the core issues are resolved.

Lacking an official Israeli representative, the panel entitled, "The U.S., Syrian, Lebanon and Peace," was less heated. U.S. Ambassador Dennis Ross, also a State Department Israelist, listed points that guide the U.S. peace effort in the Middle East and why it is a priority. In essence, according to Ross, the area comprising Syria, Lebanon, and Israel is a crossroads because problems there affect the entire Middle East.

He characterized the Israeli-Syrian negotiations—which started at the Wye plantation in Maryland in 1993 and ended in 1996, when Israel's present Likud government came to power—as resting on five pillars: withdrawal from occupied land, the content of the peace agreement, security arrangements, water issues, and the time period for implementation. Although Ross asserted that headway was made on those key issues, no agreement was reached.

Today the two parties are deadlocked. The Syrians insist on picking up where the negotiations with Israel's previous Labor government left off. The Israelis, now led by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, insist that informal agreements reached between Syria and the Labor government are not acceptable as a starting point.

Ross barely touched on relations between Israel and Lebanon, pointing out that a political solution is critical to ending the impasse over south Lebanon. He concluded by declaring that "The U.S. objective is peace, and it seeks to make it wherever it is possible to do so."

Lebanese Ambassador to the U.S. Mohammed Chatah offered a Lebanese perspective on the Ross speech. Despite the region's seemingly unanimous wish for peace, he pointed out, 10 percent of Lebanon is occupied by the Israeli military. He said that his country's resistance, led by the Shi'i Hezbollah militia, enjoys broad support that cuts across sectarian, social and economic boundaries. Lebanon will, according to Chatah, "continue to resist until it achieves its goal of vacating Israel and its proxy militias from southern Lebanon."

Criticizing the "moderate" U.S. approach to peace between Israel and Lebanon, Ambassador Chatah said: "The U.S. policy is based on the premise that it takes the middle ground. But now the fact is that Israel has shifted, and so the middle ground is completely different." He called on Israel to accept the principle that southern Lebanon and the Golan are Lebanese and Syrian territory, respectively. He explained that until Israel respects this, Lebanon has no choice but to resist the occupation. "Israel has a choice, but continues to make the wrong choice," concluded Chatah.

Syrian Ambassador to the U.S. Walid Al Moalem spoke next. In a deliberate, scholarly tone he expressed his skepticism over the goals and fate of the peace process. "What peace process is President Clinton talking about now?" he asked. "The same one as Madrid? The same one as U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242, 338 and 425? Or are we speaking about the uninventive 'peace-for-peace,' or rather 'peace for pieces'?"

Ambassador Moalem's views on the negotiations between Syria and Israel were equally blunt. Touching on Netanyahu's assertion that Israel's Likud government will not recognize progress made with the previous Labor government, Moalem questioned what he called "the Israeli illusion that Syria will return to square one." Nevertheless, he declared that if Israel is serious about negotiations, an agreement can be achieved on peace between Israel and Syria and Israel and Lebanon.

Newly appointed U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Indyk was warmly introduced by executive director and editor Jonathan Kessler of Middle East Insight magazine, which is on the recommended reading list published by Near East Report, the biweekly newsletter of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Israel's Washington, DC lobby. Kessler outlined Indyk's long experience in government and Middle East affairs, including founding the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and recounted Indyk's unique experience of being in the Middle East during the 1973 October War.

Kessler did not mention Indyk's service as an executive of AIPAC, whose board members and their relatives funded the Washington Institute, or that Indyk was in fact a student in Israel at the time of the 1973 war and volunteered for Israeli civil defense work there.

Indyk provided the conclusion for the conference in a speech entitled, "The Gulf, U.S. Policy, and Peace." Having just returned from three weeks of get-acquainted calls throughout the Arab world, in which he attempted to shore up Arab support for the Middle East-North Africa Economic Conference in Doha, Qatar, designed to bring Israeli and Arab businessmen together, Indyk launched into an explication of U.S. policy in the Gulf. He described his shuttle through the Middle East as a mission to improve the political dialogue and promote peace, security and prosperity in a region so vital to U.S. interests.

The stalled peace process, Indyk said, makes it more difficult to rally against those who threaten peace. First on his list was Iraqi President Saddam Hussain, whom he lambasted for trying to link Iraq's desperate situation to the Palestinian cause, and for Iraq's refusal to heed U.N. Security Council resolutions. Indyk called for strengthening U.N. sanctions against Iraq in order to obtain a "comprehensive, lasting, and secure peace" in the region.

While noting that the U.S. seeks a peaceful resolution to its disputes with Iraq, Indyk would not rule out the use of force, especially if Iraq did not withdraw its threat to shoot down American U-2 spy planes working for the U.N. Security Council.

The sanctions are not an attempt to hurt the people of Iraq, Indyk argued. He said the U.N. has never precluded the shipment of food and medicines to Iraq, and has even passed two resolutions in support of "oil-for-food." Saddam's intransigence and diversion of resources to build weapons and palaces has been the main cause of the Iraqi people's hardships, Indyk maintained, reiterating that until Iraq complies, the U.N. Security Council resolutions must be enforced.

On the subject of Iran, Indyk expressed the Clinton administration's "wait-and-see" policy for improving relations with the Islamic republic. Referring to Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi's travels to Arab countries of the Gulf as a "charm tour," Indyk stressed the necessity for U.S. military forces to remain in the Gulf. He said that what is required for a warming in U.S.-Iranian relations is not a change of government but cessation of Iran's missile programs, arms build-up, support of terror, opposition to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and its efforts to undermine friendly governments in the region. Nonetheless, Indyk praised the Iranian people's mandate for change in electing Mohammed Khatami. "If we see changes," said Indyk, "we welcome them and will respond accordingly."

Indyk characterized attendance at the Doha conference as a sign of the participating countries' commitment to the peace process. He stressed the administration's desire to get the peace process moving again, and expressed its concern that the stalemate is beginning to affect U.S. interests. In conclusion, Indyk expressed the U.S. commitment to "being pro-active in pursuing an energetic, creative, and interactive strategy to make the Middle East a more peaceful, secure, and more prosperous region."

—John Vandenberg