The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process: A River Runs Backward Through It

By Eugene Bird

From Wye River to Jerusalem and Gaza, to Iraq, on the road to impeachment and trial of William Jefferson Clinton, his administration must be given credit for trying to bring U.S. policy in the Israel-Arab dispute into conformity with some kind of reality. Yet, despite all the presidential hands-on activity, Wye River is running backward.

That the president did not succeed, except at the margins, can be blamed on Iraqi President Saddam Hussain, on Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and on Clinton’s own libido.

Result: Six-Month Delay

The immediate result of the trip to Jerusalem-Gaza was a six-month delay in the peace process as the Israeli prime minister set new elections for May 17, two weeks after the deadline for final status and the declaration of a Palestinian state. It will be a tense and even dangerous moment for the U.S. in the Middle East, to say nothing of the danger to the Palestinians and Israel.

“If Netanyahu is re-elected, I do not know if I want to live,” Michal Shohat, an Israeli Knesset candidate on the ticket of the dovish Meretz party told audiences in New York and Washington, where she was speaking with a Christian and a Muslim Palestinian, in a program called “Three Women from Jerusalem.” “The peace process will be dead,” she added, “and my children serving in the Israeli army will have little to hope for.”

A rhetorical exaggeration? Well, Geoffrey Aronson, editor of Settlement Watch, published by the Foundation for Middle East Peace, said in January that Netanyahu’s re-election might not be that bad. His government had leaked three different “Final Status” maps showing it was serious about withdrawing, even though it might be giving up less than 50 percent of the West Bank.

No Difference? Hardly

Does that miss the point that Likud has failed to carry out any of its major agreements with the Palestinians and essentially has made the “river run backward” ever since it came to office in 1996? Under Netanyahu the Israeli government intends to 1) delay the handing over of land as long as possible and 2) expand building on Arab land as quickly as possible.

The Clinton administration defends its renewed policy of non-involvement by repeating the mantra that peace is irreversible and that the Palestinian people can only gain from continuing negotiations.

No $10 Billion Leverage

When President George Bush faced a similar situation in 1992, he had a real issue, the $10 billion loan guarantee, to use as leverage on the Israeli electorate. The Clinton administration has only the issue of Jonathan Pollard to bring a government to power in Israel that will at least pay lip service to a new Middle East and give land for peace.

The Israeli peace parties agree that the disappearance of Clinton from the scene, if it should occur, would be helpful to Netanyahu’s re-election. And if Clinton stays, the halting steps he took at Gaza to recognize the Palestinian nation would aid the peace process.

Hands-Off Agreement?

The sudden presidential hands-on involvement in the peace process led to an agreement that clearly will not be implemented and to a use of force, once again, against an impoverished but still standing Iraqi regime.

The American lurch from positive involvement on behalf of the Palestinians, taking the charter issue and the airport issue off the table, was almost immediately followed by a negative statement that was interpreted to mean that the U.S. would stand aside during final status talks on Jerusalem and final borders, and on refugees and water.

Denial of Non-Involvement

Then that American non-involvement was denied by the Department of State and a call was made for yet another peace team meeting in Washington, which the Israelis denied advance knowledge of but reluctantly agreed to attend.

Ambassador Dennis Ross and his American peace team have the task of keeping the lid on during the run-up to the Israeli elections. Will they succeed in preventing violence by promising the Palestinians they will get Wye River implemented?

Reward for Non-Compliance!

Meanwhile, the administration continues to pursue giving $1.2 billion to Israel immediately as a reward for signing an agreement its government clearly does not intend to keep. And aid to the Palestinians, set at somewhere between $500 million and $700 million but spread over five years (meaning $100 million to $140 million annually), making it worth about one-tenth what is being given Israel, is being blocked by House International Relations Committee Chairman Benjamin Gilman, a hard-line Likud supporter who, as a Republican, voted for impeachment.

State of the Union

In his Jan. 19 State of the Union address the president noted that some members of Congress had been with him in Gaza when the Palestine Legislative Council modified the Palestinian National Charter to eliminate any references to ending the existence of Israel, and Clinton appealed to the Congress for resources to implement the Wye Agreement.

Token Withdrawal Before Elections

It will be easy for the Israeli prime minister in the latter part of his campaign suddenly to agree that the Palestinians have implemented their part of the agreement and in the final days of the election campaign to appeal to the middle-of-the-road Israeli voters so critical to his success. That appears to be the most likely strategy, soothing the bad relations with the administration while giving up nothing. Netanyahu has always come up short on implementing any agreement, quibbling over every yard of territory.

This strategy matches the feelings of a major sector of the Israeli public, who intrinsically will not trust any Palestinian and who value leadership that argues as arrogantly as possible the case for retaining as much as possible.

Swing Voter Climate of Doubt

In this climate of doubt about the benefits of peace, a passive American role simply encourages the center swing voters to vote conservatively and not with visionaries of a New Middle East supporting the Shimon Peres program.

It is entirely possible that the Congress of the United States will vote substantial new aid for Netanyahu’s government the instant he agrees (again) to carry out the Wye agreement, and at the same time attempt to discipline the Palestine Authority if it dares to proclaim a Palestinian state on May 4.

Clinton Hands Off Elections?

Will President Clinton attempt to influence the Israeli elections by meeting with the opposition and by tilting in the direction of Labor as he did in 1996? It does not seem likely, but a lot depends on whether Netanyahu’s election team persuades him to make some cosmetic withdrawals that will allow him to claim the Clinton-brokered Wye agreement is being implemented.

It is an ideal situation for an Israeli election aimed at delaying the withdrawal from the territories and a deep freeze on the peace process. Everything now depends on a small group of swing voters in Israel who, on May 17, will sway either in the direction of the Likud party and Netanyahu or in the direction of an ill-defined center-leaning Labor party.

Withdrawal Dead for Now?

Will the solemnly negotiated Wye River agreement ever be implemented? The Clinton administration has done everything except threaten cutting aid to Israel to get the Netanyahu coalition government to go ahead with the 13 percent solution agreed to at Wye River for the second withdrawal. (Unfortunately, threatening such a cut is probably the only way to effect either a shift of Israeli voters away from Likud, as happened in 1992, or a further Israeli withdrawal.)

Instead of withdrawal, all the evidence is that the Netanyahu government will continue to confront William Jefferson Clinton and his weakened administration, give no concessions, and instead build more settlements including one in sensitive East Jerusalem, and use the time between now and May 17 to provoke the Palestinians as well as the Lebanese. The Likud would seem to welcome a new round of violence with the Arabs, in order to win the election.

Powerless Peace Team

The American peace team has totally lost its credibility, starting with the president’s actions in Iraq ordered immediately after his love-feast with the Palestinian Authority in mid-December. After spending fewer than 12 hours in Palestinian-controlled territory and making a clear reference to the right of the Palestinian people to determine their own fate, i.e., have a state, Clinton told Prime Minister Netanyahu privately, as he departed, that he intended to strike Iraq at the end of that week. A sort of pre-Christmas, pre-Ramadan present to the Arabs.

Within days of Clinton’s return to Washington, the prime minister of Israel had called for new elections, reneged on his withdrawal commitment, and therefore ended the Wye River agreement, just as he had ended the earlier Israeli commitment to the Oslo accords, also signed (twice) at the White House in Clinton’s presence.

The Fate of a People

“It is terrible,” said Palestinian democracy activist Fatin Muhawi, “that our whole fate and future rest on a few thousand Israeli voters. It is intolerable, really.”

Bibi Netanyahu has strongly criticized a predecessor Israeli Labor Party government for not taking advantage of an international crisis, China’s crack-down on students in Tienanman Square, to carry out the deportation, that is, “transfer” in Israeli political jargon, of every single Palestinian on the West Bank. The use of American crises by the Israeli prime minister is certainly what is happening now.

Without Pressure, No Peace

If we did not have a domestic political crisis in the United States, and if we did not have another (genuine?) crisis in Baghdad, the pressure on Israel to go forward with the Wye River withdrawals would be much harsher and possibly more effective. The Baghdad crisis appears to have been created in part by Saddam Hussain seeking to exploit the U.S. domestic crisis, and the president deciding to ignore advice from virtually all other U.S. allies and listen only to Israel. The mid-December bombing of Iraq appears to result from both the president’s domestic situation and the advice of Israel’s hawkish prime minister.

So the river of the peace process will continue to run backward until two situations are cleared up: Whether the American administration recovers its balance and uses its financial leverage to force Israel to adopt realistic initiatives leading to a sharing of Palestine and of Jerusalem. And whether the present opportunistic prime minister of Israel is re-elected.

Israel’s initial election date is May 17, with a June 4 runoff likely if neither the Labor Party nor the Likud Party candidate for prime minister wins a clear majority in the first round.

That means a long hot summer of building a coalition government lies ahead, regardless of who wins. It entails another delay, more settlements, more house demolitions and almost certainly much more violence.

Eugene Bird, a retired foreign service officer, is president of the Council for the National Interest and diplomatic correspondent for the Washington Report.