April 1996

Waging Peace

CSIS Holds Middle East Peace Conference

The Washington, DC-based Center for Strategic and International Studies held a Jan. 30 conference on "Building Peace in the Middle East." Speakers at the event, which was moderated by CSIS Middle East Studies co-director Judith Kipper, were Tahseen Basheer, former Egyptian ambassador to Canada who is currently a senior fellow at the U.S. Institute for Peace; Samuel Lewis, former U.S. ambassador to Israel who now works as a counselor at the AIPAC-established Washington Institute for Near East Policy; and Richard Murphy, former U.S. ambassador to Syria and assistant secretary of state for Near East and South Asian affairs, who now is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The speakers focused on the current round of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians and between Israel and Syria, and each offered individual insights into the future of peace in the region. Ambassador Basheer argued for a cautious approach, saying, "I think there is euphoria,euphoria in America and in Israel. With all that euphoria there is dizziness and that dizziness scares me." He added that the peace process is a "process between governments" and not yet one between peoples. According to Ambassador Basheer, before it can become a people-to-people peace, negotiators must successfully address the difficult issues of refugees, compensation, final borders, water and a shared Jerusalem.

Ambassador Lewis also offered words of caution, saying that "what has been achieved leads people to believe that the problems can be solved, but not quickly." One potential obstacle to the full development of peace is terrorism, and "not just Arab terrorism," according to Ambassador Lewis.

Ambassador Murphy discussed the peace process from a regional perspective and included Iran in his analysis. He pointed to Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's April 1995 overtures to Syria that Iran would go along with Syrian attempts to disarm Hezbollah guerrillas as a gesture that Iran can be included in a comprehensive regional peace framework. He added that a better U.S.-Iranian relationship would have a region-wide impact for peace which would include reducing tension in and around the Arabian peninsula.

—Shawn L. Twing

MEPC Hosts Middle East Aid Seminar

The Middle East Policy Council, a Washington, DC organization headed by former Democratic Senator and presidential candidate George McGovern, held a Feb. 27 panel discussion on "U.S. Development Assistance to the Middle East: Critical Perspectives." Speakers for the event were Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-IN), ranking member of the House International Relations Committee, U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Brian Atwood, American Near East Refugee Aid President Peter Gubser, and Sara Roy of Harvard University's Middle East Center.

Rep. Hamilton offered "general impressions from Congress" on foreign aid to Middle Eastern countries, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and U.S. relations with Iran. He described the peace process as "a remarkable accomplishment" but added that it "has serious fragility." Regarding foreign aid to the Middle East, Hamilton said that the U.S. foreign aid budget has been slashed by 40 percent over the last four years, but aid to Egypt and Israel has not been decreased. He said it is likely cuts will occur in the future, and that Egypt and "probably others" should expect an impending decrease in U.S. foreign aid. Hamilton concluded his presentation by saying, "I don't think there is a country in the world that Congress has more animosity toward than Iran."

Brian Atwood of USAID and Sara Roy both discussed U.S. developmental assistance to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Atwood described the positive impact of the U.S. aid program in Palestine, while Roy offered a more critical appraisal. Roy's expertise stems from her 10 years of research in Palestine, primarily in Gaza, which is encapsulated in her recently released book The Gaza Strip: the Political Economy of De-Development. Aside from the numerous statistics she provided which make up the core of her new book, she also pointed out the stark fact that Gaza loses an estimated $3 million per day when Israel closes its borders. She said that life in Gaza is so bad at times that Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails in the Negev desert have been caught smuggling food to visiting relatives.

ANERA President Peter Gubser focused on the role of non-governmental organizations involved in grass-roots development in the Middle East. He said that "NGOs must be integrated into the peace process" to complement the traditional focus on governments and economies.

—Shawn L. Twing

NDI Discusses Palestinian Elections

Members of an international delegation of election monitors from the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs held a Feb. 15 post-election briefing at NDI's headquarters in Washington, DC. Speaking during the event were NDI President Kenneth Wollack, Arab American Institute President James Zogby, Graeme Bannerman, president of Bannerman Associates and former staff director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Omar Kader, a Palestinian-American businessman living in Virginia.

The National Democratic Institute, in conjunction with the Atlanta-based Carter Center, sent 40 delegates from 11 countries to monitor the Jan. 20 Palestinian elections. The joint delegation was co-chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former Prime Minister of Poland Hanna Suchocka. Each of the speakers was a member of the observer team, and each offered diverse commentary of their impressions of the first Palestinian elections. The most touching observation was given by James Zogby, who monitored elections in a rural village near Khan Younis, Gaza. He watched a 12-year-old girl appear and reappear at the same polling station many times and finally asked her why she kept coming back. She explained that she was the only one in her family who could read so she helped each of her family members cast their votes.

The overall impression of the elections given by the speakers was mixed, but the general feeling of the group was expressed by Graeme Bannerman, who said that "there is much good to be said for what happened there."

—Shawn L. Twing

Iranian Opposition Group Protests Assassinations

Some 250 supporters of the National Council of Resistance and the People's Mojahedin of Iran turned out Feb. 24 in the U.S. national capital to protest assassinations of two Mojahedin members in Turkey on Feb. 20. The Washington, DC rally coincided with demonstrations held on the same day in Los Angeles and in a number of European and Middle Eastern cities. Speakers at the rallies accused Iranian government intelligence agents of ordering and assisting the assassinations.

The assassinated activists, Ms. Zahra Rajabi and Abdol Ali Moradi, were gunned down Feb. 20 in a residence in Istanbul. On Feb. 29 the National Council of Resistance charged from its Paris headquarters that an Iranian diplomat based in Turkey and two other agents were involved in the murders and released details of travel documents used by Iranian intelligence to infiltrate agents into Turkey.

Turkish police last November arrested an Islamist wanted for the killing in Turkey of a People's Mojahedin member and of a supporter of the late Shah of Iran. The People's Mojahedin charges Iranian government implication in some 25 political assassinations in Turkey. The list of victims named by the organization includes, in addition to Iranian opponents of or refugees from the Tehran government, Egyptian, Iraqi, Jordanian and Saudi diplomats, an American citizen, Kurdish activists and Turkish journalists, cultural figures, and political opponents of Turkish Islamists.

Perhaps the best known case is that of Mojahedin sympathizer Abol-Hassan Mojtahedzadeh, who survived a kidnapping because, when they heard strange noises, Turkish customs officials insisted on opening the trunk of an automobile bearing Iranian diplomatic license plates waiting to cross the border from Turkey into Iran. Mojtahedzadeh was discovered, bound, gagged but alive, in the trunk.

The Iranian government also has been accused by the resistance groups of assassinations in several cities of Europe. Victims include the brother of People's Mojahedin leader Massoud Rajavi, who was the NCR's representative to the United Nations in Geneva. Dr. Kazem Rajavi was shot to death in Geneva, Switzerland, in April 1990, by gunmen who apparently left Switzerland for Iran immediately after the killing on an Iranian commercial aircraft, departure of which was delayed until they arrived at the airport in a convoy of Iranian diplomatic vehicles.

—Richard H. Curtiss

"Megaterrorism" Examined in Nixon Center Seminar

Laurie Mylroie of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, co-author with Judith Miller of The New York Times of a book on Saddam Hussain's Iraq, reviewed the World Trade Center bombing in New York at a seminar on "Megaterrorism" sponsored by the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom in Washington, DC on Feb. 6. Her conclusion was that the February 1993 bombing was masterminded by an Iraqi intelligence agent.

Other speakers at the seminar, moderated by Geoffrey Kemp of the Nixon Foundation, were Paul Goble of the Potomac Foundation who discussed mass hostage-takings in Chechnya, Michael Moodie of the Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute who examined the Tokyo subway nerve gas attacks, and Michael Vlahos of the Peace and Freedom Foundation who discussed the potential for "cyberterrorism" to undermine the world's electronic information structure.

"If the World Trade Center bombing had worked, it would have killed more Americans in five minutes than were killed in the entire Vietnam War," Mylroie told an audience of some 200 journalists, scholars and government officials. She said the bombers' plan had been to cause one tower of the World Trade Center to crash into the other, causing tens of thousands of deaths.

Mylroie based her attribution of the bombing to Saddam Hussain's Iraq on the role played by Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, accused architect of the bombing, who escaped the U.S. on the day of the attack and later was involved in what were to be simultaneous bombings of several American airliners in the Far East. Subsequently Yousef was arrested in Pakistan on a tip by an Ethiopian confederate seeking the U.S. reward offered for Yousef's capture, and is awaiting trial in New York.

Mylroie cited the fact that Yousef entered the U.S. on an Iraqi passport and fled the U.S. using the passport of a Pakistani national who lived in Kuwait but disappeared, along with his family and his Kuwaiti Ministry of Interior file, during Iraq's occupation of Kuwait in 1990 and 1991. Mylroie criticized the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI for concentrating on the prosecution of suspected individuals rather than on the question of state sponsorship of terrorist acts.

She said both U.S. government agencies have refused to turn over evidence concerning Yousef to the Department of State and the CIA to facilitate an investigation of his links to Iraq. She said that by leaving behind expendable plotters to be prosecuted, governments ensure that their own involvement is never investigated. She concluded her address by calling upon the U.S. government to correct this procedural failing. 

—Richard H. Curtiss

Nixon Center Discusses Hamas Terrorism

The Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom, a Washington, DC policy think tank, held a March 11 symposium on "Hamas Terror: Implications for the Middle East and the United States." Moderating the event was Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), and speakers were Peter Rodman and Geoffrey Kemp.

Rodman, the director of national security programs at the Nixon Center and former deputy assistant to President Reagan for national security affairs, discussed Hamas' political strategy, the March anti-terrorism summit in Sharm el-Sheikh and Iran's alleged role in anti-Israeli terrorism. He argued that "the onus is on the Palestinians" to make it clear who speaks on their behalf, and added jokingly that "As a matter of principle Iran should be punished any time an act of terrorism occurs."

Geoffrey Kemp, the director of regional strategic programs at the Nixon Center and former special assistant to the president for national security affairs during the first Reagan administration, presented his views on the dangers of terrorism, especially the growing threat from terrorists who successfully employ chemical and biological weapons in their attacks. He argued that "There is a global problem of terror on a grand scale," which increasingly is becoming more dangerous as unconventional weapons components are easier to obtain. His suggestion for decreasing terrorist activity was to force Syria to join the peace process, thereby eliminating Iran's support for terrorism in the region.

—Shawn L. Twing

CNI "Pilgrims for Peace" Host State Department Luncheon

Three participants in the Council for the National Interest's 1996 "Pilgrimage for Peace" hosted a luncheon at the State Department on Feb. 2 to discuss their findings on visits to Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank and to Egypt and Jordan. Members of the group, who joined international observers at polling places in Jerusalem and the West Bank during Palestinian elections, returned optimistic about both the successful Palestinian elections and the prospects for Shimon Peres' Labor coalition in the Israeli elections scheduled for May 29.

That was before the four suicide bombings in Jerusalem, Ashkelon and Tel Aviv that erased Peres' lead over Likud leader Benyamin Netanyahu in public opinion polls. At the State Department, the three CNI members, president Eugene Bird, Nancy Qubain and Charles Darby, deplored the casual cruelty exhibited by Israeli soldiers toward Palestinians at the ubiquitous checkpoints everywhere in the West Bank and at the entrances to Jerusalem, the attempts to obstruct Palestinian voting at East Jerusalem post offices on Jan. 20 through intimidation by police and physical violence by Jewish settlers, and the frenzied pace of Israeli building activities both in expanding and thickening Jewish settlements on the West Bank, and in bulldozing a highway network through the occupied territories to link Jewish settlements with Jerusalem and each other and to cut communication and transit between West Bank Palestinian population centers.

The CNI members arrived back in the national capital after a snowstorm that closed schools and many government offices. Nevertheless they proceeded directly from the airport to meetings on Capitol Hill and then to the debriefing luncheon at the State Department.

—Richard H. Curtiss

International Republican Institute Presents Palestinian Poll Results

Dr. Khalil Shiqaqi of the Center for Palestine Research and Studies (CPRS) in Nablus presented the results of the first exit poll conducted in the Arab world during a major election at a press conference at the International Republican Institute on Feb. 26. The exit poll culminated the work of CPRS in tracking Palestinian public opinion through 20 monthly polls starting in early 1994 and continuing right up to election day on Jan. 20.

In fact, Dr. Shiqaqi's appearance marked something of a triumph for his CPRS, which has been sponsored by the International Republican Institute in Washington, using USAID funds. For months his polls have recorded a gradual but steady shift in Palestinian public opinion in the Israeli-occupied and formerly-occupied areas in favor of the peace process, away from support for Hamas and leftist rejectionist parties, and toward support for Yasser Arafat and his Fatah party. Since the results seemed to document such a steady growth in support of the peace process, some media skeptics were inclined to question the methodology that consistently produced such optimistic results.

However, the heavy participation in the elections (despite the fact that they were boycotted by the Hamas party and by leftist rejectionist parties) and the final candidate selections largely bore out and vindicated the results of the CPRS polls.

The election day exit polls, based upon interviews with 2,775 voters at 148 polling stations throughout the West Bank and Gaza, showed that Palestinian voters themselves considered the elections to be fair. They also showed that a majority of voters affiliated with the parties calling for a boycott nevertheless participated. Polls indicated that Palestinian voters generally rejected family ties in casting their votes, and instead voted largely on the basis of the personal characteristics and histories of the candidates. Shiqaqi noted also that women voters did not necessarily vote more heavily for women candidates than did men.

The exit poll also revealed that the Palestinian electorate believes the newly elected Palestinian Council should and will be a significant democratic institution charged with addressing the important issues facing Palestinian society. The survey indicated also that the overwhelming victory for Yasser Arafat should not be taken as an unlimited mandate for the president-elect from the voters. Forty percent of the voters responded that the Council should have more authority than the president and 39 percent said the Council should share equal authority with the president.

Two-thirds of the voters said they considered freedom of the press and human rights to be very important issues and that these guarantees should take precedence, even if this contradicts what the Palestinian Authority may see as national interest. Only 20 percent thought that national interest should take precedence over freedom of the press and human rights.

Roughly equal numbers of voters supported (38 percent) and opposed (37 percent) amending the Palestinian National Charter and 25 percent were undecided. Prioritizing issues they believed should be addressed by the Council, the voters selected completing negotiations with Israel (31 percent), solving economic problems (28 percent), maintaining order and security (22 percent) and achieving democracy (18 percent).

—Richard H. Curtiss