April/May 1997, pgs. 57-65

Waging Peace

Scholars Discuss Jerusalem at MEI Conference

“There can be no solution to Jerusalem that leaves everybody with less than they really want,” said New York University professor Arthur Hertzberg. “This will do nothing more than provide sullenness.” For this reason, Hertzberg called for a “political division” of Jerusalem to allow a Palestinian and an Israeli capital.

Speaking at the Middle East Institute’s “Future of Jerusalem” conference Feb. 7 in Washington, DC, Hertzberg and other Middle East scholars speculated on the best solution for the status of the city that is deemed holy by three of the world’s religions. Hertzberg was joined by Rev. Naim Ateek, parish priest at St. George’s Episcopal Cathedral in Jerusalem; Rashid Khalidi, Middle East history professor at the University of Chicago; and Daniel Pipes, editor of Middle East Quarterly and director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Hertzberg said that a division of Jerusalem is the only logical solution to the disputed city because there are already two different peoples living in Jerusalem with two different perceptions of their city. “The real issue is that people live there and those people must be given the opportunity to live their lives as peacefully as possible,” he said. “Dynamiting synagogues and mosques will do nobody any good,” he added, but that is what will happen if either the Palestinian or Israeli side is left dissatisfied with the arrangement.

But Hertzberg added that Jews and Israelis will never give up control of the city and the holy sites out of fear that they will suffer discrimination. He said that during the British Mandate period, Jews were given limited access to holy sites and they were often taunted by Arabs around the Temple Mount area. “Whenever someone else was in control of Jerusalem, Jews were always given a bad deal,” he said. “Jews will never trust anyone else with Jerusalem.”

Naim Ateek agreed that peace should be the main goal of negotiations on Jerusalem but that peace cannot include allowing Israel to control Palestinian access and movement in Jerusalem. “History has created a religious mosaic in Jerusalem,” Ateek said. “Israel is trying to change history and undo that mosaic.” He said that, through building laws and closures, Israel has been changing the face of Jerusalem from a city of three faiths to a city of one faith. “People in my own parish cannot come to church on Sundays because they live in the West Bank and they are not allowed to enter the city,” Ateek said. “Meanwhile right-wing [Jewish] groups are allowed to buy land and build in the Muslim Quarter of the city.

“Israel is trying to reinvent and recreate the glorious past and there is no other way to do this without repression of the Palestinians,” he said. “And this is done with the help of the U.S. government.”

Ateek said, however, that all sides have been intolerant and unjust at certain times in the history of Jerusalem. He said that Christians and Muslims also have restricted Jewish access to holy sites in the past, and these mistakes must be overcome. “We have all done things in Jerusalem that we should be ashamed of,” Ateek said. “None of us can say that one religious claim to the city is the truth.

“Acceptable justice means sharing Jerusalem and sharing its sovereignty,” he added. “There can be no other future if we want peace.”

Daniel Pipes had a much less inclusive vision of Jerusalem and its history, however. To him, Islam has never had a justifiable claim to the city. He questioned whether the Qur’an ever referred to Jerusalem when it tells of the farthest mosque and the place where Muhammed ascended into heaven. Pipes also claimed that historically Jerusalem only became important to Islam when it was politically expedient for Muslim leaders. “Jerusalem has never been a capital for Islam,” he said. “Interest in the city rises and falls to political conditions.”

He said that Muslim interest in the city peaked at certain points in history, for instance during the Crusades when Christians took Jerusalem. Pipes added that the renewed interest in Jerusalem has come only because of Jewish activity there.

Just as Mecca is an entirely Muslim city where no non-Muslims are allowed to enter, Pipes said, Jerusalem “should stay under full Jewish control and serve only as capital of the Jewish state.” He added that he was not arguing for Jerusalem to be closed to other religions and peoples, but “politically there can only be one sovereign power in Jerusalem.”

Rashid Khalidi said that such claims to the city are nothing but a standard way a conqueror tries to justify his conquest. The victors say “our claim is more ancient, more sacred, more important than what others feel,” he said. “The goal is to deligitimize the claims of others while building up your own.

“This serves to obscure a very important fact,” he added, “that all three religions hold the city important.”

Khalidi added during a rebuttal that all Muslims believe that Jerusalem is the site referred to in the Qur’an as the farthest mosque and the place where Muhammed ascended into heaven. He said that denying this merely “turns a disputable fact into a political weapon.” Khalidi also said that Muslim leaders found the issue of Jerusalem effective in political propaganda because the city was so important to them.

He said that such debates over whose religion holds Jerusalem more holy will not lead to a peaceful solution. Arguments over personal beliefs are futile, he said. The only option is to “respect each religious tradition and privilege none of these traditions.”

The main problem with Israeli sovereignty, Khalidi added, is that laws and municipal policies are and will continue to be biased against Palestinians. “Israeli control means the subjugation of 165,000 people,” he said. “There will not be a settlement or peace between Arab nations and Jerusalem” if this happens.

—Geoff Lumetta

Middle East Policy Council Hosts “Challenge in the Gulf” Conference

The Washington, DC-based Middle East Policy Council held a half-day conference March 5 to discuss evolving U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf. Speaking at the event, entitled “The Challenge in the Gulf: Building a Bridge from Containment to Stability,” were director Robert Deutsch of the State Department’s Office of Northern Gulf Affairs, Anthony Cordesman, co-director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC; Herve Magro, First Secretary in the Embassy of France; and William Rugh, former U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and current president of AMIDEAST. The event was moderated by Michael Collins Dunn, a senior analyst at The International Estimate.

Robert Deutsch began the day’s discussion by describing the U.S. government’s position on Iran and Iraq. He concluded his comments by saying that the U.S. “looks forward to the day when Iran and Iraq are partners in a stable Gulf.” Nothing in his remarks suggested, however, that the Clinton administration is planning to alter its “dual containment” policy in the Gulf.

CSIS analyst Anthony Cordesman, borrowing language from the conference title, said that in the near future there won’t be containment, there won’t be any bridges built and there won’t be stability. He went on to describe dire economic, demographic and military pressures that will continue to put considerable pressure on the gulf states in the near future. Referring to the “dual containment policy,” and possibly anticipating what French First Secretary Herve Magro would say shortly afterward, Cordesman remarked that “the only thing worse than a ‘dual containment’ policy with all sticks is ‘critical dialogue’ with all carrots.”

Magro offered insight into French relations with Iran and Iraq, explaining that his country “shares the concerns of our American friends, but does not agree with the American solution.” He added that “if we want to find long-term solutions to problems in the Gulf, let’s not isolate and demonize the two largest countries” in the area.

Ambassador Rugh contrasted America’s “dual containment” policy aimed at Iran and Iraq with the Cold War policy of containing the former Soviet Union. He warned that the two policies are not comparable, and that the successful containment of the Soviets should not be used to justify “dual containment” because the Western world was united behind the former policy, while it remains seriously divided about the latter. He admonished that the United States sometimes “acts as if the Gulf is our neighborhood,” and warned American policymakers to “consult with Gulf leaders more on U.S. policy because it is their neighborhood” and it is they who eventually will be affected most by U.S. policies in the region.

—Shawn L. Twing

David Kay Discusses Iraqi Weapons at MEI

The Middle East Institute in Washington, DC hosted David Kay for a Jan. 27 discussion entitled “Iraq’s Weapons and the United Nations.” Kay currently is a vice-president at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), an international consulting firm headquartered in McLean, VA. He served as chief nuclear inspector in the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) on Iraq, an international investigative body created in the aftermath of the Gulf war to dismantle Iraq’s chemical, biological, missile and nuclear weapons programs.

Dr. Kay divided his talk between three broad topics: international views on Iraq’s unconventional weapons capabilities before its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, information discovered during numerous inspections, and predictions for the future of UNSCOM.

Prior to and during the Gulf war, American estimates of Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons development and stockpiles often were dismissed as propaganda by America’s allies, Kay said. UNSCOM’s later investigations, however, proved these estimates to be conservative. Most international agencies did not know or refused to believe the extent of Iraq’s unconventional weapons programs prior to UNSCOM’s intrusive inspections, which Kay attributed partly to “technological ignorance and cultural arrogance.”

The extent of Iraq’s unconventional weapons development, particularly the information turned over by Iraqi authorities after the June 1995 defection of two high-ranking sons-in-law of President Saddam Hussain, is terrifying, Kay said. In the 1980s alone, Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program required more than $20 billion to finance and produced hundreds of tons of lethal chemical and biological agents, some of which were used against Iran during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. The international community bears a heavy responsibility for Iraq’s unconventional weapons programs, Kay said, because there was no outcry when these weapons were used against Iran.

Kay predicted problems for the future of the U.N. Special Commission, particularly as political support for it steadily wanes and the international embargo against Iraq eventually is lifted or eased. “We probably will never know if the biological/chemical weapons were ever destroyed as the Iraqis claimed,” he said, but “I really think what has been accomplished is amazing.”

—Shawn L. Twing

University of Virginia Hosts Debate On U.S. Mideast Policy

“Is U.S. Middle East Policy in the U.S. National Interest?” was the topic for a Jan. 31 debate sponsored by the Jefferson Society of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. Participants in the debate, which filled the 200-seat hall to overflowing, were Dr. David Wormser of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC and executive editor Richard H. Curtiss of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

Moderators were Arun Rao, vice president of the Jefferson Society, the university’s debate club; Peter Mina, president of the university’s Arab Student Organization, and Erin Ghelber, president of the Virginia- Israel Public Affairs Committee (VIPAC).

In opening statements of 15 minutes each, Mr. Curtiss charged that because U.S. Middle East policy involves a persistent tilt toward Israel, right or wrong, based almost exclusively upon U.S. domestic political considerations, that policy is undermining essential U.S. Middle East allies such as the governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, exacerbating instability in an area containing more than 60 percent of the world’s energy reserves, and has changed the Middle East from an environment where the U.S. was the most respected outside power to one where Americans no longer are physically safe.

Dr. Wormser defended U.S. Middle East policy, saying U.S. support for Israel is vital to the U.S. national interest because the region is a strategically vital but politically volatile area. American problems, he said, result from the the undemocratic nature, and therefore the political instability, of all of the regimes in the region except that of Israel.

Americans instinctively recognize Israel as a country which shares American values, Wormser said, Even Palestinian Arabs living in Israel and in the West Bank and Gaza tell pollsters they consider Israel more democratic than any other Middle Eastern country and give Israeli democracy higher ratings than American democracy. Wormser charged also that the Palestinian Authority has proven unwilling to govern democratically, and so far has failed to provide its people with an effective economic infrastructure.

Under the debate format, each of the three debate moderators posed a question to both of the debate participants, and the discussion subsequently was opened to questions from the floor. The latter continued until the moderators ended the debate two hours after it had begun.

In closing, Dr. Wormser again cited the absence of even minimal democratic norms among America’s Arab allies, saying that was the principal cause of instability in the area. Mr. Curtiss cited the inescapable need to link morality and pragmatism in U.S. foreign policy, saying the Clinton administration has ignored the fact that an immoral Middle East policy ultimately cannot be an effective one.

He drew a parallel between the actions of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Israel’s Washington, DC lobby, and the actions of French Foreign Minister Tallyrand and the directors of the government that emerged from the French revolution. When an American delegation led by Chief Justice John Marshall arrived in Paris in 1798 seeking to repair relations between France’s new revolutionary government and the Federalist government of the young United States, Tallyrand’s agents demanded bribes. When Marshall refused to pay, they threatened:

“Perhaps you believe that in returning and exposing to your countrymen the unreasonableness of the demands of this government, you will unite them in their resistance to those demands. You are mistaken: You ought to know that the diplomatic skill of France and the means she possesses in your country are sufficient to enable her, with the French party in America, to throw the blame which will attend the rupture of the negotiations on the Federalists...and you may assure yourselves that this will be done.”

The Americans rejected the blackmail, Curtiss said, and when Marshall returned to the U.S. and informed the public of what had happened in Paris, the U.S. party that sympathized with France was rejected at the polls.

Declaring that once again Americans must unite to reject foreign political blackmail which this time has given birth to a one-sided U.S. Middle East policy, Curtiss said that “today American Middle East policies are profoundly immoral and highly detrimental to American national interests.”

—Donna Bourne

Free Mordechai Vanunu Demonstration at Israeli Embassy in Washington

A small group of activists organized by Sam Day, former editor of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and also of The Progressive, who now heads the North American Committee to Free Vanunu, demonstrated Feb. 14 at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC. Among speakers at the demonstration was Gideon Spiro, head of the Israeli Committee to Free Vanunu. Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli technician of Moroccan Jewish descent, revealed through the British press the extent of Israel’s secret nuclear weapons development program at the Dimona installation in Israel’s Negev desert. Vanunu subsequently was kidnapped from Italy to Israel, tried in secret and sentenced to solitary confinement in an Israeli prison. Possibly as a result of the demonstration and a long history of activity on Vanunu’s behalf by American, European and Israeli supporters, two Jewish members of the U.S. Congress recently called attention to his plight.

—Richard Curtiss