Three Key Parties to Peace

By Talcott W. Seelye

The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians constitutes the core of the Arab-Israeli dispute, and the US has an important role to play in the resolution of that dispute. This role historically derives from our strategic interests in the region, our strong support for Israel, our close relations with certain Arab governments, and our need for oil from the Persian Gulf. However, American can only play a positive role in resolving the Arab-Israeli dispute if it maintains a credible, balanced position between the principals, based on a calculation of what is best for America.

Twenty years ago, in the 1967 war, Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai. As a result of the Camp David Accords, Israel and Egypt are in a state of peace, and Israel has relinquished the Sinai. However, the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan remain under Israeli military occupation. An Israeli-Palestinian peace is the sine qua non for a broader Arab-Israeli peace, and in discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict one must take note of a player not on the diplomatic stage two decades ago: the Palestine Liberation Organization.

The PLO: Needed for a Stable Peace

Although not evident from the mainstream US print and electronic media, PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat made three important concessions in the past year:

• He agreed to consider entering into negotiations with Israel, in tandem with Jordan's King Hussein, without insisting on prior Israeli recognition of the PLO.

• He agreed to renounce terrorism as an instrument of PLO policy, though separately he has contended that he approves of armed Palestinian resistance against Israeli authorities within Israel and the occupied territories.

• He withdrew the requirement that a Palestinian state be established on the West Bank after Israeli withdrawal from there in the context of a peace settlement. Instead, he accepted the US-Jordanian proposal for a confederation of Jordan and the West Bank, while reserving the ultimate right of Palestinians to self-determination.

Arafat has never been a gambler—which is perhaps why he has been Chairman of the PLO for 19 years—and for a long time he was tried to be all things to all people. Meeting recently in Algeria, the Palestine National Council voted to bring leftist Palestinian groups back into the PNC and to cancel formally the February 1985 agreement on political coordination with Jordan. Most media analyses of the recent PNC meeting have contended that the re-unification of the PLO has impeded the "peace process," and that with Palestinian unity will come greater Palestinian intransigence. It may be too early to tell, although the PNC's decisions do seem to indicate that Arafat would rather maintain a broad consensus within the PLO than proceed with a peace initiative which is unpopular in some Palestinian quarters. The PLO has diplomatic missions all over the world, and in most countries Arafat is treated as a head of state. Arafat knows that entering into peace talks which are unlikely to bring tangible results could mean his demise as the Chairman of the PLO and put an end to his heady, globe-trotting existence.

As PLO Chairman, Arafat has not had the courage to put Israel to the test. He has failed to indicate clearly to Israelis as well as American officials that peaceful coexistence alongside Israel in the context of mutual recognition has indeed become his real, if minimal, goal. There are a number of prominent people in Israel who have been waiting—in vain, so far—for a public declaration by Arafat of his willingness to make peace.

It is true that in private Arafat has said as much to westerners, but publicly he has only indirectly supported United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 by endorsing all UN resolutions on the Palestinian issue. Arafat's reluctance to come out explicitly in favor of UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 is based upon their failure to mention the Palestinians as a national group with national rights. Nevertheless, Arafat recently indicated that in lieu of a revision of these resolutions, he would settle for a clear statement from the US government on the Palestinians' right to self-determination. Unfortunately, the Reagan administration has been unwilling to issue such a statement.

The preoccupation of the Reagan administration and of the American press with "terrorism" tended to obscure Arafat's concessions. Encouraging this preoccupation were Israeli officials and Israel's partisans in the US: appearing at think-tank conferences and on television panels, they dealt at length with this issue, though not with its causes. This concentrated effort no doubt was partly designed to downplay evidence of Palestinian moderation and perpetuate the illusion that the PLO is ipso facto a "terrorist" organization.

Israel: Partition Is the Only Solution

Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz, the distinguished Hebrew University philosopher and former editor of the Encyclopedia Hebraica, has said that Israel's occupation of Arab territories in the 1967 war transformed Israel into a power which believes in the use of force to solve political problems. In the realm of peace, this translates into a belief that Israel can force one of two solutions on the Arabs: that Israel will ultimately possess most of the occupied territories (the Labor Party position), or, that Israel will ultimately hold on to all of the occupied territories (the Likud Bloc position).

A number of thoughtful and more realistic Israelis have objected to these two options. These Israelis know that Israel can never induce the Arabs to accept a very limited Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories—which, in any case, runs counter to the spirit of UN resolution 242, which envisaged virtually total Israeli withdrawal. These thoughtful Israelis also know that Israel cannot enjoy peace with its neighbors as long as it holds on to major portions of the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights.

One such thoughtful Israeli is Uri Avnery, three-time member of the Knesset (parliament) and author of the recently-published My Friend, the Enemy. In this book, Avnery contends that there are only five possible solutions to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians: "Either one people annihilates the other, or one people subjugates the other, or one people drives the other out, or both people live in the same state, or the country is partitioned." Avnery and the political party he helped found, the Progressive List for Peace, contend that Israel's only option is partition, that is, that Israel withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza and negotiate with the PLO for the creation of a Palestinian state there.

Some prominent Israelis familiar with Israel's security needs and the Palestinians agree, to some extent, with Avnery. In fact, in the pre-Begin era, five successive Israeli Chiefs-of-Staff contended that if the occupied territories were forcibly assimilated into the Jewish state, they would become a military liability. In an article in the Jerusalem Post, Prof. Yehoshafat Harkabi, former chief of Israeli military intelligence, said that Israel is "betraying" its children by refusing to negotiate with the PLO for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. "We have no choice but to talk to the PLO," he said, noting that while he didn't like the organization, Israel had to negotiate with it because most Palestinians consider it their representative. And Ezer Weizmann, a Knesset Member and former Israeli air force chief of staff, has recently acknowledged that "eventually we'll have to sit down and talk with Abu Ammar," referring to Yasir Arafat's nom-de-guerre.

Israel's current disinclination to withdraw from the occupied territories—or from very much of them—together with its refusal to deal with the PLO, are key reasons why Arafat has been reluctant to take the risk of entering into peace negotiations. Instead of trying to prepare its society and economy for the continued emotional and financial drain that the occupation imposes, Israeli officials would do well to heed the advice of Meir Merhav, economics editor for the Jerusalem Post:

"How many lives must be wasted, and how crushing must the economic burden become for the realization to sink in that the PLO, detestable as it may appear to us, is the representative of the Palestinians and holds the power of veto over anything that any Arab state or any group of Palestinians might agree to regarding an Arab-Israeli settlement?"

Israel is shortsighted in its continued rejection of the PLO as a legitimate negotiator for the Palestinians. Israeli officials contend that because the PLO is a terrorist organization, it is not worthy of recognition. However, only minority elements within the PLO advocate and practice terrorism, and in any case, history—including the history of the Zionist movement—has shown that once a national movement has gained its objectives, it no longer needs to use terrorism. At that point, the organization must concentrate on building its national institutions.

America: Reluctant to Use its Influence

American Middle East policy has faltered in recent years because US leaders have refused to use our clout with Israel to help make it see that peace is impossible without withdrawal from the occupied territories. And clout we have. We assure Israel's survival with ever-growing commitments of military and economic aid—some $30 billion so far, the vast majority of it in non-repayable grants. In addition, the US runs diplomatic interference for Israel, defending its actions—usually alone—against the censure of world opinion. So we have the basis for inducing a constructive change in Israel's policy toward peace

The US has the capacity to galvanize and orchestrate a peace settlement, and thus to preserve its interests in the Middle East, but our broad national interests are sacrificed on the altar of domestic political expediency.

The most notable missed opportunity was in 1982, when, after Israel's disastrous invasion of Lebanon, President Reagan put forth an important and constructive Middle East policy statement. The Reagan Plan, as it came to be known, called for immediate negotiations based on UN resolutions 242 and 338, and added the proposal that the West Bank should be federated with Jordan. The President also gave his iron-clad assurances that the US would not agree to anything that would threaten Israeli security. Although the Arab states were sufficiently encouraged by the Reagan Plan that they granted implicit recognition to Israel in a summit meeting a few days later, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin rejected the peace proposal out of hand. And the US let Begin's rejection carry the day: there was no effort to change Begin's position. Subsequently, US Middle East policy was relegated to a low priority, with US efforts being primarily directed at getting the Arab states to make concessions for peace. The essence of the Arab-Israeli conflict is the Palestinian problem, and the Palestinians must be minimally satisfied for any proposed solution to work. This means at the very least the establishment of a Palestinian homeland in the territories now occupied by Israel. The US government has acknowledged that any Arab-Israeli peace settlement must take into account the legitimate rights of the Palestinians, but the Reagan administration has refused to endorse the right of Palestinian self-determination. It is essential that the US support Palestinian self-determination if we are to move the PLO in a positive direction.

Recent US proposals to convene an international peace conference as an umbrella under which direct bilateral talks will take place between Israel and Jordan, to include some non-PLO Palestinians, will not resolve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Until the Reagan administration is prepared to risk the domestic political backlash which would result from accepting the principle of Palestinian self-determination and from using our leverage with Israel to induce it to agree to a substantial withdrawal from the occupied territories, it is unlikely that peace will come about. The US has the capacity to galvanize and orchestrate a peace settlement, and thus to preserve its interests in the Middle East, but no administration since President Eisenhower has shown the will to exercise the kind of strong leadership and vigorous actions necessary to move in that direction. Our broad national interests are sacrificed on the altar of domestic political expediency. A peace conference in which the US is precluded from intervening on behalf of a just settlement in accordance with the true meaning of UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 is doomed to failure.

If the future looks bleak, it is bleak for all concerned. US interests and credibility in the Middle East will continue to suffer until US officials regain the ability to distinguish between US and Israeli interests. Arab leaders who have been close to the US become discredited when the US is perceived in the Arab world as being Israel's uncritical supporter. The absence of movement on the Palestinian question tends to lend credence to the Qadhafis and Khomeinis of the region. When secular political solutions become discredited, the standing alternative is hard-line Islamic. There have been recent reports that Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories have begun to show a heightened sense of Islamic fundamentalist consciousness. For Israel, a more militant Palestinian population, whether secular or Islamic, and an Arab world with greater military and technological sophistication, will increase the financial and societal strains already plainly evident in Israel today.

Against this backdrop of impending decay, chaos, and violence, there stands the peace option. But in order to exercise that option, American, Israeli, and Palestinian officials must deal more forthrightly with the realities of today. American officials must realize that any stable peace must include the PLO. The leaders of the PLO must declare unequivocally and publicly their willingness to accept the existence of Israel and to make peace with Israel on the basis of UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338. Israeli leaders, in addition to recognizing the PLO, must realize that while relinquishing the occupied territories will be painful, it will be less destructive in the long run than Israel's present slow march toward apartheid, which is the inevitable result of Israel's continued occupation of the West Bank and Gaza

Talcott W. Seelye, a retired career Foreign Service Officer, was US Ambassador to Syria and Tunisia.