Israeli Exercise in Mischief-Making

By Paul Findley

The conclusion of the ninth round of the process that is euphemistically called Middle East peace talks reinforced a notion already widely accepted: Israel is as uncompromising under Labor Party leadership as it was under Likud. In fact, cynics could readily dismiss the peace talks as an Israeli exercise in mischief-making.

The ninth round was accompanied by a flurry of gestures by Israel and statements by Israel's Foreign Minister Shimon Peres which helped to create false hopes that Israel was, at last, ready to deal fairly with the Palestinians.

Israel made a big show of permitting a group of Palestinian officials expelled years ago to return. Because they had been illegally expelled originally in violation of Geneva Conventions, the gratitude U.S. officials expressed to Israel overflowed with hypocrisy.

Peres predicted that Israel would soon vacate the Gaza Strip, encourage Palestinians in the occupied West Bank to form a confederation with Jordan, and negotiate a common market that would encompass Jordan and Israel. His comments were not repeated or endorsed and likely were simply a public relations scheme aimed at demonstrating an Israeli willingness to make major concessions in order to achieve peace with Arabs.

Israeli talks with Syrian officials fed speculation that Israel would soon vacate the Golan Heights in exchange for a separate peace treaty between the two governments. With strong behind-the-scenes backing by the U.S. administration, Israel, aware of the enormous leverage it would gain over Palestinians by securing a separate peace treaty with Syria, has been seeking a deal with Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad. When the talks adjourned in May, however, both sides said no progress had occurred.

The process has been unproductive because Israel has been unwilling to be specific about the nature and extent of its withdrawal from the Syrian land it holds, and, at the same time, Assad has been uninterested in a scheme that would make him the pariah of Palestinians worldwide. In recent weeks it has become plain that Israel has no serious intention of vacating the Golan Heights.

At a press briefing at the close of the ninth round, leaders of all Arab delegations agreed on a grim assessment. Haidar Abdel Shafi, the thoughtful, dignified physician who leads the Palestinian delegation, summed up: "There has been no progress. Israel is not in compliance with the terms of reference; it does not even admit to being an occupying power. Israel is using the peace process to legitimate its historical illegal actions."

He laid much of the blame at the American doorstep: "The [U.S.] sponsor should have remedied the lack of integrity and credibility of the process by bringing Israel into compliance [with withdrawal in the context of a peace agreement]."

Blunt Words

The Syrian spokesman, Mouwaffak Allaf, used words even more blunt: "After 18 months we are where we were after the first few rounds. After six rounds there was a new Israeli government which promised to be different, but we are still in the same place as we were when the previous government left. The issue of land for peace is not that Israel is going to give us land, but that it must return Arab land it is occupying illegally."

Abd Al-Salam Majali, the Jordanian leader, said: "The goal is a comprehensive peace. We do not ever want to see the peace cut up into small pieces; it must be peace for all parties."

Representing Lebanon, Suhail Shammas said: "For Lebanon the central issue is a total Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. We have the right to end the occupation without this talk of a 'security zone,' which stretches the concept of security."

In the waning hours of the round, the United States attempted unsuccessfully to get Israeli-Arab agreement on a statement of progress, a move that major newspapers cited as evidence that the United States is now a full partner in the negotiating process, advancing specific proposals and attempting to secure the support of the parties to the conflict. If so, this would be a major change from the past, when the United States insisted publicly and consistently that its role was limited to that of a facilitator who would bring the parties together but not make specific proposals.

This posture ignored the fact that the United States has been a full partner in the peace process from the begin ning, but not as an independent honest broker.

Rather, it has been the quiet but loyal and supportive partner of Israel every step of the way from Madrid through the ninth round in Washington. The partnership in the peace talks began under President George Bush and continues without interruption under President Bill Clinton.

There is heavy irony in Bush's political fate. He was rejected almost unanimously by U.S. Jews in his unsuccessful bid for re-election to the presidency, despite the fact that he never once tried to pressure Israel into withdrawing from the Arab lands it holds illegally or allowing political rights to Palestinians in the occupied territories. President Bush publicly stated several times his opposition to self-determination for Palestinians. This level of obedience to Israeli interest was insufficient. U.S. Jews turned their backs on him because the purity of his support was slightly less than 100 percent. For nearly a year, he committed the cardinal sin of trying to pressure Israel into halting the construction and expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.

The document that was heralded as a sign of new U.S. Leadership in the peace talks was nothing more than a statement summarizing the status of issues at the end of the ninth round—not a statement of principles to guide negotiations for Palestinian self-government in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, as reported by The Washington Post and The New York Times. Both the Israeli and Arab delegations found fault with the U.S. draft.

Nevertheless, the U.S. initiative was unique. Even though modest in its scope and intended substance, it was the first U.S. public intervention since the talks began. The Times reported: "It marked a change for the United States from a relatively passive mediator into an active participant in the 18-month negotiations."

One can always dream of better days, but the likelihood is remote that the United States will attempt to exert strong, independent leadership publicly or privately in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Warren Christopher, the U.S. secretary of state, admitted as much: "We can only go so far in this endeavor. It's up to the parties. We'll be there if they want our help, but we can't do it for them."

What he left unstated is the fact that is plain but never stated: The United States government, as a main benefactor of Israel through the years, is a partisan of Israel in the peace talks. It is a loyal and uncritical partner in Israel's every undertaking, and therefore is guilty of complicity on Israel's side in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Christopher might have added that Bosnians, not Palestinians, are center stage. The Clinton administration is agonizing hour-by-hour—and doing so in an embarrassingly public way—over what to do, if anything, to alleviate the dreadful barbarism being inflicted on Muslims in the former Yugoslavia.

This barbarism is exhibited in full color every night on U.S. television, while, thanks to the effectiveness of Israeli censorship, American citizens are shielded almost completely from the agony that Palestinians are suffering daily at the hands of Israeli military forces. Unless a major eruption occurs in the Middle East, the attention of the U.S. government and the American people will remain focused elsewhere in the months to come.