Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July/August 1999, pages 23, 57-58

Affairs of State

Media Tour: Israel and Its Neighbors

By Eugene Bird

(Washington Report diplomatic correspondent Eugene Bird led a four-week media tour of five Middle East countries that ended June 4. It included coverage in Israel before and after its elections. This issue’s column is based on his personal observations in Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria.)

The road to Damascus is open. That is the message being broadcast by Jordanian and Syrian sources as they optimistically assert that the election of a general to head Israel again is a genuine breakthrough that will lead to peace. A real peace based on trading land, all the occupied land, for peace is in the air in Beirut and Damascus and Amman.

But will the new Barak coalition, with its “Israel United” image, actually choose to drive down that road to Damascus? Or will it place new, if less provocative, “no’s” on the Syrians and the Palestinians? Leaders in Beirut, Damascus and in Amman hope not, but even those who in the past have met with General Barak are unsure about him, if relieved that they no longer have to deal with Bibi Netanyahu.

Wye River withdrawals will be implemented, and probably very quickly—only 10 months behind schedule—by the new Israeli government. But what about a required “Third Withdrawal” as called for by both the Wye River Agreement and the Oslo accords?

And in Jordan the final status talks will inevitably re-involve that country in at least four issues: Jerusalem, refugees, water and final borders. On all of these critical issues the U.S. refuses to take a stand and refuses to let the Europeans or the Vatican have a place at the negotiating table.

The new leadership in three of the four countries of the Levant, in Israel itself and its neighbors, Lebanon and Jordan, are generals. Ex-military men now rule everywhere except in Palestine, and Arafat, of course, has a revolutionary background. Will this military orientation make peace easier? Perhaps, but that depends on their power bases in each society and what demands are placed on them by their supporters.

Israel continues the war in Lebanon, shelling “Hezbollah bases” weekly. But General Barak has already given himself a deadline of one year to get out of south Lebanon. He can only do that if he makes peace with Syria.

Repeatedly, we heard in Syria how simple were Syrian demands: Return to the June 4, 1967 lines and full peace would be possible. And then Israel would find Lebanon ready to make peace after withdrawal of Israeli troops.

Which comes first: peace based on giving up the Golan or peace based on an agreement with the Palestinians? All the leaders in the Arab countries said that the Palestinian negotiations would have to show progress on final status issues before anything approaching a comprehensive peace with Syria and Lebanon could actually be signed. The road to Damascus is open if Israel’s new government finds a way to resume talks from where they left off three years ago, but the Palestinian track would have to show substantial progress right alongside Syrian negotiations.

No Free Lunch For Any Party

The bottom line among Israel and its neighbors seems to be that Barak has a real chance to go far beyond Wye River and achieve a settlement with the Palestinians, with Jordan in the background, on many of the issues including Jerusalem. And serious negotiations by Barak and his cabinet with the Palestinians would open better possibilities on the Syrian track. Damascus, we were told, is prepared to be flexible.

But what may bedevil the future of the peace process now is the unwillingness of Israel to show flexibility on Jerusalem, refugee compensation and some return, and even on water and final borders.

If the Barak cabinet is unable to be the least bit generous in giving back land and is stuck on continuing the absurd containment of the Palestinian people in their cities with only an apartheid-like freedom, then the peace with Syria and Lebanon, and even the broadening of the peace with Jordan, is in jeopardy.

Rough Justice for the Palestinians

It is true that Syrian officials clearly feel that Arafat made his decision to go it alone in 1993 and they feel little need to place their own negotiations with Israel on hold until the final status issues are settled. But they will still judge the peace process on the basis of how comprehensive it is, and that means some kind of rough justice for the Palestinians.

Jordan at the Table?

Will they also refuse to have Jordan’s new leader, King Abdullah, have a say in these issues? The American peace team keeps talking about the responsibility of the parties to come to an agreement that can then be backed by Washington. But if these issues are critical to Jordan, will King Abdullah and his ministers be permitted to have some say in how they are resolved? There is no indication either the Israelis or Washington will permit that to happen.

Nor does anyone have much confidence that the new Barak government will retreat to the international borders and make an accommodation on sharing Jerusalem. Can the world afford another four years of excruciating negotiations followed by Israeli non-implementation of agreements already made? Can the American midwives afford to waste the time of President Clinton and Secretary Albright to reach agreements based in principle on land-for-peace but in reality continuing the same old games of Israeli refusal to implement withdrawals from Arab lands?

Relief Filled With Caution

No wonder there is only a cautious optimism about the election of Ehud Barak. From Lebanon’s new government to its recently departed Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri to Hezbollah and to Foreign Minister FarouqChaara of Syria, the word was wait and see. They are awaiting the first American shuttle diplomat, probably Dennis Ross but hopefully Madeleine Albright herself. Hariri, now out of office but still very much a power in Lebanon, suggested that the American secretary needed to devote a full two months in shuttle diplomacy. That is not likely to happen.

Syria First, Then Lebanon

In discussions with President Emile Lahoud of Lebanon, the very cautious hope was expressed that the new government of Israel would finally understand that the way to peace on the northern border lay in resuming negotiations with Syria and completing the withdrawal from the Golan, all of it.

Lebanon’s veteran Prime Minister Selim el Hoss also laid down the marker of Syria first and added that it was clearly up to the new Barak government to find a way to withdraw from south Lebanon. There would be no special agreements, however, and no real peace until Israel had also withdrawn from the Golan. The Middle East is waiting and while it waits, the extremists in Israel and its three remaining Arab neighbors still without peace agreements are calculating how to prevent such a peace from happening.

Each of the generals in charge of Israel, Lebanon and Syria also must listen to the views of their extremists and answer to small constituencies that could cause a further long delay in real peace. Each leader has a different problem, but they all revolve around space and humiliation.

In Israel, the new government is already committed to tactics that will almost certainly lead to long delays in any real peace with the Palestinians. These are:

• Refusing to negotiate on sharing sovereignty in Jerusalem (the Palestinians already have agreed to share the city or re-divide it. They will not agree to being shut out of it entirely, however, and on this they have the backing of the entire Islamic world).
  
  
• A no on the return of the refugees, even though Israel promised to negotiate on this key matter when it signed the Oslo accords.
  
  
• A no on removal of any settlements. Does this no include the ridiculous Israeli settlements in Gaza? Apparently so, or that is the way the extremists in Israel are interpreting the new prime minister’s statement.

Prime Minister Barak said his four no’s as soon as the election was over and he had won a handsome mandate because he wanted to undercut the extremists in Israel—the American Jewish settlers and the religious far right—and appeal to the other 44 percent who did not vote for him. It was a post-election strike at the Netanyahu-Sharon group in the Likud. Within days, all the defeated parties were clamoring to become members of the new government.

Did the reference to Israel not retreating to the 1967 armistice lines apply also to the Golan? There the 1967 line Israel held just before the June war is slightly better for Israel than the original Syrian-Palestinian borders demarcated when they were under French and British occupation, respectively.

The mainstream right-wing Israeli parties (Likud and Shas parties now) lost the election but did not seem to lose control of the peace process itself. Barak genuflected immediately in their direction with his four points, leaving the main beneficiaries of the election, the peace parties (secular Meretz and religious Shinui), puzzled and filled with foreboding about what kind of government they had elected.

U.S. policy toward the Middle East is often described as a domestic, not a foreign policy at all. The number two lobby in the United States—after the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP)—is the government of Israel lobby, reaching into every facet of the American government and twisting policy choices in the direction of helping and aiding and abetting Israeli ambitions.

The fact that Israeli territorial ambitions seem a bit less ambitious under the new government makes Washington heave a sigh of relief, but it does not change the facts on the ground: Israel does not intend to negotiate a real sharing of power over the Holy City (though Barak did choose his words carefully to indicate only that he would not divide Jerusalem physically, something everyone agrees on).

Even the Yesha Change Leaders

The Yesha movement (it is an acronym for Judea and Samaria, the Israeli religious settlers’ name for the West Bank) eagerly granted us an interview after the election, expressing the hope that it might have the same open doors to the prime minister as it did during the Netanyahu period. Later the same day, the Yesha leaders resigned, admitting that they had failed in the elections. In fact, Israel is witnessing a change of personalities on the right—in Likud, in Yesha, and even in Shas, the Sephardi religious party which gained significantly in the election. Shas strongman Aryeh Deri, with one foot in prison on corruption charges, resigned his Knesset seat, but not the leadership of the party.

Yael Dayan, daughter of Israel’s politically polarizing war hero, the late Moshe Dayan, and a long-time member of the Knesset on the Labor ticket, interpreted the election to mean one thing: The dream of a Greater Israel is dead.

That is not the way the leaders in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan see it, however. Barak’s statement seemed to send a chill their way and raised questions again on Israeli reliability in carrying out or implementing promises already made in Oslo I and II.

Attempts to reach Hezbollah leaders after the election in Israel failed, apparently because they did not want to talk about the possible change in Israel. Israeli attacks against the villages outside its occupation zone in south Lebanon continued almost daily, and there were continued complaints about the on-again off-again Israeli blockade on fishing off the coast of south Lebanon.

Hezbollah After Peace

One important member of Hezbollah, parliamentary deputy Sayed Ibrahim Sayed, representing Baalbek, walked out of a meeting with us when the subject of giving assurances about cross-border attacks after Israel withdraws was raised with him. Concerns for his personal security may have been the reason for his abrupt departure and his demand that all photos we had taken while interviewing him be destroyed.

In the Hezbollah stronghold of Baalbek there is now a hundred-foot-long display of captured Israeli equipment shown to tourists and Lebanese visitors, together with a 10-minute video of one of Hezbollah’s more successful raids on the South Lebanese Army. Crowds seemed fascinated by it and Americans and other tourists were welcomed by Hezbollah representatives.

Iran-oriented Hezbollah now has 10 deputies in parliament, and its Syrian-oriented competitor within the Lebanese Shi’i community, Amal, has an equal number. But Amal has far more popular support and is probably going to be the inheritor of most of the political power of the huge Shi’i community in Lebanon if and when Israel withdraws.

In every country in the Levant, including Israel, Islamist deputies are in the parliaments. In no country do they represent more than 20 percent, however, making their influence akin to that of the American Christian fundamentalist right-wing leaders.

The coming into some political power of the minority religious groups may be the best indication that the Middle East is emerging from the largely tribal considerations that have marred relations between ethnic groups for so long. While the political leaders may be on the road to Damascus, and therefore on the road to some kind of peace in the Middle East, the road to ending ethnic and religious nationalism is still going to be a long one.

Israel’s neighbors cheered the disappearance of Netanyahu. And they hope a year from now they will be able to cheer the election of Barak.

Eugene Bird is president of the Council for the National Interest and diplomatic correspondent for the Washington Report.

SIDEBAR

It’s the Economy, Your Majesty

The surprises coming from the palace in Amman are many: King Abdullah is enjoying a real honeymoon with his people from all walks of life, including the young Palestinians who like his attacks on the bureaucracy and his remarkable energy in seeking out and ending bureaucratic red tape. For example, he ordered the 16 signatures needed at customs for importing the most ordinary materials reduced to two within a week, and came back to make sure that it had really happened.

But it is his concentration on finding ways to improve the economy that impresses the Jordanian people more than his activities in seeking out world leaders and building an image for Jordan in the region and the world. After visiting the U.S., he will visit Kuwait to mend political fences going back to the 1991 Gulf war. Jordan also will be seeking forgiveness of substantial parts of its $5.2 billion debt at the meeting of the G-7 plus one (Russia) to be held in Europe in late June.

The U.S. forgave $700 million in debt at the time of the signing of the Israel-Jordan peace in 1994, and Bill Clinton is expected to ask Japan and the Europeans to arrange debt relief of some kind for King Abdullah. The Paris Club will reluctantly work out some arrangements to stretch out payments on private debt.

Jordan has received about $2.5 billion in various kinds of U.S. assistance over the past 20 years, according to sources in Amman, while Israel has received about $100 billion in direct U.S. government-to-government assistance during that period.

With phosphate and potash exports to Asia down and with very few benefits from the peace with Israel (tourism is again down 20 percent from last year, despite the year 2000 benefits expected from Christian tourism celebrating the second millennium of Christ), the long-term prospects for Jordan are not good unless employment can be found abroad for about a quarter-million Jordanian workers.

The West Bank trade has suffered badly since 1994, with Israel trying to hang on to the profitable $2.5 billion in trade with the Palestinians and deny Jordan entrance to that market. A Palestinian state out from under the control of Israel’s state-sponsored monopolies is as important to Jordan as it is to the Palestinians.—E.B.

Syria Turns (Slowly) Toward Private Sector

The annual Damascus International Trade Fair was remarkable for the lack of large-scale American involvement and for the variety of computer companies of Syrian origin trying to find a niche in the 16 million person market.

Before the exhibition began in late May, President Hafez al-Assad’s son and heir apparent, Bashir, made a rare appearance at a national computer conference and gave a public speech on the necessity of Syria turning to computers.

Dr. B, as he is known in Damascus circles, is gradually emerging as the proponent of modernizing Syria’s economy. There is even some indication that he will privatize parts of it, particularly in trade.

Syria remains a highly controlled economy, successful in maintaining a sort of welfare state system that includes the control of bread prices and heavy rewards to selected entrepreneurs with American or European educations and contacts. Management seminars abound even though opportunities to practice good management remain restricted.

The system works for the Syrians, for now, but it will require major decisions and a new generation of leadership to translate a controlled economy into one that opens up not only trade, but manufacturing and commerce to the private sector in a 21st century way.

Recently the satellite dishes which already had sprouted throughout the country were legalized. Now the government has promised that within a few months the Internet will be permitted to operate openly in Syria, where so far only certain ministries have been permitted to have it.—E.B.