Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October/November 1997, Pages 12-13

Affairs of State

The Bridge That Failed: U.S. Relations With the Middle East and Israel

By Eugene Bird

It was a strange story out of Tel Aviv, particularly because we had just been there and driven across the Yarkon River to the Jaffe Center at Tel Aviv University. A different bridge built for the Macabee Games, the Jewish Olympics, had inexplicably collapsed and killed or fatally injured three Australian participants.

Suddenly the whole country was on a sort of couch, undergoing psychoanalysis by the Israeli media.

Some of the commentators related the collapse of the bridge and the resulting inward look at the troubled Israeli soul to the collapse of the Arab-Israeli peace process.

But while failure of the bridge was a purely Israeli problem, the collapse of peace talks that had been the centerpiece of U.S. diplomacy since 1991 was not. It was rooted in a failure of American policy to base its approach to the Middle East as a whole on sounder ground than "security for the state of Israel and access to Middle Eastern oil."

The U.S. was quick to condemn the efforts of Islamic Jihad and Hamas "terrorists" and "extremists" to wreck the peace process with suicide bombers. But words failed us when Likud extremists and settler terrorists used their takeover of the Israeli government to finish the job. Afraid of America's own Israel lobby, President Bill Clinton, the only man in the world who could save it, simply let the peace process die.

Ten years before Israel was created, George Antonius, a Palestinian civil servant in the British Mandate administration, wrote a brilliant book that continues to be widely regarded by Middle East hands as a primer on Arab nationalism. The Arab Awakening is more than a little dated now, but it remains the cry of an Arab nationalist for justice in the face of the colonial imposition of another people on his land of Palestine.

Antonius was one of the key figures in settling the "first intifada" in 1938, which had erupted three years earlier. He was a "bridge" person, a British-educated Arab Christian with remarkable diplomatic skills. But in the end he failed. He died after having urged a compromise on the Palestinians, the terms of which were then ignored by the British. The result was the fighting of 1947 and 1948 and the creation of the state of Israel.

Thinking back to the many persons who have tried to make peace between Arab and Jew, Palestinian and Israeli, not only have all of them ultimately failed, but most ended up being reviled, particularly by the Israelis and their American Jewish mentors, whenever they came close to negotiating a compromise. Jimmy Carter, who pushed harshly but successfully to bring about peace between Egypt and Israel, today is frequently reviled in the Israeli press. A similar ungratefulness exists among fervent American supporters of Israel.

Suddenly the whole country was undergoing psychoanalysis by the Israeli media.

Tom Friedman of The New York Times is wont to say there are at least four Americans who will never have forests named after them in Israel: Presidents Eisenhower and Carter and Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and James Baker. All had some success in dousing wars in the Middle East and creating better conditions for Israel to pursue its nationalist dream. But all were and are seen by Israelis and their U.S. supporters as having given away too much land or promised too much to Arabs. You cannot be a hero in Israel unless you never give an inch.

So the bridge that failed in Tel Aviv was only a symbol of the failure of both Israeli and American policy to find a firm foundation and a good design for a peace that is getting more, not less, elusive: We are now in a cold war with Syria, a senseless exercise both from the American and Israeli standpoints. We are now holding joint maneuvers in the Mediterranean with Israel and Turkey, sending up the temperature not only in Damascus but also in Athens (and among American Greeks), another senseless piece of cleverness which seems to have originated in Tel Aviv. And we refuse to adopt a simple, tough formula for making a final division of Palestine, the same problem George Antonius tussled with 60 years ago.

When the peace process is laid to final rest, there will be casualties. And as in 1967, 1973, 1982 and in between all these previous failures, they will not all be Arabs and Jews.

Looking at the Area:

During a two-week absolutely mind-blowing tour of the Levant, as they used to call Lebanon-Syria-Jordan-Palestine, the bottom line is that the peoples of all of those countries with the exception of Palestine are surviving surprisingly well without peace, but they are frustrated by U.S. policy.

Specifically, Lebanese President Elias Hrawi pointed out that the U.S. is asking whether or not his government would sign a peace agreement if Israel got out of south Lebanon. President Hrawi said he had told President Clinton there could be no formal peace treaty until there is a comprehensive peace, for the Palestinians and Syrians as well as the Lebanese.

But if Israel chose to leave, then Lebanon would have no difficulty in controlling the frontier and preventing rocket attacks into Israel. And, Hrawi added, "When I decide that it is time for the Syrian army to leave Lebanon, I will ask them to leave and they will go."

We heard essentially the same thing in Damascus. Obviously the Syrians do not want to be left alone in the peace process, and they would certainly work against any separate peace between Lebanon and Israel. Still, they admitted, they could do little about it if Israel decided to withdraw.

New State Department Spokesperson Completes Circle of Albrighters

James Philip Rubin, a long-time associate and close confidant of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who was Democratic campaign director of foreign policy during President Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign, has been appointed assistant secretary of state for public affairs and spokesman for the Department of State. Rubin, a political appointee, is replacing career foreign service officer Nicholas Burns, a Middle East and Russian specialist who is being nominated as ambassador to Greece.

Rubin is well known to the United Nations press corps in New York, where he served as spokesman for Albright while she was ambassador there. He was seen as a highly political personality whose main task was to keep Albright on track toward becoming the first woman secretary of state. One source commented that from the very beginning of her U.N. posting in 1993, it was clear that her goal was to do everything necessary to become secretary of state, and that Rubin was there to help her. Other sources confirmed that he is a "control freak" and spin doctor who enjoyed Albright's complete confidence and who "resented" any reporting on the subject of her ambitions.

The official White House announcement indicated a remarkably broad sweep of responsibilities: "He will serve as the principal adviser to the Secretary, other Department officials and other government agencies on the Department's resonsibilities to the American public." The U.S. Information Agency, with some 9,000 employees including the Voice of America, will be melded into the Department of State in the course of the next two years, but it is unclear how much direct authority Rubin might have over parts of that extensive operation. There is little doubt, however, that he will have the ear of the secretary of state on a wide range of issues.

The new spokesman is a bachelor totally dedicated to his job and with a strong background in missile control and congressional affairs. He joined Ambassador Albright at the U.N. after serving as foreign affairs adviser to Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE).

Prior to that he worked for several years with Spurgeon Kinney, head of the Arms Control Association, a center-liberal group, specializing in medium-range missile control efforts.

One anecdote that followed Rubin from New York to Washington was that Ambassador Albright once jokingly offered "$10 thousand to the first person who can make Jamie Rubin smile."

Rubin is expected to play a strong political and policy role with the secretary and is acknowledged as a veteran in-fighter in the bureaucratic wars over foreign policy turf.

Albright: Travel to Lebanon At Your Own Risk

On July 29, en route back from Asia, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and informed him that the State Department ban on travel to Lebanon by U.S. citizens would be lifted the next day. He agreed to complete ratification of the international convention on the taking of hostages, the last in a series of anti-terror conventions proposed primarily by the United States and adhered to by most countries.

"Lebanon," said the secretary of state, "is still a dangerous place. If the security environment should deteriorate, I will not hesitate to reimpose passport restrictions."

On July 30, the department issued a full-fledged warning against traveling to Lebanon, particularly to or through the international airport, in the Bekaa Valley and in south Lebanon as well as south Beirut. It said that "only those Americans with compelling reasons should consider traveling to Lebanon."

Travelers were asked to register at the American Embassy, but warned that to do so they must contact the embassy ahead of time, because apparently even American citizens are not permitted "personal access" to the embassy building unless they have a prior appointment.

The department made no reference to the continued occupation of south Lebanon by Israel, which all sources, including the United Nations, agree is the prime reason for the threat to American lives and interests in Lebanon. The secretary of state made reference to the ability of the Lebanese army to control its territory effectively, but made no reference to Israeli occupation forces being replaced either by U.N. forces or the Lebanese army itself.

Lebanese President Elias Hrawi is sending an envoy to negotiate further "cooperation" with the U.S., including the possibility of permitting Middle East Airlines, the national carrier, to fly into New York. No changes were made in that ban.

Participants in two congressional junkets to the Middle East who wanted to stop in Lebanon during the August recess were given a wave-off by the Department of State. Only one group, Physicians for Social Responsibility, involving Democratic Congressman (and medical doctor) Jim McDermott of Seattle, received a go-ahead.