Tunisians Express Dismay at Crumbling of Peace Process They Helped Start

by Richard H. Curtiss

Among the 22 Arab countries, Tunisia has been a pioneer in calling for the co-existence of two states, Palestine and Israel. After the United Nations, at U.S. urging, voted to partition Palestine in 1947, Habib Bourguiba, who led Tunisia during its struggle for independence from France and became the North African country’s first president, adopted a more forthcoming attitude toward the problem than did Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, whose pan-Arab movement drew much of its strength from its rejection of negotiations with Israel.

After Tunisia obtained its independence from France, its accommodating attitude toward the problem brought it opprobrium from some other Arab states. Then, after Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Tunisia acceded to U.S. requests to allow Yasser Arafat, under American protection, to relocate his PLO headquarters from Beirut to Tunis. That move eventually resulted in a strike by Israeli military aircraft on the PLO headquarters in Tunisia in which a number of Tunisians as well as Palestinians were killed.

Later, during the Palestinian intifada, an Israeli assassination team apparently reached Tunis from the sea and killed PLO military commander Abu Jihad in his home, once again sending shock waves through Tunisia. Nevertheless, Tunisia served as the site of the first U.S.-PLO dialogue, and continued as a conduit for messages between Palestinians and Israelis before and after the Madrid conference that opened the formal Palestinian-Israeli peace process, and the Oslo accords that turned the results of those talks into a formal Israeli-Palestinian treaty.

With so much invested in the peace process, no one has been more shocked than Tunisian diplomats by the failure of the recently elected government of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to implement provisions of that treaty, solemnly signed for Israel on the White House lawn by his predecessors, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres.

“The dialogue between the PLO and U.S. officials started here in Tunis,” recalled Mohamed Berrejeb, director of American Affairs in Tunisia’s Foreign Ministry. “Now we have a new Israeli prime minister who seems cut off from reality.

“The Oslo agreement was signed in Washington and by a U.S. president. It therefore carries a commitment by the U.S. that final status negotiations should have begun by the end of this year. One can hardly admit that all that has been built is collapsing.”

Ambassador Berrejeb, who had a French-language copy of former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres’s newest book, The Struggle for Peace, on his desk as he was interviewed for this article, described his own country’s stake in the peace process. “We are worried because we have been playing the game. We have many Jewish visitors. Many of them are former Tunisians who left during the period of collectivization in this country. But they come back very often.”

“At the same time, we insist on the Palestinian right to self-determination to have their own state. There is no room left for any other solution. But now human beings are being shot down like flies. We do not want things to slide backward. The crux of the matter is that what has been agreed has not been respected and not only that, more problems are arising.

“There are limits beyond which you cannot go. At the last Cairo summit President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali explained in the most sincere way that Tunisia wants peace to prevail in the area, with the full rights of our Palestinian brothers to be realized. Palestinian rights remain the heart of the whole problem. Cultural, juridical, historical and moral values advocate that Palestinians and Israelis live peacefully in the spirit of tolerance and co-existence.

“All of our communiqués have shown pragmatism and moderation and expressed the wish to let wisdom prevail. But there comes a time to say, ‘enough is enough.’”

Turning to his own brief, Ambassador Berrejeb noted that August 1997 will be the bicentennial of U.S-Tunisian relations. In the 1950s and 1960s, he recalled, the U.S. gave both political and economic support to Tunisia in its struggle for independence and during its first years of sovereignty, as did members of Congress including the late Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts and his brother, the late Sen. Robert Kennedy of New York.

U.S. financial assistance continued until September 1995, when the USAID office was closed, as was the U.S. Peace Corps program which had brought hundreds of young Americans to Tunisia. Now, Berrejeb said, “our relations with the U.S. are good although we would welcome more understanding of the problems of development.” As it opens its markets to the world, however, Tunisia hopes for “much more interest from U.S. business. We have the infrastructure and the communications to make such cooperation possible,” Berrejeb concluded.

Ambassador Abdelhay Sghaier, the Tunisian Foreign Ministry’s director of Arab World Affairs, expressed equal dismay at the turn of events in Israel. He noted that after the partition of Palestine and the 1948 fighting between Israel and the Arab supporters of the Palestinians, Habib Bourguiba made a speech in Jericho. “He advocated the return to the situation of sharing of the land, recognition of Israel, recognition of a Palestinian state, and coexistence side-by-side,” Ambassador Sghaier recalled.

“Since then, Israel has made considerable territorial gains with a series of occupations of different territories belonging to the Palestinians and to other Arab countries,” Sghaier continued. “When the peace process started in Madrid, Tunisia was a participant from the beginning. Tunisia played a major role after the PLO passed through Tunis, and it was here that negotiations took place between the PLO and the United States. This started the PLO negotiations with Israel. Tunis assumed a great responsibility with determination and with the support and understanding of the Americans as well as of the Palestinians.

“The Rabin government took a great forward step. The Likud government has different tendencies. In Likud there are people who know the situation in the Middle East and perhaps some who do not know the situation well enough to continue the peace process as led by the co-sponsors, the U.S. and Russia, and by the members of the United Nations.

“Today the whole world supports the peace process. I think that today the Netanyahu government is completely isolated. I heard with great interest what Peres, who achieved great progress with Arafat, declared to CNN. He expressed his attachment to the peace process and accused Netanyahu of not going in the same direction. He said that Netanyahu should have met with Arafat immediately after assuming power.

“Today things seem to be moving toward a very difficult situation. The problem was created by the refusal of Netanyahu’s government to respect the accords and agreements signed with the Palestinian Authority. Since Netanyahu’s government rejects what has been agreed since Madrid, this creates a grave situation for the Palestinians. But it began some time before the Israeli elections because of the economic blockade imposed on the Palestinians.

“Finally, the action by the Israeli government of opening up the tunnel under the mosque was like a spark igniting gunpowder. The Israeli government did not respect the sentiments of Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims. Nor did Netanyahu respect commitments made by the Israeli state itself.

“We have warned repeatedly of the necessity of proceeding with the peace process, and of avoiding such provocations leading to tension and confrontation. Unfortunately, that is exactly what has happened, despite all the signals. We think that members of the Security Council and the international community should call for speedy action to eliminate this danger, which risks taking the region back to the spread of reaction and terrorism.

“Tunisia repeatedly expressed its position before the recent events, and called on the Israeli government to respect the agreements made since Madrid, Oslo, Washington, and Cairo. Tunisia’s position is based on the necessity to respect these accords and to achieve peace in the region. Last June at the Arab summit in Cairo, Tunisian participation was very active. The summit demonstrated great cohesion.

“Concerning relations with Israel, by establishing dual relations our president has linked progress of relations with progress in the peace process. On Sept. 13 and 14, the League of Arab States confirmed this position in Cairo, and called attention to the necessity of Israel proceeding with the peace process.”

Earlier this year Tunisia and Israel opened liaison offices in Tel Aviv and Tunis. Noting this, Sghaier, who has been Tunisian ambassador in Mauritania, Yemen and Algeria, asked: “How can we achieve progress in the economic field if there is no progress in the peace process? The economic dimension is designed to reflect progress in the political field. One cannot put the cart before the horse.

“To achieve cooperation on a wide scale requires adherence to agreements reached, elimination of doubts and mistrust, and creation of a climate of confidence.

“What is required is positive action to prod the peace process forward to prevent any other catastrophic errors that would play into the hands of extremists on both sides and create irrevocable damage. The last summit in Cairo demonstrated great cohesion. Netanyahu seems to have banked on dividing the Arabs. After the recent bloodshed in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, Peres said that one should look to the future, but Netanyahu seems to look more to the past.

“What we hope is that the international community and men of goodwill in Israel, with the support of the United States, will do something to save the peace process,” Ambassador Sghaier concluded.

Ambassador Said Ben Mustafa, director of North African Affairs in the Tunisian Foreign Ministry, noted that Tunisia “accustomed the Arabs to talking to Israel in Arab countries. We held the first multi-lateral talks involving Israel in Tunisia.”

The ambassador said Tunisia “works with the Palestinians to keep them in the peace process” and “advises Israel that its responsibility lies in carrying out agreements it has reached.” He said that well before the 1996 Israeli elections his government had advised Yossi Beilin, deputy minister of foreign affairs in Israel’s Labor party government, “not to waste time because that would give opportunities to both Israeli and Palestinian opponents of the peace process. But our advice was ignored and what we feared has happened.

“We think the Likud government lacks experience in dealing with Middle Eastern situations. “Negotiations must be based on a certain credibility. Our fear now is that events have blocked the way both in the short and long term. The Israelis spent 16 years waiting for a Palestinian representative who could make compromises. Now if the chance is gone, they will find themselves facing Hamas and Islamic Jihad, who do not recognize the existence of Israel.

“Whatever was achieved in the way of normalization of relations between Israel and Arabs is not guaranteed if Israel goes back on the peace process. The choice is to go ahead with the peace process, or go back 50 years.”

Noting that the talks that began the peace process were sponsored by the United States and Russia, Secretary of State Said Ben Mustafa said that “responsibility for achieving peace and security in the Middle East lies with the co-sponsors. If this agreement, which was recognized and signed at the highest international level, is not respected, what is left of the new world order?”