Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, December 1997, Pages 48, 133

Affairs of State

Madeleine Albright Crowns Her Unsuccessful Middle East Trip With a Venture in Pilate Diplomacy

By Eugene Bird

At the September conclusion of her Middle East trip, Madeleine Albright tried to use Pilate diplomacy on the two principal antagonists, the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority. Threatening not to return to the area and thus to wash her hands of the leadership on both sides, she refused to make any judgment, even of the most obvious kind, about the issues, about the deceitfulness of Bibi Netanyahu, and about what the United States felt was a right and just interpretation of the terms of the Oslo agreement.

She had to settle for tiny and perhaps even worthless steps such as re-opening negotiations at a low level about re-discussing opening the newly built Palestinian seaport and airport in Gaza and safe passage for Palestinians from Gaza to the West Bank. These are issues already decided, with implementation long overdue. Later in October, perhaps, there will be further re-negotiations in Washington about carrying out the second (overdue since September) withdrawal by the Israelis within the West Bank as promised in the Hebron Agreement. But when the first withdrawal was due last March, Binyamin Netanyahu offered to vacate only 2 percent of the land instead of the 30 percent the Palestinians were expecting. If he repeats this demeaning conduct, the Palestinians are sure to go into the streets again, and the Israelis are sure to mount their bulldozers and their tanks.

The fact that Washington is to be the site for discussion of these further withdrawals is significant, because the State Department had chosen earlier to back the Israeli interpretation of the Oslo agreements that only Israel decides on the extent of withdrawal, an assertion not borne out by even one article in the Oslo accord, which specifies that the withdrawals will be negotiated.

Israel chose to ignore this, clearly a violation of the spirit of Oslo and probably a violation of its legal provisions as well.

The betting in Washington is that Netanyahu will not make a single major concession in response to Albright's plea for a "time out" in Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In ignoring Albright, the Israeli prime minister will only be following the example of the U.S. congressmembers who ignored her request for a time out on Arafat-bashing resolutions.

Her call in Jerusalem for some realistic thinking by the leaders would have some potential if President Bill Clinton were to follow it up with a strong message that the Oslo agreements must be honored with measures such as withdrawal in the interim stage from substantial parts of the West Bank, followed by honest negotiations on the final borders and the final status of Jerusalem.

Madeleine's Ego and Netanyahu

But Israel's present government is going in the opposite direction, making meaningless withdrawals from tiny areas and refusing even to talk about sharing sovereignty in Jerusalem. One source in New York speculated that what may save the situation is what he described as the "massive ego" of the secretary of state.

"If she finally determines that her whole position is being threatened by the intransigence of Netanyahu and the Israelis, she could make up her mind to do something about it," he said. "Something real. Something tough." The source added, however, that he was not expecting anything but further retreat from confrontation with Netanyahu and continued pressure on the Palestinian Authority.

Albright obviously was deceived from the outset by Netanyahu about further settlement building on Arab land. Reporters queried her spokesman intensively about the fact that when he talked with her by telephone only hours before her scheduled speech at the United Nations, the Israeli prime minister neglected to mention to her his intention to announce 300 more houses to be built in Efrat, near Bethlehem. His announcement came only minutes before she had to face the press and admit that the 300 homes came as a complete surprise to her. She presumably was not amused.

Building trust between the parties was one theme of Albright's first visit to the Middle East. Building trust with Albright might have been more pertinent.

Release of Israeli Funds but not American

The secretary of state did get Netanyahu to release half of the funds Israel owed to the Palestinian Authority. Arafat also made a sweep of Hamas activists, arresting some 100 and closing 16 Hamas day-care centers and one television station.

The result of Albright's first trip to the Middle East was that Palestinians, as usual, gave in on some key issues, including attacking the admittedly benign infrastructure activities of Hamas, without eliciting a single important Israeli concession in return: West Bank Jewish settlements will continue to expand. And in Jerusalem, 11 ultra-Orthodox Jewish students replaced three Jewish families in houses in an Arab neighborhood bordering on the Old City in East Jerusalem.

No Action on Moskowitz

The houses, incidently, quite possibly were purchased with American tax-exempt funds by U.S. bingo king Irving Moskowitz. He claims otherwise, and so far the Internal Revenue Service has taken no action on reports from Jerusalem that he has used such funds to buy houses in the past.

Despite strong protests by Jewish peace groups, the administration apparently has chosen not to order an investigation of Moskowitz and his operations. He is obviously working against the peace process, as are many other Jewish-American groups that enjoy tax-exemption in the U.S. but spend their money to undermine U.S. policies in Jerusalem and Palestine while the administration does nothing to stop them.

Sending a signal to all such groups that they cannot work against American policy and expect to continue to receive tax-deductible treatment would be the simplest thing in the world to do. It was exactly such a threat by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1957 that led to an immediate Israeli evacuation of Egyptian Sinai, seized in Israel's 1956 attack on Egypt.

Israel will continue to build housing that is likely to remain empty in order to deny the Palestinians land for Arab housing later on. Meanwhile Palestinian jails are filled to overflowing with people only suspectedof involvement with Hamas.

Israeli jails have doubled the number of "administrative detainees" in recent months and Israel now has more persons held without charge and without trial, per capita, than any other country in the world.

LAWE, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights and the Environment, put it this way: "[We] note with grave concern that the Palestinian Authority has essentially been forced by the United States and Israel to carry out repressive and illegal measures against its own people." The organization issued a call for an international conference aimed at refuting the claims of Zionism. It would be held on the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel in May 1998. It is a safe bet that Secretary Albright will not attend, but others interested are invited to contact LAWE on the Internet.