Bush’s international “meeting”

The Bitterlemons weekly edition is on the Bush/Rice Middle East conference that will be held in Washington next fall. The article below is quite interesting. But I also recommend the interview with Khalida Jarrar, member of the PLC (www.bitterlemons.org).

AN ISRAELI VIEW - The consequences of failure
by Yossi Alpher

For several weeks now I have been writing in these virtual pages that the Bush/Rice initiative to convene an international "meeting" in Washington in the fall to confirm some sort of new Israeli-Palestinian agreement has little chance of succeeding. I added that, nevertheless, I wish it success as long as its failure doesn't make it more difficult for Israelis and Arabs to make peace in the future.

Let us assume for a moment that it does indeed fail. The reasons would be fairly obvious. The principals, Messrs. Olmert, Abbas and Bush, are failed leaders grasping at straws. The Syrians and Hamas, neither of whom is invited, will seek to sabotage any chance of success. Israeli-Palestinian agreement even on a virtual declaration of principles will not be achieved because the right of return and Jerusalem issues will continue to elude consensus formulations and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas cannot afford simply to ignore or postpone these issues. The Saudis, even if they participate, will have done little or nothing to advance their own Arab-Israel peace initiative. And of course heavier Middle East crises in Iraq, Iran and possibly Lebanon will cast a long shadow over the proceedings.

It is time to ask how, indeed, such a near certain failure will impact future efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Here it is instructive to compare Bush's "meeting" to the most recent Israeli-Palestinian peace conference on record, the abortive Camp David II talks of July 2000. Then, the leadership situation was better. Unlike President George W. Bush, President Bill Clinton had been deeply involved in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process for years and had the support of the Arab world; Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was infinitely more authoritative than Abbas. Only Israeli PM Ehud Barak was in a comparable situation to current PM Ehud Olmert in that his government was tottering and his leadership qualities were called into question. The overall Middle East atmosphere was also infinitely more peaceful and optimistic than today.

Despite having been held in overall better circumstances than those that await Bush and Rice's fall meeting, Camp David II failed. The result was the second intifada and a near collapse, especially in Israel, of faith in a negotiated peace agreement with the PLO. This led to an attempt to withdraw unilaterally from Palestinian territories that produced equally problematic results.

Now, after all these tragedies and setbacks, the leaders of Israel and Palestine are finally back in a negotiating mode with the backing of an American president. For a variety of reasons, virtually none of which directly concern Israeli-Palestinian peace, all three leaders desperately need the political achievement of a successful conference: Abbas, to justify his refusal to deal with Hamas in Gaza; Olmert, to hang onto power when the Winograd commission's next report condemns his handling of last summer's war; Bush, to recruit Arab good will despite his failed endeavor in Iraq, his counter-productive democratization program and his empowering of Iran and al-Qaeda in the region.

But these are the wrong reasons. The meeting that Bush and Rice project for the fall cannot succeed with such weak leadership and poor strategic thinking. A Middle East peace process that ignores the Syria-Israel track, deals with only half the Palestinian leadership, fails to deeply involve the Arab moderates and is guided by a US administration whose Middle East strategy has patently failed is destined also to fail. And when it does, the consequences could be as bad for Israel, its neighbors and the US as those that followed the failure at Camp David in July 2000.

A failed Washington peace "meeting" could ensure the rise of Hamas to power in the West Bank, leading to a new round of Palestinian-Israeli violence and ending any chance of genuine peace for years. Ignoring Syria could well generate more conflict on Israel's northern front. Extremist Sunnis (al-Qaeda) and Shi'ites (Iran, Hizballah) would benefit from the failure, to the detriment of American interests and the moderate Sunni Arab states. In Israel, Olmert's government would fall and the moderate peace camp would again be discredited.

Some will argue that these dire predictions are precisely the reason to encourage Olmert and Abbas to reach preliminary agreement and enshrine it in an international conference, thereby giving new hope to the region. I would counter that, considering the odds, we would all be better off encouraging Olmert and Abbas, with international support, to engage in more modest but promising pursuits. They should continue implementing confidence-building measures and building Palestinian security and other institutions, with an eye to renewing partial territorial withdrawals once security progress enables such a move.

Anything more ambitious at this time and under current circumstances is liable to be counter-productive and destructive to all our interests.

Published 20/8/2007 © www.bitterlemons.org

Yossi Alpher is the Israeli coeditor of the bitterlemons family of internet publications. He is former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University and a former special adviser to PM Ehud Barak.