PALESTINE:
TOTTERING
BETWEEN
WAR
AND
PEACE
June
began with some hope for the long-suffering Palestinian people as the new
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas began to engage with Israel, the US and
other Mid-Eastern regimes to stabilise the Palestinian Authority and move
towards the ultimate goal of creating a Palestinian state.
Although
people like Abbas are looked at with some suspicion as the quintessential
quislings — like the present leadership in Afghanistan and Yugoslavia —
hopes for some improvement in the Palestinian situation had begun to grow.
The mood in the region seemed positive even if Yasser Arafat had been completely sidelined and ignored, signifying a new version of “regime-change” after Afghanistan and Iraq.
After
quite a while the Middle East seemed to be moving towards a hopeful future. The
resentments generated by the US-led attack on Iraq seemed to have simmered down
to a manageable level in the entire region. Within Iraq, too, the pro-US
leadership emerging now could not be said to be more dangerous or injurious to
Iraqis themselves than Saddam’s. It is going to be more democratic and
pluralistic rather than Saddam’s one-family rule.
The
real source of trouble in the Middle East, however, has been the continuing Arab
Israeli conflict of half a century. This conflict is bad not only for the region
or the Muslim world, but for far more countries than that. Even some of the rift
in US-EU relations can be directly attributed to it. The EU, for its own
economic and political compulsions, wants a balanced relationship with both
Israelis and Arabs while the US is closer to Israel than to its Arab allies,
even to the extent of supporting some of Israel’s transparently unfair
policies towards Palestinians.
Early
June saw the three sides – Israelis, Palestinians and the US – subtly moving
away from their uncompromising positions of the past, which made any meaningful
step towards settlement of the issue nearly impossible. Prime Minister Mahmoud
Abbas said at the Sharm-al-Sheikh summit in Egypt that Jews had suffered
worldwide over the last several centuries, and the Palestinians wanted their
sufferings to end finally.
For
his part, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon admitted that there was no
solution to the problem except the two-state solution – Israeli and
Palestinian states, side by side. For the first time he admitted that the
proposed state of Palestine must have “contiguous” national territory. Thus
he conceded a crucial Palestinian and Arab demand. Presently, the Palestine
National Authority, the territory marked as future Palestinian state, is not
contiguous, but hemmed in by an endless number of Jewish settlements, Israeli
military posts and enclaves within it.
President George W Bush seemed happy even though he admitted that hard work lay ahead, like prevention of future terrorist attacks by Palestinians, finalisation of the status of Jerusalem – equally sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians – and the Palestinian right to return to their homes from which they were evicted by Israelis at the time of Israel’s creation. The last two issues are difficult, but not impossible, to solve.
Already Palestinian intellectuals like Edward Said have said that Palestinians who settled in countries like America, Britain, France or some Arab countries 55 years ago are well-heeled in their adopted countries. That makes things easier for Israel, which will have to pay compensation as it got from Austria and Germany for similar reasons. There is already some agreement on that.
Everything
seemed to be moving smoothly till the old spoilsport Ariel Sharon tried to kill
the new peace initiative within a couple of days of agreeing to follow the US
“roadmap” to peace. He nearly destroyed hopes of peace by launching a
missile attack on Hamas learder Abdel-Aziz Rantissi’s home on June 10 without
any provocation whatsoever. Three people were killed and Rantissi and his
teenage son were wounded in the helicopter-borne missile attack. Hamas vowed to
avenge the uncalled for aggression.
President
Bush was, naturally, “deeply troubled”. His spokesman Ari Fleischer said the
President was worried that “the strike will undermine efforts by Palestinian
authorities and others and does not contribute to the security of Israel.”
Within the next-two days the revenge came—16 Israelis were killed in a suicide
bombing which wounded another 100. Then came the Israeli reprisal attacks—more
helicopter-borne missile strikes. By mid-June the toll had gone up to 60.
People
have been asking why did Sharon begin the unprovoked attack even though he had
dismantled about a dozen Israeli settlements within days of the agreement. The
most plausible explanation is that he did not want the Israelis to think that he
was no longer a great warrior and had gone soft. It was his bravado that had
launched the present Intifadah in 2000.
Despite
his posturing Sharon knows that force alone will not solve anything. Before
mid-June there was mounting US pressure on him to resume talks, which he did.
Israeli and Palestinian officials said they were negotiating Israeli withdrawal
from parts of the Gaza strip to positions held before the beginning of the
current Intifadah in September 2000.
So,
what it all boils down to? Possibly the emergence of a Palestinian state within
the next few years – a demilitarised state side by side a nuclear-armed Israel
that has all the weapons that America itself has. But even that is a gain for
the Palestinians, who have nothing more to lose and no meaningful support from
anyone.
g
pROF. z M kHAN teaches political science at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.