One's puzzlement over the Arab scene intensifies each time an Arab summit is held. Last week, everyone started talking about the Arab peace initiative. The five-year-old initiative was dusted off and presented as a miracle solution. Suddenly, we are being asked to believe that full normalisation will bring about a complete Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab land. And our leaders are solemnly calling on the Israelis to seize the opportunity. Yet there is only one thing Israel liked about the initiative: normalisation. But the Israelis played along. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, faking concern over tensions in the region, said he was willing to consider anything US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice brings to the table.
For her part, Rice got her moderate Arab friends to present the initiative in a vague manner. For example, they spoke of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem rather than the right of return of refugees. And even as Arab leaders assured us that there has been no change in the initiative, the Israelis were having second thoughts. Rice met twice with Olmert and twice with Abbas and still failed to bring Olmert to discuss the question of a final settlement. The only thing the US diplomat achieved was to get Abbas and Olmert to meet every two weeks. Palestinian officials were quick to point out that nothing was likely to come out of such meetings. Olmert is not even honouring earlier promises on political and security matters.
Rice wasn't straightforward with moderate Arabs. In Aswan, she asked Arab leaders to show some flexibility. She also proposed a meeting between the International Quartet, the Arab Quartet, Israel and Palestine. But Rice has not secured Israel's commitment to start final status negotiations. Rice hasn't even succeeded in getting Israel to implement confidence- building measures approved earlier, such as the release of Palestinian monetary assets and detainees in return for the release of one captured Israeli soldier.
Olmert is refusing to discuss final status issues because, he says, Hamas is refusing to recognise Israel. Despite that, the Arabs left the door open to compromise. They will form working groups to hold international consultations with the UN Security Council, the UN and the International Quartet about the Arab initiative. The Riyadh summit was optimistic that such action would jump- start peace talks.
In short, Rice is trying to get the Arabs to recognise Israel, through normalisation, without a quid pro quo. Rice wants the Arab Quartet to meet the Quartet, then with Israel and Palestine (Syria is not invited), which amounts to an implicit recognition of Israel. But the US diplomat is not asking Israel for anything in return. Israel can build more settlements. It can engage in brutal acts against the Palestinians. And it can voice its opposition to the Arab initiative.
Oddly enough, some Arab countries were optimistic about Rice's tour. Some believed that the US diplomat was trying to fulfil Bush's promise to implement a two-state solution. But all signs indicate that the sudden interest of the US and Israel in the Arab initiative is nothing but a gimmick.
The Arabs may believe that the Arab initiative is still good and alive. But it would be a grave mistake to depend on the International Quartet. The Arab initiative is not going to get us anywhere unless Arab countries provide support to the Palestinian national unity government and make sure that Palestinian factions are not going to turn one against another in the future. The International Quartet is fully under US control. It is nothing more than a warehouse in which the US stores peace initiatives and
Al-Ahram Weekly Online
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