Middle East Conflict: Seek Palestinian Confidence in What?
Henry Siegman Tuesday, July 17, 2001
NEW YORK The Oslo accords failed to produce a permanent status agreement for many reasons, but primarily and most importantly because Israel never committed itself to the only goal that could have made possible such an agreement - a viable, sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. Without such a clearly defined goal, so-called confidence-building measures have no chance whatever of achieving their purpose.
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Confidence is not an abstraction that exists for its own sake; it assumes meaning in relation to a goal - it is confidence that the goal can be achieved. In the context of Oslo, "confidence-building measures" can only mean steps that lead Palestinians to believe that they will achieve viable statehood. But if the goal of viable Palestinian statehood remains unconfirmed by Israel, as it was under Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak, or is explicitly denied, as it has been by Ariel Sharon, what meaning could "confidence-building measures" conceivably have? In these circumstances, incremental steps, far from building confidence, undermine it, for Palestinians fear that each partial measure may be intended by their adversary as the last.
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Mr. Sharon has stated categorically that permanent status negotiations are not on his agenda, and that the best Palestinians can hope for is a nonbelligerency pact and the continuation of the status quo for another generation.
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The absurdity of returning to this proven prescription for failure - "confidence-building measures" unrelated to a goal that begins to address the most basic aspiration to meaningful statehood - boggles the imagination. And yet that remains the basis of U.S. diplomacy. Most Israelis, including those who identified with what used to be Israel's left, no longer accept the preceding argument. They now insist that whatever merits the argument may once have had, those merits disappeared when Mr. Barak offered a viable state to Yasser Arafat at Camp David and Mr. Arafat rejected it. In fact, Mr. Barak made no such offer at camp David. The notion that he did so is fiction.
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But let us assume that the notion is true, and that Mr. Arafat rejected the offer of a viable Palestinian state. If viable Palestinian statehood is a right of the Palestinian people, based on UN Resolutions 242 and 338, Mr. Arafat's rejection of Mr. Barak's proposals, however ill-advised or even malevolent, does not cause those rights to evaporate. The Israeli notion that a Palestinian rejection of a particular Israeli proposal cancels Palestinian rights to the West Bank and Gaza, rights that were recognized by the international community, has no basis in international law.
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If Israel believes that it can prolong the occupation of the territories because of Palestinian "ingratitude," it is because Israel has never really accepted the legitimacy and authenticity of Palestinian national identity. Palestinian claims to statehood are seen by Israel as subject to Israeli acquiescence and to the vagaries of its own domestic political consensus.
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A peace process based on such false and insulting assumptions could not have succeeded in the past, and stands no chance of succeeding in the future. If the United States and Europe wish to play an effective role in persuading Palestinians to implement a cease-fire and to abjure violence, two conditions must be met. First, the cease-fire must be linked to a resumption of a political process in ways far more credible than is now the case. Second, the United States and Europe must be prepared to declare that however reluctant Israel may be to affirm viable Palestinian statehood as the goal of the political process, they do not share that reluctance.
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With such an assurance from the United States and the European countries, Palestinians are given a concrete reason to pursue their goal by political means; a return to violence would jeopardize this significant diplomatic achievement. Without such an affirmation by at least the United States and the Europeans, a return to violence and bloodshed is all one can see on the horizon.
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The writer is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He contributed this personal comment to the International Herald Tribune.
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