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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (19896)	2/24/2002 9:27:22 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

But it's clear the present lack of involvement from outside the two participants is unacceptable and leads only further into the abyss. As you know, I don't think that's clear at all. Whenever peace has been successfully established in the Mideast, it has been based on bilateral negotiations, not imposed by outside parties. Anyway, I think everybody is basically in a waiting game -- waiting for the US invasion of Iraq. I thought today's debka had an interesting take on the current Sharon-Mubarak-Arafat negotiations. While debka's interpretations are always far-right, their track record for reporting the actual actions of Egyptian, Israeli, and PA government officials is quite good, as far as I can tell. At least, I have often seen their reports confirmed by the mainstream press and rarely seen them contradicted. __________________________________________________________ Arafat May Soon Be Out DEBKAfile Special Report 24 February: Israel’s security cabinet decision Sunday, February 24, to slightly ease Yasser Arafat’s conditions of confinement in Ramallah was accompanied by a pullback of the tanks besieging his headquarters for nearly three months. But to leave this West Bank hub town - he wants to attend the Arab League summit in Beirut on March 28 - he will have to ask Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon for permission. The cabinet reaffirmed Israel’s demand for the Palestinian Authority to extradite the Palestinian murderers of tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi last year. Most ministers remain skeptical of the Palestinian claim to have arrested three killers in Nablus last Thursday, February 22. Palestinian officials greeted the Israeli cabinet decision with rage, announcing severance of political and security contacts with Israel and calling off the second joint security commission meeting scheduled for Sunday night. The first meeting Thursday approved eased restrictions for the Palestinians. Alongside Palestinian rage, Labor and opposition left-wing spokesmen have slammed the decision, while the hardliners hail it a victory. DEBKAfile’s political sources in Jerusalem, Cairo, Amman and Palestinian-ruled areas advise waiting for the arrival in Jerusalem and Ramallah of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s top political adviser, Osama al-Baz Monday, February 25. He will be continuing the initiative launched by the Egyptian president in his telephone conversation with Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon last Thursday, February 22. (See separate article on this page.) Under that initiative, Arafat will order a slowdown in the Palestinian shooting and terror campaign, though not its complete cessation – upon which Egypt will ask the US government to send retired general Anthony Zinni back to the region to continue the impetus. This sequence of events was arranged when US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s special envoy, Richard Haas, visited Cairo last week. Zinni’s return is intended to revive the trilateral US-Palestinian-Israel security forum inactive since the onset of the latest wave of Palestinian escalation following the capture of the Palesitnian Karine-A arms smuggling ship in early January. Progress in that forum will unlock the door for Arafat to attend the Beirut Arab League summit. Over the weekend, Sharon received word from Cairo that Arafat had accepted these steps and it was Sharon’s turn to recommend his release at the Sunday morning cabinet meeting. However, the prime minister upon a cursory check found that the Palestinian endorsement had not come from Arafat but from non-combatant Palestinian Authority officials, Saeb Arikat, Yasser Abd Rabbo, Abu Mazen and Abu Ala. Arafat himself had said nothing. Sharon accordingly demanded an interim step before setting the Palestinian leader free. Al Baz will therefore put the question fair and square before Arafat Monday: Do you or don’t you accept the deal on offer? If so, President Mubarak wants a clear answer and a commitment addressed to him before going forward. If not, the initiative is stalled and you remain cornered in Ramallah. The presidential envoy from Cairo will not have to spell out for Arafat that the new initiative was put together by Egypt, with the United States and Jordan in the background. None will argue if Arafat stays confined until he sees reason. What no one is saying out loud is that Arafat may scatter promises right and left to escape from the Ramallah trap, but he will not renounce terror. Washington and Cairo floated the new initiative to buy a measure of calm while the United States wound up the initial stages of its Iraq campaign. The Israeli cabinet’s decision Sunday was sensible in that it paved the way for Egypt to take it forward, but the final decision over the Palestinian leader’s freedom stayed in Sharon’s hands. Later… Egyptian emissary Osama al-Baz put off his visits to Jerusalem and Ramallah Sunday afternoon, hours before they were due to take place Monday, February 24. President Mubarak, like prime minister Sharon, is clearly in no hurry unlock Arafat from his Ramallah confinement. Since the Egyptian President is due in Washington to see President Bush on March 6, anyway, he has evidently decided to check back with the White House first before getting back to Arafat. This will still leave plenty of time for Arafat to reach the Arab League summit on March 28. In fact, he may believe that the longer Arafat is kept on tenterhooks before the summit date, the more accommodating he is likely to be. The only problem is that while Arafat is left to stew, he may decide his fastest escape route lies in further raising the level of terror.

To: JohnM who wrote (19896)	2/25/2002 12:40:17 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

February 25, 2002 'Masterly Inactivity' By WILLIAM SAFIRE WASHINGTON -- The way to end the Palestinian guerrilla war against Israel is to demonstrate forcefully that such a war cannot be won. Only when that sinks in can Arab and Jewish states prosper side by side. Terrorist leaders in and out of the Arafat camp believe instead that the mutual bloodshed they have instigated will cause the U.S. or U.N. to intervene and impose a comprehensive deal that would render Israel defenseless, ripe for the "final phase" of their Palestinian plan. Therefore, the worst policy for the United States would be to repeat the Clinton mistake of unending intercession. Arranging White House photo ops to bolster Arafat and sending American envoys to be humiliated again by suicide missions would feed the extremists' hopes for victory. On the contrary, the U.S. should redouble its pressure on the Palestinian Authority to act like a potential government — to arrest, try and seriously punish the terrorists who make negotiations impossible. Our intercession as an intermediary must first be earned by a show of good faith. Of course, America's long-awaited "masterly inactivity," as diplomats say, is being criticized by what's left of the left in Israel. It is echoed here by those who still cannot grasp that the underlying reason for the failure of nine cease-fires is the Palestinian belief that Israel can be worn down. That is why a dovecote flutters at any seeming "movement." The Saudi ruler said to my colleague Tom Friedman that he was mulling a speech calling for "full normalization of relations" if Israel handed over the whole West Bank and divided its capital. That reiterated a position taken 20 years ago by King Fahd, and demands even more concessions than were offered by the repudiated Ehud Barak. Tom's straightforward report was clearly attributed to Prince Abdullah. A subsequent article by a non-journalist dove, however, enthusiastically quoted unnamed "Saudi sources" as being much more forthcoming, even graciously bestowing Israeli sovereignty on the Western Wall. (I know such unquotable types who manipulate the gullible. They also claim that the Saudis had the Palestinians all primed to accept Barak's wild offer, but that by not holding Arafat's feet to the fire, the too-eager Clinton blew the deal. Saudis now spread this oil slick to ingratiate themselves with Bush people.) Saudi posturing serves three purposes: (1) to counter U.S. repugnance at financial support of hate-America mosques that resulted in the Sept. 11 attacks by 15 Saudis, (2) to pretend that the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is the source of the Arab world's discontents, a pretense also adopted by Osama bin Laden, and (3) to prepare the ground for a denial of our Saudi bases to support an attack on Saddam Hussein's germ factories. The response of Israel's Ariel Sharon to this warmed-over whining in new bottles, as well as to recent communications with Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, has been respectful: all proposals, including Israel's, should be discussed. Arafat's arrest of the killers of an Israeli cabinet minister drew a calibrated, skeptical pullback. Sharon is determined to continue governing from the center. Doves now overcoming their disillusion should note that the alternative to him would surely not come from the left. In lieu of all-out counterattack, Sharon is discussing buffer zones to protect Israeli population centers and airfields from terrorist incursions or rockets — not a wall, certainly not a boundary, but two-mile strips of land with mobile patrols alerted by electronic sensors. Forces would still be empowered to strike deeper at planners and perpetrators of violence. Israel's unity government is not fooling itself. This will reduce civilian casualties but not end the guerrilla war. That will come only with the Arab realization that the will of Israel's people cannot be broken and that the U.S. will not force a false peace or acquiesce in U.N. meddling. In phased negotiations to follow, Jerusalem will not be divided, nor will the West Bank and its Jordan Valley be wholly given over, nor will an invasion of Arab immigrants overwhelm the Jewish state. Arafat's extremist expectations require victory in a guerrilla war. That war will not be won. Under realistic leadership, Palestine will become a contiguous state unburdened by military expenses and its people the pride of the Arab world. The timing depends not on American brokerage, but on when Palestinians defeat their enemies within. nytimes.com