Palestinian Goal of Statehood vs. Israeli Aim for Cease-Fire
AN ELUSIVE TRUCE
The New York Times
March 31, 2002
By JOEL BRINKLEY with TODD S. PURDUM
JERUSALEM, March 30 -
Earlier this week, Gen.
Anthony C. Zinni, the American
special envoy here, handed
Israelis and Palestinians a
document titled "Joint Goals"
that was intended to lay out areas
of agreement and disagreement.
The Israelis quickly said they
were generally satisfied. But the
Palestinians erupted: Despite
promises they said they had
heard, there was no mention of
political talks toward their
cherished goal of creating a
Palestinian state.
In a written response, made
available to The New York Times,
the Palestinians said: "The
proposal does not make any
mention whatsoever of the
Mitchell report of the overall goal
of reaching a permanent status,"
referring to the multistep plan set
out by the former Senator George
J. Mitchell that would eventually
lead to discussions for a final
peace agreement.
General Zinni was first trying to
implement the proposal for a
cease-fire devised by George J.
Tenet, the American director of
central intelligence, that would
lead to cessation of the warfare
and an Israeli withdrawal of
troops to positions held 18
months ago, when the fighting
erupted.
But the Palestinians wanted a
clear link between the cease-fire
and talks for a Palestinian nation.
Today, President Bush
emphasized that General Zinni
would remain in the area and
would be prepared to continue
his talks if only a cease-fire could
be arranged. The big impediment,
Mr. Bush indicated, was Yasir
Arafat's unwillingness to take
steps to stop terrorism.
"I believe he can do a lot more to
prevent attack," Mr. Bush said,
referring to Mr. Arafat.
While acknowledging Israel's
right to defend itself against terrorists, Mr. Bush also
indicated that Israel should not destroy the Palestinian
Authority or take other steps that would make it
impossible to resume talks.
In the swirl of events in the Middle East - a sweeping
Saudi peace proposal backed by Arab leaders and the
United States, and a level of fighting not seen in many
years - at least this much seems clear: the Israel led by
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has more immediate interest
in a cease-fire than in a permanent settlement with an
enemy it distrusts, while the Palestinians have little or no
motive to halt their increasingly effective guerrilla
campaign if they do not obtain concrete talks on
statehood.
Faced with this impasse, the recent and reluctant
American diplomatic involvement in the region, involving
Vice President Dick Cheney and General Zinni, has
stumbled badly and the Bush administration has
appeared uncertain how to proceed. Its long-term strategy
for Iraq and its focus on fighting terrorism have
complicated efforts to guide Mr. Sharon and Mr. Arafat
toward some of form of accommodation.
When, after the exchange of notes, a Palestinian official
asked General Zinni about an agreement to move to
political talks about a Palestinian state, he recalled,
General Zinni told him, "It's outside my mandate," adding,
"As soon as we agree on a security plan, I will come back
tomorrow and discuss Mitchell."
In Washington, a senior administration official insisted
that General Zinni remained prepared to open parallel
talks on political issues the minute the parties took
serious steps toward a cease-fire.
"He's talking constantly about political discussions that
would go right along," the official said.
But the Palestinians are clearly not convinced, even as the
Israeli military pressure mounts on Mr. Arafat in his
compound. As one Palestinian official sees it, "The Israelis
were saying `Give us what we want, and then maybe we
will talk to you later.' The proposal does not make any
mention whatsoever of the Mitchell report of the overall
goal of reaching a permanent status."
Like every Israeli interviewed, Mr. Sharon blamed Mr.
Arafat and his aides. "The people who are responsible for
the failure of the Zinni mission are the Palestinians," Mr.
Sharon said. "We really did want a cease-fire. But the only
response was terrorism."
The Public Relations War
Interviews with Israelis, Palestinians and diplomats here
and in Washington provide a picture of a sophisticated
Israeli government campaign to influence General Zinni to
view the conflict through their eyes.
"They were very clever, very persuasive," said a senior
diplomat here involved in the talks. By all accounts,
Palestinians officials were ineffectual, even ham-handed at
presenting their case, and anything they had to say was
loudly overridden by the bombings and attacks by their
followers. That violence set the agenda for everyone almost
every day.
What the Palestinians were trying to say was that a
cease-fire was not enough.
Any cease-fire without some movement toward a political
solution, the Palestinians and others said, was bound to
fail. The cycle of violence would start again.
"At this point it is more difficult than ever to achieve a
cease-fire without political underpinnings," said Terje
Roed-Larsen, the United Nations envoy here.
The American-sponsored cease-fire talks were dragging
along when Mr. Cheney arrived here two weeks ago. But
then, together with Mr. Sharon, Mr. Cheney devised what
the two men considered a compelling offer to bring the
Palestinians around.
While here, Mr. Cheney had scheduled no meeting with
Mr. Arafat. But the vice president said he would come
back to the region - meet with Mr. Arafat, pose for
pictures, shake his hand and make it possible for him to
attend the Arab League summit meeting in Beirut - if
the Palestinian leader agreed to a cease-fire and efforts to
enforce it. With this, the Americans and Israelis believed,
the cease-fire talks might finally succeed.
For Mr. Arafat, this would be the highest-level meeting he
would have with the Bush administration, which had
snubbed him before now. But even though Mr. Arafat
initially indicated that he wanted the meeting,
Palestinians were unmoved. Some shook their heads with
amusement.
"What they were asking was that we sign this agreement
that will take us nowhere, so the cease-fire will fail and
we'll be blamed," said a well-placed Palestinian official
involved in the talks. "And for that you get to shake the
hand of the vice president?"
Presented with Mr. Cheney's offer, Mr. Arafat responded
agreeably, as he so often does. But then he did nothing,
as usually happens. Suicide bombings continued, with
one on Wednesday night during a Passover Seder in a
Natanya hotel, which killed 22 people and another
bombing today in a Tel Aviv cafe.
It was the rage that stemmed from the Wednesday attack
that led Israel, early Friday morning, to begin a broad,
sustained military incursion.
The Uses of Force
That offensive has clearly made prospects for any
cease-fire - much less any political talks - remote. The
Bush administration, having spent its first months in
office vowing to stay out of active Middle East diplomacy,
finds itself embroiled in a situation apparently more
explosive than any confronted here by the Clinton
administration: a buoyant Palestinian military campaign,
enthusiastically supported throughout the Arab world,
against a tough-minded Israeli leader almost universally
reviled in the Arab world.
A senior diplomat here explained the conviction among
some Palestinians that only violence can work. This
diplomat said he had tried for weeks to persuade Israel to
cut down the number of military checkpoints in the West
Bank that are "particularly humiliating to the
Palestinians."
"I wanted them to reduce the number by three, four, five,"
he said. "Nothing happened. Then the Palestinians started
shooting at the soldiers at the checkpoints. Four were
killed. And Israel closed 40 checkpoints right away. So
that's why Palestinians believe that only violence works."
When General Zinni, a retired marine, arrived here on
March 14 for his third visit, after two previous failures,
expectations were particularly low. The level of violence
had reached a new climax. Everyone here, even the most
junior Palestinian fighter on the street, thought he knew
the real agenda.
The day after General Zinni arrived, Ahmed, a 22-year-old
Palestinian fighter, stood in Ramallah with a group of
fighters and an AK-47 slung over his shoulder. "Zinni's
here just to help Cheney so America can bomb Iraq," he
said.
At that time, Mr. Cheney was visiting Arab countries
trying to win support for America's war on terrorism and
for taking action in Iraq. But virtually all he heard in every
Arab capital was concern about the Palestinian problem.
Zalman Shoval, a former ambassador to the United States
and an adviser to Mr. Sharon, said: "You mustn't forget
that Arab countries were putting a lot of pressure on
Washington, and the administration didn't want to be
blamed by their traditional Arab allies for not even trying.
So they came against their better judgment to create
some relative quiet so Cheney's mission could proceed."
At the same time, several Palestinians said, everyone
knew that Mr. Sharon's popularity was plummeting
among Israelis. So, they said, they hoped the prime
minister might be willing to take bold diplomatic steps
that he had not considered before.
In Washington, officials said the concern was broader.
"The issue is: How do you stop this?" said one senior
official. "And walking away is not going to make things
better. More people are going to die."
Israelis had low expectations. Israeli officials are generally
unwilling to be quoted saying anything critical about the
United States, this country's greatest patron and friend.
But several said they believed that General Zinni was not
a big enough star and did not have enough visible support
from Washington to be effective here.
Israeli intelligence and security officials had been telling
their leaders for weeks that no cease-fire would work
without movement toward a political settlement.
Mr. Arafat "can't be seen as Sharon's enforcer," one said
in an interview. General Zinni has to realize that "if it's
security alone, it's just not going to work."
Still, one senior Israeli official said Israel had a narrower
aim. "The idea is such that we are not going to be blamed"
if the Zinni effort failed, he said. "If Arafat is blamed
totally, it's going to be much easier for Israel to act."
Now, on his third visit, the Israelis once again courted and
lobbied General Zinni. On his first visit, last November,
Mr. Sharon gave him one of his trademark helicopter
tours of Israel and the West Bank, intended to show
Israel's vulnerability. While they were in the air, two
Palestinian gunmen went on a shooting rampage in Afula,
in the north, killing 2 Israelis and wounding 10. Mr.
Sharon hovered over the town and gave General Zinni a
briefing on violence.
After they landed, the general said the assault "points out
the importance of gaining a cease-fire" in order to "get on
to something more comprehensive."
That mission failed as Israel and the Palestinians
descended into ever greater violence. Eventually, General
Zinni was called home. Just after the first of the year, he
came back to try again but stayed only a few days. His trip
was overshadowed by Israel's seizure of a 50-ton shipload
of weaponry headed for the Palestinians.
Mr. Bush announced General Zinni's third visit on Friday,
March 8, a particularly bloody day here. Israeli troops shot
and killed 40 Palestinians. It happened, as well, that Mr.
Cheney was leaving on his visit to eight Arab states that
Sunday.
On this visit, Israel continued its practice of giving General
Zinni briefings and special intelligence information almost
daily.
"Oh sure, we briefed him," said Danny Ayalon, Mr.
Sharon's foreign policy adviser. "We would tell him about
the warnings and hot alerts we were getting" about
possible attacks. Israelis say they believe that all their talk
about Palestinian terrorism plays well in America now,
after Sept. 11. Raanan Gissin, the prime minister's
spokesman, likes to call the sites of major bombings "our
own ground zero."
The Palestinians, meanwhile, never seemed able to match
the Israeli effort.
"We talked about it," the senior Palestinian official said. "I
remember discussing, `Why don't we take him around and
show him the settlements, where they are, how many
there are?' But I don't think we ever got around to do it."
(The American Consulate in Jerusalem did eventually give
General Zinni a settlement tour.)
Still, the Palestinians were cautiously optimistic after the
first few meetings. One Palestinian said General Zinni told
them, "I am here to go the whole way," which to them
meant that he would work toward gaining a cease-fire and
movement toward political goals at the same time. In
addition the official said, Mr. Larsen, the United Nations
envoy, had met with General Zinni and had been told that
he would deal with political issues.
The crux of the Palestinian concern is this: Palestinians
began attacking Israel 18 months ago because they were
frustrated by the lack of movement toward gaining a state.
Many believe that suicide bombs are the only action they
can take that will gain Israel's attention. If they agree to a
cease-fire with just a vague promise of political talks, a
cease-fire will not hold.
As the Palestinian official put it: "We agree to the security
plan, and then they stall. One person blows himself up,
and then they say we cannot discuss political issues as
long as this violence continues."
The Political Issue
Most people here believe that Mr. Cheney instructed
General Zinni to work only on a cease-fire after Mr.
Cheney's meeting with Mr. Sharon during his visit here
on March 20. One senior diplomat said the general had
said as much to him. "His wings were clipped," the
diplomat said.
In Washington, however, senior officials at the White
House and the State Department vigorously dispute that
version.
One Bush official dismissed this view as "Palestinian spin"
aimed at masking the fact that Mr. Arafat had failed to
satisfy the conditions for a meeting with Mr. Cheney and
carry out a cease-fire.
In any case, General Zinni declined to discuss anything
but a security agreement, for now. He told the
Palestinians that they could discuss politics with the
Israelis on their own if they wanted, which caused
Palestinians to roll their eyes.
Meanwhile, Mr. Cheney offered to come back if Mr. Arafat
agreed to a cease-fire, and President Bush began pushing
Mr. Sharon to let Mr. Arafat attend the Arab League
summit meeting in Beirut.
Mr. Sharon snubbed Washington and declined to let Mr.
Arafat go.
Avi Gil, director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry,
says he believes that Mr. Arafat simply made a major
blunder.
"If the Palestinians look seriously at what happened in
just the last week," he said, "they blew up a serious
opportunity. Arafat could have met with the vice president
of the United States. He could have gone to Beirut to talk
about the Saudi peace plan."
The senior Palestinian official said he and his colleagues
were totally discouraged. If General Zinni manages to
open talks again, he said, "Why should we bother?"
nytimes.com |
