Before the outbreak of the second intifada, U.S. policy makers were convinced that Yasser Arafat was the only Palestinian leader who could make the compromises Washington believed necessary to secure peace in the Middle East. That such compromises would be necessary was a foregone conclusion – indeed the Oslo process itself, which delayed decisions on the most sensitive areas until the end of the process, seemed to ordain their necessity. The areas included the right of return of Palestinian refugees, the status of Jerusalem, the disposition of Israeli settlements, and a host of other issues. Most American and Israeli officials believed that Arafat would accept an “honorable” agreement in order to gain American and Israeli recognition for a Palestinian state that virtually all believed would emerge from successful negotiations. What constituted such an honorable agreement remained unclear, but when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak began to show a willingness to break longstanding Israeli taboos, and even his own campaign pledges, there was a strong belief that at least the Israeli partner for such an agreement had been found, even if not yet the exact terms of the compromise itself.
On the other side of the equation, Arafat’s reputation as a serious partner for peace began in the late 1980s, when he accepted U.N. resolutions 242 and 338, and was solidified in 1993, when he formally recognized Israel. Arafat returned to Gaza in 1995 as part of the subsequent Oslo agreement, which also created the self-rule Palestinian Authority (PA) and its wide-ranging, if not at times overlapping, ministries and security services. But Arafat always remained the man one had to see to get anything done in the Palestinian-ruled areas. Whether it was a demand to arrest Hamas activists, a request to review Palestinian textbooks, or an insistence that allegations of corruption be addressed, it was understood that Arafat was central to any decision. Although Arafat had never publicly committed himself to accepting less than the maximum Palestinian demands (deriving from their interpretation of the above U.N. resolutions and also U.N. Resolution 184 on the refugee issue) and certainly had taken no steps to prepare the Palestinian public that it would be necessary to accept less (stating instead that Palestinian recognition of Israel and the loss of 78 percent of historic mandatory Palestine allowed for no further compromises), there was a belief that Arafat would cut a deal in order to get his state.
Thus when Arafat rejected former Israeli Prime Minister Barak’s offer at Camp David in the summer of 2000, U.S. policy makers were both dismayed and shocked. They were so convinced of Arafat’s ability to make compromises that they overlooked the question of whether politically he could sign the sort of final status agreement – providing for the settling of all outstanding claims in the 50year conflict – demanded by the Israelis. At the same time, when the second intifada broke out in late September 2000, Arafat took no effective measures to stop it, effectively undercutting Barak and decimating the Israeli peace camp as the violence grew progressively worse.
Although Barak’s offer, along with subsequent ones as talks continued following the collapse of Camp David, was seen by outsiders as both a reasonable compromise and the most generous Israeli proposal ever, Arafat not only rejected the deal; he also refused to make a serious counteroffer. By the time the final series of negotiations got underway in the Egyptian border city of Taba in December 2000, it was a foregone conclusion that Barak would lose the scheduled elections to right-wing rival Ariel Sharon, who had made clear during the campaign his complete opposition to offering Arafat what Barak was proposing.
In the subsequent debate over what went wrong, many argue that Arafat simply was not interested in making peace. Conversely, some say that Barak’s offers were in fact not sufficiently generous and that he failed to prepare the diplomatic groundwork for Camp David properly by not implementing a large number of outstanding Israeli obligations remaining from the interim period. Still others point to what they see as clumsy American handling of the negotiations. In the author’s view, none of these explanations gets to the heart of the problem. Rather, the expectation that Arafat would accept a final-status agreement that involved his making even “reasonable” concessions was itself unrealistic. This is not because Arafat did not necessarily want peace, nor is it because Barak’s offers were not necessarily generous. The difficulty looms in the nature of Arafat’s rule, the foundations of his legitimacy, and the complex relationship between Arafat (who has maintained almost complete authority despite decades spent in exile and nearly ruinous political miscalculations) and the Palestinian people. While the United States viewed Arafat as the man who could both make compromises and get Palestinians to accept them, in fact, Arafat’s concerns for maintaining his rule and its legitimacy ironically made it less likely that he would do so.
This does not mean that a deal is impossible. War is no stranger to this region, and lasting peace initiatives have grown out of violence before. Despite the intensity of the present conflict and the enormous suffering endured by Israelis and Palestinians, a negotiated settlement still offers the best possible outcome for both sides. It is also the only way to end the present carnage quickly. The latter point has become the subject of debate as both Palestinians and Israelis argue that they lack a true partner for dialogue and peace. It is the author’s view that each side’s desire for peace depends in large part upon a consideration of the alternatives. If neither side believes that there is a credible political track toward peace, then fighting will be seen as the only possible alternative. Similarly, once on the political track, if neither side believes the other is serious about pursuing talks fairly, then it is likely that this track will break down and lead to renewed fighting.
I therefore conclude with a proposal for conducting a possible restarting of the negotiations on the basis of a path that would run between focusing on “high” politics, attempting to solve the highly symbolic and contentious issues associated with final status, and “low” politics, an approach that seeks simply to recreate the interim period. This path I have labeled “middle” politics.
CAMP DAVID AND LEGITIMACY
Arafat has maintained his leadership of the Palestinian movement since he took over control of the PLO in the late sixties. He has managed to do so despite military defeats by Israel; the collapse of his major patron, the Soviet Union; disastrous political choices; attempted assassinations and expulsion from various bases; occasional abandonment or vilification by other Arab leaders; and now a failing peace process. Perhaps uniquely, he had maintained his leadership despite decades of not setting foot on the land he claimed to rule. He has done so without having control over a powerful army and state apparatus, without always having a clear ideological base, and without possessing a monolithic political organization on which others in the region have relied. Indeed, neither Fatah nor the PLO has ever provided Arafat with the sort of absolute obedience and loyalty that, for example, the Baath party in Iraq with the Takriti-dominated army and security services has provided Saddam Hussein.
While seeking to keep power, Arafat has also had to maintain his legitimacy among a Palestinian people which for decades only saw him on television. The overt symbols of this legitimacy are clear: Arafat is the head of both Fatah and the PLO, and he won a resounding victory in elections upon his return to the territories in January 1996. But Arafat is also more than this. Throughout the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, one can see billboards with Arafat’s picture and slogans that describe him as the “Symbol of the Palestinian Revolution.” While Arafat sustains Palestinian hopes for some very specific outcomes to the peace process – like the return of refugees or regaining Jerusalem – such billboards attempt to lift Arafat into a transcendent realm above daily politics.
Symbols of revolutions need not concern themselves with how municipalities will collect the garbage. In fact, Arafat never made a successful transition from the role of revolutionary to that of executive running a nascent state. Arafat did not create independent institutions that could have formed the basis of a future state. Instead, he strove to maintain his own position as the central arbiter of disputes whether trivial or involving the most critical elements of the peace process. For even the most low-level problems, it was often necessary to take it to Arafat personally. By being involved in the day-to-day problems of individual Palestinians, Arafat was able to ensure his position as the sole arbiter, and thus leader, of the Palestinian people. But this way of managing made it difficult for the PA to function as an effective, independent government structure. At the same time, it reinforced the centrality of Arafat’s person as the source of political legitimacy rather than his position within the quasi-state structure.
Arafat may therefore be said to operate between two poles. On the one hand, of having a specific program for the peace process and involvement in even the most mundane affairs of citizens and, on the other, of being a symbol, a sort of living embodiment of Palestinian political aspirations. These aspirations are in turn based on a set of historical grievances that arose from the creation of Israel and the dispossession of a people from their historic lands, their passage into exile and the misery of refugee camps, and years of occupation. Arafat’s success in keeping his leadership position against formidable odds has depended upon his ability to uphold his personal connection to these Palestinian aspirations and persuade his people that a successful resolution of their grievances is possible.
At least one senior Israeli participant in the Camp David meetings, former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami,1 appears to have misunderstood Arafat’s relationship with these symbols. Ben Ami, whose anguish at the failure to get an agreement at Camp David is evident throughout a long interview he gave Haaretz in September 2001, said that during Camp David he sometimes believed he was dealing with an “extraterrestrial”:
Arafat is not an earthly leader. He sees himself as a mythological figure. He has always represented himself as a kind of modern Salah a-Din. . . . At Camp David, it was clear he wasn’t looking for practical solutions but was focused on mythological subjects: the right of return, Jerusalem, the Temple Mount.
Ben Ami’s comments suggest that issues like the right of return are somehow mythic and therefore less concrete than a decision on where to put the borders. But obviously, they are as real for Palestinians as they are for Israelis and formed a focal point of both Camp David and all subsequent negotiations. What perhaps Ben Ami was trying to say was that Arafat’s refusal to compromise on these issues, despite the increasing generosity of Israeli offers, was a result of the symbolic importance Arafat attached to obtaining the maximum Palestinian positions on them. Clearly, Ben Ami seems to be arguing, these final-status issues had a different resonance for Arafat than the majority of interim-period issues on which Arafat had been prepared to compromise. Ben Ami’s fear is obvious: for an Israeli leader, Barak had demonstrated an unprecedented willingness to meet Palestinian demands at least part way. If there was no reciprocal action from the Palestinians, then both sides would remain doomed to fight out their conflict on the level of symbols about which compromise was impossible.
In fact, this is exactly what happened. Since September 2000, the Palestinians and Israelis have been engaged in an ever more violent struggle. Yet, if the arguments presented here are right, it is unlikely that Arafat would have accepted a compromise on these issues regardless of how unprecedented the Israeli offer was.
Acceptance of a compromise here would have undercut one of the pillars of Arafat’s legitimacy. For Arafat not to be able to say that the right of return was being upheld, or that after making their own “unprecedented” offer of giving up 78 percent of Mandatory Palestine, that the Palestinians would not get back at least all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip plus control over East Jerusalem, would have been to demonstrate his inability to secure fulfillment of Palestinian aspirations. It would have meant that promises made over decades had been empty. These fears were reflected in conversations I held with Fatah officials during the Camp David negotiations. While many in the American government were confident at the time that Camp David would conclude successfully, these Fatah officials all expressed deep foreboding at an outcome in which it appeared that Arafat had signed away these key aspirations. One official expressed the view that such an agreement would almost certainly mean Arafat’s assassination and the end of the Fatah movement. “People just won’t accept it,” he argued. But while Camp David was perceived as a failure by the Americans and Israelis, Arafat returned a hero to the territories.
One further point needs to be raised. Arafat’s recognition of Israel was surely as wrenching for Palestinians as would have been an agreement that did not specify the right of return. If a compromise was possible in 1993 by recognizing Israel, why would it not have been possible in 2000 to agree to something less than the right of return or the complete removal of settlements?
A full answer to this question is outside the main purview of this article. But it may well be that there were several factors at work. First of all, the Gulf War proved to be a disaster for the Palestinians. Hundreds of thousands were thrown out of long-established residences in various Gulf countries as a result of the PLO’s support for Iraq. Financial support for the PLO dried up as these same Gulf countries stopped financial aid in outrage over the PLO’s decision. The Soviet Union, once a staunch backer of the PLO, had joined its former archenemy (and Israel’s main supporter) the United States in sponsoring the Madrid conference. It may also have been that Arafat was worried about the possibility of a civil war in the territories. He faced an unprecedented challenge from Islamist groups during the first intifada. It was preferable to be engaged in a process where Arafat’s own centrality would be recognized, indirectly during the unsuccessful Madrid talks and then directly during the Oslo negotiations. Finally, Arafat could point to international legitimacy: a negotiation based on U.N. resolutions 242 and 338 had the full weight of the international community behind it. As perhaps a continuation of this same line of argument, it may well be that in Arafat’s mind the decision to recognize Israel under the relevant U.N. resolutions was a collective one undertaken with the support of most (although not all) of the PLO. A decision to make the sorts of compromises demanded at Camp David would have been Arafat’s alone.
WHY NOT WAIT FOR A BETTER OFFER?
From the standpoint of negotiating tactics, one could argue that legitimacy is less important than substance. In the period leading up to the Taba negotiations, for Arafat, refusal to sign today meant that a better offer would come tomorrow. There is agreement that the failure of Camp David did not mean the end of negotiations and Barak in fact continued to sweeten his offers to the Palestinians. The details of the offers were never made public, but are set forth by Ben Ami2 and in EU documents on the Taba negotiations published by the Israeli daily Haaretz.3
Robert Malley and Hussein Agha write extensively on how Barak failed to lay the groundwork for successful negotiations by giving Arafat evidence that he was serious prior to the beginning of the negotiations. Israel continued to be delinquent in carrying out obligations such as the third redeployment from the occupied territories, even while the settlements continued to expand and Palestinians faced enormous difficulties in the movement of both goods and persons. Malley and Agha also argue convincingly that Barak’s initial impulse to pursue the Syrian track was successful in fomenting massive Palestinian mistrust of Israeli intentions. Similarly, Palestinian frustration at the failure of the peace process to deliver what it promised was certainly growing, as evidenced by several days of serious violence during the Nakbah commemorations the previous May. But in the end, Barak offered a deal that should have been reasonably expected to attract serious Palestinian attention and a counteroffer. Malley and Agha point out that Barak succeeded in undercutting himself by presenting, usually through American intermediaries, “bottom line” offers that were inevitably improved upon once the Palestinians rejected them. It was unnecessary for the Palestinians to negotiate as long as Barak was negotiating with himself. But although Clinton publicly blamed Arafat for the breakdown of the talks, Arafat emerged in a considerably stronger domestic position than before he entered them. He had a succession of ever-better Israeli proposals without his having to offer anything in return. He was lionized by a Palestinian public suspicious of any U.S. or Israeli negotiating “trap” after many years of fruitless talks. Arafat’s domestic problems, including deep anger at his autocracy and the corruption that appeared to be endemic inside the Palestinian Authority, appeared to ease with the growth of his standing in the Arab and Islamic world as one who had resisted American and Israeli pressure.
But the larger issue of whether Arafat was prepared to sign even the most improved-upon Israeli offer is doubtful. If Arafat had been serious about concluding the negotiations, at some point he would have begun testing to see where the Israeli limits in fact were. Despite the heady experience for a Palestinian leader of sitting across from an Israeli prime minister more anxious for an agreement than he was (indeed, staking his political survival on obtaining one), Arafat would have had to realize that at some point it was time to cut a deal. In fact, there is no evidence to suggest Arafat was thinking along these lines. There was never any public statement or campaign initiated to prepare the Palestinian public for a deal, regarding either its potentially positive or negative consequences. In conversations with senior American officials and a group of Gaza-based Palestinian businessmen held just before the outbreak of the second intifada, the businessmen expressed shock at the large extent of Israeli concessions.
There is also Arafat’s reaction to the outbreak of violence in late September 2000 to consider. While this author never encountered any credible evidence that Arafat planned the second intifada (any more than Ariel Sharon, whose visit to the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif sparked the violence, was hoping for what ensued), there is little doubt that the violence was useful to Arafat in several ways. First, the outbreak of fighting refocused attention on Arafat as the man one had to see to stop the violence and consequently reinforced his image of centrality to the Palestinian cause. Second, the Palestinians could point out to the world that the violence was a manifestation of genuine frustration with the failure, seven years after Oslo, to get a viable state. Palestinian daily life had not improved as settlements continued to expand and Palestinians continued to require Israeli-issued permits for virtually any important activity.
The intifada, however rational or “expected” on the Palestinian side, put Barak into a critically difficult position. Committed to the peace process, he was now forced to confront charges from the Israeli right that the Palestinians not only had refused to negotiate concerning a reasonable Israeli offer, but they also had shown their true colors by engaging in an orgy of anti-Israeli hatred. Barak was faced with the dilemma of either admitting he had been wrong only two months before in being “generous” or intensifying his efforts to make peace. While the Israeli security response to the violence was certainly forceful and often brutal, Barak ultimately chose the second course of continuing negotiations as the fighting raged on. And there is little doubt that his offer at Taba was in fact the most forthcoming offer ever made by an Israeli official.
LEGITIMACY AND VIOLENCE
The outbreak of the intifada in September 2000 compelled Arafat to determine a strategy of how he would deal with the violence. Whatever its tactical consequences, the violence created some larger problems that Arafat had to consider. These are the effect of the violence on his peace partner Barak, on Arafat’s international standing, and upon his standing with the Palestinian community. As mentioned earlier, the outbreak created an enormous crisis for Barak and the Israeli peace camp, and, although there was no immediate break in the talks, Arafat had to give thought to what his positions would be when the talks resumed. Initially, the question of international standing posed no challenge, as Arafat’s centrality to resolving the problem of the violence was reinforced by constant international entreaty to do whatever it took to end it.
However, the remaining issue of Arafat’s standing within his own community – his legitimacy – was problematic nearly from the outset. By the time the intifada broke out, Palestinian frustration with the peace process was enormous. There was no question that the vast majority of Palestinians supported the intifada and saw it as a justified response to a continuing Israeli occupation that Oslo promised to end but did not. For Arafat this meant that at least some organization identifiable with Fatah, his political party, had to be involved in the fighting. Palestinians had to perceive that Arafat was not standing aside as the violence raged. At the same time, Arafat had to maintain control over the pace of the fighting. He did not want to risk the dilemma he faced in the first intifada, when Islamists, who wanted to intensify the fighting, brought the Palestinians to the brink of a civil war. He similarly had to maintain his credibility as the man who could eventually order the Palestinians to stop the violence.
The result was a division of function within Fatah that paralleled in some ways the old division of the Fatah “insiders” (those who remained active from within the territories during the pre-Oslo period) and the “outsiders” (those who were with Arafat in Tunis prior to his return in Gaza in July 1994). The Tanzim and Fatah Hawks are organizations that were not created by the intifada; they have always provided Fatah (and Arafat) with street power. They could be called upon to rally and demonstrate and, if necessary, to fight other Palestinian groups for control of the streets. They tended to be led by younger Fatah cadres who had grown up during the first intifada and had only known the Israeli occupation. Their involvement in the fighting gave Arafat a way of showing he was part of the resistance, which virtually all Palestinians regarded as legitimate. At the same time, the focus on these younger leaders also served to further marginalize the older Fatah leadership that had returned with Arafat from Tunis. Committed as they were to Oslo, this leadership found it initially difficult to reverse course and, when they did, their relevance was already overshadowed by the groups doing the actual fighting.
The situation for Arafat remains fluid. With Sharon, he now faces a different leader, one who has sought to deprive him of his international legitimacy as a peace partner. This move may be succeeding to some extent, as there has been no repeat of the frequent Arafat visits to the White House with the arrival of the new Bush administration in January 2001. Ironically, Arafat’s internal legitimacy has probably increased as a result of his presence in the territories during most of the fighting, the nearness of Israeli attacks against him, and the overall continued support for the fighting with which Arafat’s name is now very much associated. Arafat has effectively cut off any challenge to his leadership from the Islamists by the vigor of the Fatah response. But he quite possibly will face a new set of challenges if and when he tries to rein in the violence. Islamist groups will portray such a step as a betrayal of the intifada, but newer groupings within Fatah, such as the Al-Aqsa brigades, have made clear that they respect Arafat but do not feel bound to obey his orders. These statements parallel a situation the author witnessed in the southern Gaza Strip, where groups in Rafah vowed they would continue to attack Israeli military outposts along the international border with Egypt even if Arafat demanded an end to such attacks.
While it appears that Arafat lacks a strategy for getting past the current stage of fighting and returning to the negotiating table, Arafat’s position internally is unassailable at present and, ironically, will only become subject to question if and when he decides to resume talking in a serious way. For now, Arafat (and the majority of Palestinians) regards the current situation as akin to war, if not war itself. And Arafat is in the position of being prepared to accept a far higher level of casualties than his opponent. At the same time, he believes that he cannot allow himself to be defeated militarily by Sharon or to even appear that he was forced back to the negotiating table by the harshness of the Israeli response. Arafat’s one card is that he can give the Israelis security. He cannot afford to allow that card to be taken from him by force. Sharon has taken the position that he will not talk while the violence continues, a position which unites the Israeli right and which probably has a great deal of support among average Israelis. At the same time, he defeated Barak with the promise of ending Palestinian violence by his tough measures. It must now be questionable to all whether there is any level of military action that would compel the Palestinians to stop fighting.
CONCLUSION
Most considerations of the intensive negotiations that took place between July 2000 and January 2001 focused on whether the deal being offered was fair enough or reasonable enough. What this paper questions is whether any agreement involving what most American and Israeli negotiators regarded at the time as “reasonable” compromises could have been acceptable to Arafat. Many of the previous discussions of these negotiations have also tended to blame or to try to deflect blame from one side or the other. This has not been the intention here. Instead, I have tried to demonstrate that Arafat was unlikely in any case to sign the sort of deal envisioned at Camp David, as such a deal might have undercut his basis of legitimacy and consequently his ability to rule. Only in this way is it possible to explain Arafat’s refusal to engage Barak when it was clear that Barak desperately wanted a deal. Given a choice between taking pragmatic steps and maintaining a symbolic purity, Arafat chose the latter and would probably do so again.
This has led some to question whether Arafat ever wanted a deal and whether his agreement to the Oslo process was merely a ruse, the first step in a long effort to regain all of historic Palestine for the Palestinians. This question is probably unanswerable. It may not even be particularly relevant, for whatever Arafat’s intentions may be, the balance of power both militarily and economically is likely to continue to favor Israel for the foreseeable future. At the same time, we do not know what would have happened had the Israelis kept rigorously to their side of the bargain, completing all of the deployments on time and not continuing to vigorously expand Israeli settlements. Arafat’s claim that he had already compromised on 78 percent of historic Palestine and could not be expected to compromise further has great resonance among Palestinians, even those who ultimately support a two-state solution. But few American and certainly no Israeli negotiators expected that there would be no further compromises even after Oslo was signed and UNSC resolutions 242 and 338 accepted as the basis of a settlement.
Perhaps, then, what must be defined is not the terms of an agreement, the question of a “dirt road here” or “a few prisoners there,” as Nabil Shaath derisively labeled the talks,4 but the kind of agreement that could reasonably be sought. Certainly, it would be wrong to ignore the enormous work that went on during the interim period and during the Camp David/Taba negotiations, aimed at practical issues. But, as long as the outstanding issues are the most symbolic ones, and as long as Arafat’s power will depend in part upon his ability to present himself as a guardian of what these symbols signify, it is unlikely that a “final status” agreement can be reached on these extremely sensitive issues. Similarly, as long as the outstanding issues can be regarded as “existential” for either community – as long as settlements are regarded by some as an integral part of Israel or the Jerusalem and “right of return” questions are regarded as a sine qua non for the creation of a future Palestinian state by Palestinians – then substantial elements on both sides are likely to see the fighting as unavoidable.
For the United States, now in the unenviable position of trying to bridge a chasm that has been opened further by the deaths of over 1,200 people and the destruction of the Palestinian economy, the kind of deal is crucial. What is being recommended here is the abandonment of the “high” politics of trying to settle all issues in the context of a final-status settlement while moving beyond the “low” politics of simply trying to create a new interim period. It calls for the embrace of “middle” politics. This term does not imply giving up on efforts to improve the daily lives of Palestinians in the absence of an overall settlement, as was attempted during the interim period. Rather, it is combining such efforts with the immediate creation of a viable Palestinian state along with mutually acceptable arrangements to deal with issues of symbolic importance. For example, an arrangement on refugees might be made in which Israel agrees to accept a certain number over a set period of years. Neither side would be compelled either to acknowledge or disavow the principle of right of return. An arrangement could be made to allow access for Muslims wishing to pray at the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount and to ease travel between Gaza and the West Bank. The future Palestinian state would be allowed to maintain some kind of official presence in Jerusalem, but the question of sovereignty would be held in abeyance. Obviously, such a deal would require the Israelis to refrain from building in predominantly Arab areas that remained under their control. A significant number of settlements could (and should) be returned to the Palestinians, as a way of establishing the principle that other settlements will also be returned, but the final disposition of the remaining settlements would again be held in abeyance. The settlements to be returned would have to allow the Palestinians a contiguous territory.
But for all the remaining practical difficulties of implementing such a plan, the principle of “middle” politics should be clear: it involves the immediate creation of a Palestinian state on most of the occupied territories, the abandonment of enough settlements to allow the Palestinians contiguous territory, an official Palestinian presence in Jerusalem, and the return of a specified number of refugees. In addition, it does not ignore issues of development and daily life, but rather strives toward twin goals: on the part of the international community, an all-out effort must be made to improve the Palestinian economy, and on the question of daily life, the agreement must do away with virtually all requirements for Palestinians to obtain Israeli-issued permits. There must be a sense of balance: thousands of Palestinians cannot be humiliated or denied the right to travel to safeguard the ability of a few hundred Israeli settlers to travel when they want.
The arguments against proceeding this way cannot be discounted. Both sides would demand to know when these final status issues would be reopened. Obviously, the answer is that they would not be reopened until there was reasonable confidence the sides could deal successfully with them. For his part, Barak believed the Israelis would never accept far-reaching compromises unless they were assured that the deal was final and would never be reopened. The sort of arrangement proposed here leaves open the possibility that grievances can be reopened at any time. But that would be true regardless of the words used to describe this or any other agreement. Irredentists and extremists on both sides would be unlikely to be swayed simply because the peace agreement called itself “final.” Indeed, one might argue that greater stability would emerge from having two recognized states to deal with one another rather than the present situation of a state and a “national authority.”
In the end, whatever the agreement calls itself, its success will depend on a belief that the other side will see it in its interest to fulfill its end of the agreement. If the talks are regarded as negotiating the terms of surrender, as some have suggested, it is inevitable that resentment will protract the talks and make their implementation problematic. During the intense negotiations of 2000 and early 2001, the question of improving the lives of average Palestinians as a way of cementing support for a deal was subsumed in discussions of the very symbolic questions of which side would control which neighborhoods in Jerusalem. With nearly a million Palestinians now living below the World Bank-established minimum of just $2.10 per day, this question of daily Palestinian life has become more burning than ever. Through “middle” politics, it can be addressed in the context of a Palestinian state.
The primary flaw of Oslo was that it left too many important issues (Palestinian statehood, settlements, refugees, Jerusalem et al.) to the end while endeavoring to improve Palestinian lives in a series of limited measures during the interim agreement even before the outstanding political issues were solved. It failed on the first count and consequently failed on the second. The virtue of “middle” politics is that it solves what can now be solved without threatening the core political interests of either side and allows future talks to proceed on a more equal state-to-state basis. Whether the questions of “high” politics can ever be solved satisfactorily is difficult to say. But without addressing the more pressing issues of “middle” politics, it is virtually certain that they will not.
Hope has never been in such short supply. Human suffering on both sides is immense and will likely only make achieving any agreement all the more difficult. Indeed, to speak of peace at a time like this seems futile, even when we can see clearly the consequences of no peace. It would appear that both sides fail to recognize the limits of their power. It is clear that the intense Israeli pressure directed at Arafat (but spilling over in its effect on the rest of the Palestinian population, erasing any difference between the terrorists Israel claims to be hunting and all other Palestinians) will not be able to stop the suicide bombers. At the same time, the Palestinians can probably hold out militarily, preventing a defeat but never being able to achieve a state or a semblance of normalcy that most Palestinians crave.
There is no question of addressing any broader political issues until there is at least relative calm in the territories (a complete cessation of violence before starting talks is almost certainly an unrealistic expectation at this point). Both sides bear a direct responsibility for achieving this. Neither side can expect the United States or any other power to intervene on matters of a political settlement while the shooting is going on. Yet this does not mean Washington can do nothing. The United States and others have maintained there is no military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is certainly true, but without a roadmap and a strategy of how to return to a meaningful political process that will negotiate issues on which agreement is feasible, it is impossible to foresee an end to the catastrophic violence in which Israelis and Palestinians are now both engulfed.
1 Shlomo Ben Ami with Ari Shavit, “End of a Jouney,” Haaretz, September 14, 2001.
2 Ibid.
3 Akiva Eldar, “The peace that nearly was at Taba,” Haaretz, no date.
4 Deborah Sontag, “Quest for Mideast Peace: How and Why it Failed,” The New York Times, July 26, 2001.
Middle East Policy is fully accessible through the Wiley Online Library
Click below to subscribe to the online or print edition of Middle East Policy and gain access to all journal content.