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| Volume VIII, June 2001, Number 2 |
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| Editor's Note |
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The dust-up with China during early April offered a basic
lesson in political science. As
President Bush said in a Rose Garden statement upon the release of the detained
U.S. military personnel, the United States and China "have different values,
yet common interests in the world. We
agree on the importance of trade and we want to increase prosperity for our
citizens. . . . [W]e need to work together on global security problems such as
preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction." In international relations, interests are
the trump cards. The president did not
state an obvious corollary: Getting into an avoidable fight with China would
not advance any U.S. vital interest; diplomatically smoothing over differences
would. The exhortations of William
Kristol, Gary Bauer and other political animals for a crusade in the service
of "moral principles" sounds like a
call to interests of a domestic political sort. China, of course, had its own interests at stake, such as $100
billion in trade and tens of thousands of students in American
universities. In addition, weak
governments are even more sensitive than strong ones to perceived slights to
their honor.
This recent unpleasantness with Asia's burgeoning superpower
brought to mind a question asked of a Clinton State Department official at a
Middle East Policy Council Capitol Hill conference in September 1999: Why can't
the Palestinians get a better deal from the Israelis? His answer: "The Palestinians don't have an army, and their
friends who have armies won't help them." Attention would have to be paid if the Arab countries that support the
Palestinians were willing to suffer and die for them, as the United States is
prepared to do for Taiwan, apparently. It is not, however, in the national
interest of Egypt, Jordan and Syria to make such a sacrifice.
From bitter experience, President Mubarak, as well as King
Abdullah and President Bashar Asad -- like their fathers before them -- have
decided that another war with Israel would cripple their economies and cause
their people to turn against them. Farther removed and less cautious, the Reformist-dominated Iranian
Parliament hosted a late-April international conclave to exhort Muslims to do
more than just talk about the plight of their co-religionists in
Palestine. Not that planes and tanks
were on offer, but suicide missions were. Whether zeal will be translated into cash for the martyrs they claim are
standing ready remains to be seen, but this meeting is an ominous sign for U.S.
interests in the region. The close
connection between the Gulf and Israel/Palestine was underscored by the
presence of leaders from 34 countries including Saudi Arabia.
The Palestinians cannot afford war either, just low-intensity
self-mutilation that takes out a few victims on the other side, demoralizing
and enraging civilians and frustrating their army. The aged soldiers leading the current Israeli regime are using
overkill on an elusive enemy. Old
habits die hard: the glory days of the 1940s, '50s and '60s did not prepare
them to deal with their stubborn "Vietcong" problem, for which there is no
military solution (see Pat Lang on Clausewitz and the matter of "will" in
warfare -- symposium proceedings, p. 1).
The Israelis blame the Palestinians for making them
overreact. Even the official U.S.
version of why Israel and the Palestinians are not at peace is that Yasser
Arafat let the perfect drive out the good, stubbornly refusing to sign a deal
Israel defined as generous. No one
knows, however, exactly what was on the table at last July's Camp David
meeting, though each side had its note takers. Barak finally left the field, bizarrely choosing to be the "suicide
bomber of the Oslo accords," as one Israeli journalist has called him. But, from the subsequent political events in
Israel including the election of Ariel Sharon as prime minister, it is
difficult to imagine how Barak's own compromises could have found acceptance in
the Knesset. The man seems to have been
operating without back-up, a commando rather than a commander.
Neither Arafat nor Clinton had consulted with Arab heads of
state in order to get them on board. There was no time: Israeli and U.S. elections were impending, and
Clinton was hamstrung by his desire to protect Al Gore and Hillary Clinton from
the loss of a single hard-line pro-zionist vote. It would have been futile in any case to try to get the approval
of Arab and Muslim leaders for signing away sovereignty over the holy places in
East Jerusalem, and Arafat knew it. They, along with almost all others, in Europe and around the world, insist on Israel's
adherence to international agreements. The Palestinian Authority is politically weak, but not as weak as the
Israeli leaders had hoped when they chose the PLO back in 1993 as their
preferred interlocutor. They thought it
would have to take what Israel decided to give, rather than what international
law (U.N. resolutions) mandated.
At Camp David II, Arafat had noticed that there was little on
offer for the 900,000 Palestinian refugees, though Yossi Beilin claims in the
April 18 New York Times that "some resolution of the refugee question
was within reach at Taba" in December. Israel has always tried to maintain that these displaced people were the
Arab states' responsibility. Israel's "new historians," however, have revealed
Israeli tactics that forced Palestinians to leave their homes.This would make Israel responsible for the
refugees, something no Israeli official has ever formally acknowledged.Ehud Barak would not have signed an
agreement stating that Israel owed the Palestinians anything except
humanitarian family reunification. To
do more would open the way not only to endless claims on Israeli wealth if not
property, but perhaps to a questioning of Israel's right to the land (see
Jerome Segal on a potential compromise formula).
The only way for Israel to achieve the legitimacy it needs for
acceptance is to allow international agreements to be upheld. That this has not happened is, in no small
measure, the fault of the United States, for protecting Israel from the
consequences of its actions. The Bush
administration fumbled the chance to be an "honest broker" when the president
welcomed Ariel Sharon to Washington right after his election and snubbed Yasser
Arafat. At last, in late April, when
Israel had actually re-occupied part of Area A in Gaza, Secretary of State
Colin Powell called the Israeli response to Palestinian attacks "excessive and
disproportionate." The Israeli troops
immediately withdrew, leading many observers to conclude that Powell should
speak up more often to remind Israel of its primary national interest: its
relationship with the United States (see Michael Hudson on policy adjustments
that might make life easier for the new U.S. administration).
A return to justice and international agreements is long
overdue. There are sporadic signs that
the Bush team is more willing to wade in and try to get the parties talking,
even before the fighting stops. This is
a hopeful sign, for with each death, the appetite for revenge grows. Positive feelings do not usually precede the
hard work of grappling with disputes. There does not have to be -- really, there cannot be -- any trust until
basic political differences have been addressed. Anger will dissipate later, when each side knows the other is
keeping its promises, not out of friendship, but out of respect for the
law. A return to the basis for the
Madrid conference convened by the United States and Russia is long overdue:
U.N. Security Council Resolution 242. Clinton never mentioned it. The
new Bush team would do the combatants and America a service by making it
central to their efforts toward peace in the Middle East.
Anne Joyce
May 1, 2000
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