If in kitchen, cook a fair meal or get out

Sept.8, 2008


If in kitchen, cook a fair meal or get out

'Inad Khairallah

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was not disclosing any state secret when he reaffirmed this week his belief that chances of working out a peace agreement with Israel by the end of 2008 look scant.
The two sides remain far from each other on the key issues: The future of Jerusalem and the right of the Palestinian refugees from the 1948 conflict to return home.
In talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Saturday, Abbas made it clear that while last November's Annapolis meeting had created high hopes for peace, "despite the significant efforts each side has made (in negotiations since then), there is no certainty we can strike a deal by the end of the year because very little time is left."
Abbas also rejected the US-backed Israeli effort to work out a document containing agreements reached on some issues and putting off serious work on key issues such as Jerusalem and refugees to a later date. It is known that the administration of US President George W Bush, who promised at Annapolis that there would be an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord this year, wants such a document which it could present at the UN this month and tout it as one of the most noted accomplishments of the Bush White House.
That was the mission of the visit to the region last month of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Abbas on Saturday reiterated that the "solution that the Palestinians seek will have to include all the issues surrounding a permanent agreement."
Earlier, in a meeting in Italy on Friday, Abbas and Israeli President Shimon Peres declared that Israel and the Palestinian National Authority were closer to a peace agreement than ever.
However, Abbas remained firm on his rejection of the notion that he and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert might release a partial document outlining the areas in which they do agree and leaving open other issues.
"It is necessary for the agreement to address all ... issues," said Abbas. "It is all or nothing, really," he continued.
It is abundantly clear that the so-called peace process would not go ahead unless the two sides work out an agreement on Jerusalem and refugees. Israel is not ready to accept any compromise over its stand that Arab East Jerusalem, which it occupied in the 1967 war, is part of its "eternal and indivisible capital" and that the Palestinian refugees of 1948 would not be allowed to return to their land despite UN resolutions that support their right to do so or accept compensation in lieu.
As far as the Israeli posture is concerned, the problem of refugees is purely an Arab issue and the Arab World solve it without any Israeli input.
Peres, who has had enough experience with failed peace negotiations with the Palestinians during the 1990s, should know well about the political, diplomatic and security situation that exist between Israel and the Palestinians and the Arab World in general. Surely, that was behind his call on Syrian President Bashar Al Assad to visit occupied Jerusalem as Egypt's Anwar Sadat did in 1997 or invite the Israeli prime minister to visit Damascus. The Sadat visit to occupied Jerusalem eventually led to the 1978 Camp David peace treaty between Egypt and Israel that effectively removed the Egyptians from the Arab-Israeli conflict while it left the Palestinian problem and the Israeli-Syrian conflict in limbo.
The issue at stake for Syria is the return of the Golan Heights, which Israel seized in the 1967 war, and there is no indication that the Jewish state is ready to give up the strategic plateau that accounts for some 70 per cent of its water sources.
The Egyptian territory that Israel returned to Egypt under the Camp David agreement did not hold any strategic importance for the Jewish state as the West Bank. That is not the way the Israelis see the Golan Heights, which they unilaterally annexed as part of Israel in 1981.
At the root of the deadlock in efforts for Arab-Israeli peace is the Israeli quest to have the cake and eat it too through imposing its will on the Arabs with little regard for the rights of Arabs. Not only that, it expects the Arabs to accept it as if it was the best deal they could ever get.
It is inevitable that there would be no Israeli-Palestinian agreement before Bush leaves office in January 2009. And it is also true that any serious US engagement with the two sides could not be expected for at least one year after Bush's successor, whether Republican or Democrat, assumes office.
As Abbas noted on Friday, if no agreement was reached while Bush remained in office, "the new administration should not wait seven years for us to start negotiations."
"It should begin immediately as soon as a new president is in the White House," he declared.
That would seem to be a tough call, given the peculiarities of the political imperatives of any new administration that would simply put a lock on any serious attention to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
An active US engagement is seen vital to Arab-Israeli peacemaking mainly because of the almost unlimited political, economic, military and diplomatic backing that Washington extends to the Jewish state. It is taken for granted that the only country which could apply any leverage on Israel is the US.
At the same time, the US alliance with Israel is part of the logjam in peace efforts. Israel would have no option but to accept a just and fair agreement with the Arabs if the multitude of international laws, conventions and charters were to form the foundation for peace. But the international community is unable to apply any of them in efforts for peace with Israel because of the protective, all-embracing umbrella that the US offers the Jewish state.
Any hope for just and fair peace in the Middle East hinges on the US opting either to remain neutral and act as an honest mediator or take its hands off and leave it to the international community to deal with its arrogant, instransigent and stubborn protege, Israel.