Memorandum from Dr Rosemary Hollis, Head,
Middle East Programme, Royal Institute of International Affairs,
Chatham House
ASSESSMENT OF
THE SITUATION:
1. The continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict
demands external attention. The toll of deaths and injuries sustained
by both communities in the relentless cycle of violence is feeding
fatalism and despair on both sides, which in turn makes it harder
for the parties to envision peaceful coexistence. In other words,
the conflict is becoming more intractable.
On humanitarian grounds alone, the international
community cannot turn a blind eye to the prospect of more fatalities,
pain and suffering of the parties involved. Strategically, meanwhile,
the continuation of the conflict will complicate the prosecution
of the "war on terrorism". Television pictures from
the Israeli-Palestinian battlefront are inflaming anti-Western
and more specifically anti-US sentiments in the Arab and wider
Muslim world, where the United States and allied governments are
held responsible for allowing the plight of the Palestinians,
and ordinary Iraqis, among others, to endure. This is happening
in the wider context of poor economic conditions, unemployment
and lack of political efficacy for ordinary people in most Middle
Eastern countries, for which the forces of globalisation, and
comparative advantages of Western developed countries in riding
those forces, are blamed.
2. Without a resolution of the Arab-Israeli
conflict, figureheads such as Osama Bin Laden, and the terrorist
networks associated with Al Qaeda, will likely re-event themselves
and find a pool of sympathy if not recruits. Since 11 September,
meanwhile, sympathy for ordinary Israelis under attack by suicide
bombers and gunmen has increased across the American political
spectrum. The efforts of the US administration, notably Secretary
of State Colin Powell, and echoed by British Prime Minister Tony
Blair, to give hope to the Palestinians by depicting a two-state
solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, have been lost in
a new wave of suicide bombings and Israeli reprisals.
3. The conflict could develop in one of
three ways:
(1) A new cease-fire is called which actually
holds for long enough to begin implementation of the Tenet plan
and thence action on the recommendations of the Mitchell Report.
(2) The cycle of violence continues for several
years, until the parties exhaust themselves and new leaderships
on either side are able to start negotiations anew.
(3) The conflict escalates out of control,
possibly destabilising Jordan and incorporating new acts of terrorism
on a wider scale, but thereby catapults the parties into emergency
talks and a cease-fire followed by new negotiations based on a
new post-war status quo.
My assessment is that the prospects for (1)
are lower than for (2) or (3).
BRITISH POLICY
4. British policy is based on making prospect
number (1) happen, in order to avoid prospects (2) or (3). This
is in tune with both US official policy and the formal European
Union position. The potential pitfall is that the parties cannot
be brought to the point of a sustained ceasefire, sufficient to
meet Israeli government requirements for implementing Tenet. The
position of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been that
there must be seven days of "absolute quiet" before
Tenet can be implemented. The Palestinian position is that the
cease-fire called by Yasser Arafat on 16 December did result in
a marked decline in Palestinian attacks on Israelis for a period
lasting into mid-January 2002, and that the Israelis failed to
make any moves to cement this situation, instead conducting some
"targeted killings" and house demolitions which set
off a new cycle of Palestinian retaliation.
5. On the Palestinian front, recent British
diplomacy has been directed at trying to persuade Yasser Arafat
to do all in his power to rein in Palestinian militants and arrest
those identified by Israel on their "wanted list". The
logic is that this is the only way for Arafat to put the ball
back in the Israeli court to implement Tenet. This line does make
some sense and has combined European with US pressure on Arafat.
The danger is that (a) Arafat cannot deliver, so this approach
will not move things along; or (b) Arafat's best efforts will
still not be enough to convince the Israeli government; or (c)
the Israeli government and key figures in the United States have
already given up on Arafat as a peace partner, with or without
his best efforts.
6. On the Israeli front, British diplomacy
seems directed to quietly but persistently putting the case to
Israeli officials that heavy handed treatment of the whole Palestinian
community in the West Bank and Gaza will marginalize potential
peace partners and generate more recruits for militancy. Simultaneously,
I believe, British officials are trying to exercise a retraining
influence in Washington by emphasising the particularities which
distinguish Palestinian resistance to occupation from Al Qaeda
terrorism, but the lines were blurred after the suicide attacks
on Israeli civilians in early December and have been further undermined
by the affair of the Karine-A arms shipment.
7. British efforts to influence Israeli
thinking are subsumed by the view that Arafat must do more to
break the cycle of violence. Meanwhile, British policy is directed
first and foremost to influencing US thinking about the conflict
on the grounds that Washington is the only external player with
any decisive leverage in Israel. However, this strategy is in
turn subsumed in the larger agenda of ensuring a British voice
in the prosecution of the war on terrorism overall.
IMPLICATIONS AND
POINTERS
8. My assessment is that the British approach
to the current cycle in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is responsive
to the prevailing power balance and appropriately designed to
capitalise on Britain's access in Washington, from which Britain's
very limited influence with Israel and the Palestinians primarily
(though not entirely) derives. However, maintaining access in
Washington does tend to require demonstrating support in every
way possible, while voicing concerns only in private. This makes
it difficult to judge the extent of British influence on US policy.
9. As of this writing, Britain, along with
other Europeans, has bought into the need to pressure Arafat to
act more effectively to end Palestinian terrorist acts. If this
policy fails to deliver a ceasefire that can pave the way to implementation
of the Mitchell recommendations, and maybe even hastens the collapse
of the Palestinian Authority, it cannot be considered a success
for the United States or Britain.
Consequently, it would seem appropriate to consider
British policy options in the event of the collapse of the Palestinian
Authority. Since the European Union staged the elections which
brought that authority into being, and the EU is the leading donor
to the Palestinian state-in-the-making, it would make sense to
develop a common European policy on how the Palestinian community
will be assisted economically in the face of continuing conflict
and under what circumstances Europe would envisage holding new
elections. This could at least serve as a strategy for conflict
management, and keep open the prospects for resolution on the
basis of a two-state formula. Abandonment of the Palestinians
would bode ill for prosecution of the war on terrorism.
10. Irrespective of the fate of the Palestinian
Authority, it would be useful to consider how long the requirements
of Tenet and Mitchell, for a cessation of violence as a prelude
to negotiations, remain relevant. If an escalation in the conflict
spins out of control, Sharon's call for a week of absolute calm
before there can be talks between the parties could be considered
a luxury overtaken by events. The role for Britain could be to
explore with the Americans and European allies what framework
for negotiations could be devised which could bring about substantive
discussion of the endgame. The mere promise of negotiations, especially
under the current Israeli and Palestinian leaderships, is not
enough to get a sustainable ceasefire, let alone peace. Consequently,
it may be time to reverse the order of priorities and begin work
anew on the details of a two-state solution.
11. Even if the time is not yet ripe for
reaching a peace agreement, the much diminished and disheartened
peace camps on either side need a signal that the international
community has not abandoned all hope and can envisage a peaceful
resolution of the conflict. This could help them to organise anew
and find their own ways to develop a new peace process.
In any case, the suggestions made here would be in
keeping with British policy positions and take forward the role
that the FCO has adopted to date in helping to resolve the Middle
East conflict.
Dr Rosemary Hollis
January 2002
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