The Arab Peace Initiative and the Changing Middle East
By Ramzy Baroud
The rapid, almost hasty, developments on the Arab Israeli front, almost immediately following the Saudi sponsored Makkah
Agreement on February 2, should be examined in their proper context, as a part and parcel of the regional shifts,
exasperated by the US war in Iraq and the dramatic adjustment in Iran’s position vis-à-vis the region and its sectarian,
religious composition.
Two prevailing analyses have been offered; one that is skeptical, and argues that the Arab initiative, which will be
articulated at a coming Arab league conference in Saudi Arabia on March 28, was brought back to the scene on the behest
of the US administration: by engaging Hamas, Arabs will deny Iran the opportunity to further galvanize its regional
alliances — Syria and Hezbollah — against the US and Israel, thus further cemented the Shia crescent, at the expense of
the Sunni majority.
The other analysis is overtly optimistic, ranging between the view of Palestinian and Arab commentators talking of a
‘historic opportunity’ and Western commentators wondering if the league has finally taking charge of the Arab people’s
own destiny. "Worried by what they see as the Bush administration’s failings, and the new regional power of Iran, the
Arabs are struggling to take their destiny into their own hands," is how BBC Middle East analyst Roger Hardy worded the
conclusion of his analysis, "Mid-East Package Diplomacy."
The Arab peace initiative, offering a full normalization with Israel, in simultaneous exchange for an Israeli pull out
to the pre-1967 border, was made public in a March 2002 Arab League summit in Beirut. It came at the height of the
Palestinian uprising. The initiative was immediately rejected by the Israeli government and accepted by Arafat. Its
release was a cause of a slight discomfort for Israel, however, principally because the Bush administration viewed it in
positive terms, at the beginning at least, before it disowned it before Israel’s incessant rejection.
In the weeks preceding the official announcement of the Arab peace initiative, Israel had assassinated Fatah leader in
Tulkaram in the West Bank, Raed al-Karmi, prompting Palestinian suicide bombings. "Karmi’s assassination led to the
scuttling of the truce that had lasted since December 16, 2001," wrote Akiva Aldar in Haaretz, quoting Mati Steinberg,
who was the adviser on Palestinian affairs to the head of the Shin Bet security service. "It also led to Operation
Defensive Shield, which pushed the Arab initiative to the margins and eliminated the opportunity to put the diplomatic
track with the Palestinians on a route of direct connection with the Arab peace initiative for the first time."
But the Middle East of those days is in many ways different from today’s regional realities. Although Israel’s colonial
project is pursued with the same level of determination (the Imprisonment wall, the settlements, the collective
punishment and so forth) Israel’s regional reputation as a formidable military power has received a significant blow
when its army couldn’t advance more than a few miles before stiff Lebanese resistance, led by Hezbollah in the 33-day
war of July-August 2007. Neither Israel nor the US were willing to concede to the fact that the Lebanese ferocious fight
had much to do with the people’s strong belief in a just case — God forbid — but all fingers were pointed at Iran: the
head of the snake as far as America’s neoconservatives clique are now parroting. Iran understood that Hezbollah’s
victory will discourage, slow down or completely repeal an American military adventure against its own domain.
Naturally, Hezbollah’s defeat, relying mostly on Iranian arms, would eliminate the first line of Iran’s defenses and
inspire Washington’s hawks, in constant coordination with Israel, to prepare the public and government for a war against
Iran. Not that a war against Iran is no longer on the agenda; to the contrary, something will be done to confront the
Iranian ‘threat’. But one has to understand that Israel cannot possibly allow for another regional bully, aside from
itself to claim an inch of what it believes as its rightful domain. It was this logic, as articulated by Richard Pearle
in a set of recommendations made to then Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu in the infamous "A Clean Break, memo that
envisaged the Iraq war as a strategic Israeli imperative. Iraq or Iran, Sunni or Shia, are all irrelevant semantics, in
Israel’s view. However, the failure to ‘contain’ Iran, coupled with the American disastrous war strategy in Iraq, which
has given rise to powerful Shia groups, with direct links, and in some cases allegiance to Teheran is sending Israel’s
military and policy planners to the table, once more, to study their future options.
Israel and its supporters in America are obsessed with Iran. In the well-attended Israeli lobby AIPAC conference (6,000
participants including half of the Senate and a large number of House members and numerous ambassadors and officials,)
Israel’s many friends seemed to delineate their stances from every US official based on their position on the Iran
subject or the terrifying possibility of an early pull out of Iraq: neglecting the first or proceeding with the second,
they argue will bode disaster for Israel’s security. Thus, when House Republican leader, Rep John Boehner of Ohio
addressed the conference, defending the current war strategy, he received a standing ovation; but when Speaker Nancy
Pelosi — unequalled fan of the Israeli regime — dared to spell out a strategy for withdrawal from Iraq, she was booed,
according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
The power of the lobby and the persisting influence of the neocons have reached new heights when Democratic leaders were
obliged to strip from a military spending bill a requirement that the president must gain the approval from the Congress
before moving against Iran. Pelosi and others agreed to such a removal "after conservative Democrats as well as other
lawmakers worried about its possible impact on Israel," reported ABC News.
With Iran being the unrivalled focus, coupled with serious worries amongst some Arab countries regarding Iran’s rise and
its possible destabilization impact on the region, Israel has agreed to a conditional exchange that would allow for an
implicit arrangement: to ‘contain Iran — to Israel’s benefit — stabilize Iraq — to the Bush Administration’s benefit —
and to introduce a new horizon of peace with the Palestinians — to the appeasement of the Arabs. Only the prospect of
solving the Lebanon dilemma, says Roger Hardy don’t look promising at the March summit.
The new horizon of peace — a new term invoked by Condoleezza Rice in her recent visit to the region — is a term that
corresponds to the ‘peace process’: significant enough insofar as it yield a sense of hope, but clever enough for it
guarantees nothing, since Israel, brimming with its unprecedented clout in the corridors of power in Washington will
neither give up its grand plans of territorial conversion (annexing the settlements), nor bring to a halt the
construction of its encroaching wall nor surrender an inch from the illegally annexed East Jerusalem, all, predictably
key Arab and Palestinian demands.
The Arab initiative seemed deliberately vague on the issue of Palestinians made refugee by Israel in 1948 and 1967, and
whose plight is as urgent as ever (considering their systematic targeting in Iraq, 500 murdered to date, and Libya’s
decision to deport its Palestinians refugees to Gaza, as thoughtless as this may sound.) Yet, to remove any ambiguity,
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is "demanding that the leaders of the 22 Arab states excise the right of return
from it," reported Haaretz.
By crossing out the ‘controversial’ elements contained in the Arab initiative and then opening it up for negotiations,
Palestinians — now browbeaten with a year of sanctions and near starvation in Gaza — will be taken on another peace
goose chase, during which Israeli army bulldozers will hardly cease their determined colonial project. My fear is that
Arabs will play a long, willingly or not, and Palestinians would be forced to partake in the charade, for their reliance
on international handouts for their mere survival will make it impossible to defy the US-Israeli regional designs
forever.
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-Ramzy Baroud's latest book: The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronology of a People's Struggle (Pluto Press, London)
is now available at Amazon.com.