A bad deal for Palestinians

by Daoud Kuttab

Palestinian-Arab relations vis-a-vis Israel have always been rocky. Palestinians have regularly argued that their struggle is the foremost Arab cause and have tried very hard to rally Arab peoples and governments to their side. For the most part, however, Arab countries have paid lip service to the Palestinian cause, and Arab countries neighboring Israel have related differently as to the best course of action to solve the Palestinian problem.

At times, Palestinian guerillas have carried out cross border raids against Israel with the express purpose of provoking Israeli retaliation against the Arab country from which the operation originated, thus forcing this Arab country to take the Palestinian cause seriously.

Syria has traditionally tried very hard to convince Palestinians and others that in order to reverse the occupation of Arab lands, a strategic military solution is needed. And since such a solution continues to elude Arab armies, the Syrians have chosen to do nothing until such a day arrives.

More moderate Arab countries, like Jordan, have always argued that there is no military solution and that only through politics and diplomacy can occupied lands be returned. They have argued indirectly that in order to succeed politically with Israel you need to protect the borders from incursions by Palestinian fighters and at the same time try and use their good offices with the Americans to gain what is not being gained on the military front.

This Jordanian argument was not popular with most Palestinians and Arabs. The man on the street kept repeating the slogan of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the popular former Egyptian leader, that what was taken by force will only be returned by force. And it was for this reason that Jordan's King Hussein kept all his contacts with Israel secret. But when the Palestinians finally made a political breakthrough in Oslo, Jordan felt relieved of the obligation to keep its talks secret and quickly followed the White House lawn Arafat-Rabin-Clinton signing ceremony with a ceremony of their own. Within a year, the Wadi Araba peace agreement was signed by Jordanian and Israeli officials and was quickly ratified by their respective parliaments.

As long as Palestinian-Israeli negotiations were moving forward that agreement was not much of a source of concern. In fact, the peace process was a vindication for the Jordanian philosophy of using the political rather than the military option.

But as the peace process faltered, the pressure on Jordan as well as Egypt increased. And when in 2000 the Palestinian intifada erupted, pressure on these two moderate Arab countries really escalated. Palestinians, who have considerable clout in the Jordanian professional associations as well as with left wing Arab parties, found their influence increased in various ways. Public demonstrations and other forms of protests were stepped up and as an immediate result the ambassadors to Israel of Jordan and Egypt were recalled and have not returned since.

Popular displeasure in Jordan also took another important form, with the strong attacks by the professional associations on anyone who deals with Israelis. An anti-normalization committee was formed that began collecting and publicizing so-called black lists of those it called normalizers with Israel. And though the Jordanian government reacted strongly against the committee, arresting leaders and trying to ban some of them from participating in elections, the head of the committee, Ali Abu Sukr, ran and won a seat in the present parliament in Jordan.

In addition to the effort against Jordanian-Israeli political rapprochement, another reaction emerged in support of military acts. Posters and other paraphernalia idolizing Palestinian suicide bombers and martyrs have become one of the prominent ways that many Palestinians in Jordan and other places have been expressing their opinions.

Palestinians by and large have been extremely disappointed with the political process. They feel that the Jordan-Israel agreement only provided Israelis with a sense that their main Arab neighbors had been neutralized and therefore left Israel able to crush Palestinians without any deterrence from the Arab countries. The Jordanian borders, the longest Israel has with any of its neighbors, have been largely quiet due in large degree to the efforts of the Jordanians to keep Palestinian militants from carrying out any cross border attacks.

One of the few positive elements for Palestinians of the Jordan-Israel agreement was that it allowed many Palestinians living in Jordan to visit their relatives in Palestine with a visa from the newly established Israeli embassy in Jordan. Ironically, however, this small benefit has been largely curtailed ever since the Jordanian ambassador in Tel Aviv was recalled.

With the tenth anniversary of the Jordan-Israel agreement, most Palestinians feel that Israel is the winner and Palestinians the losers, having found themselves without any hope of future military intervention by or through Jordan in defense of the Palestinian people. And while the benefits of this peace agreement might be felt in some small ways in Israel and with the Jordanian ruling elite, for Palestinians especially, as well as Jordanians, the peace agreement has been a bad deal.

- Published 28/10/2004 (c) bitterlemons-international.org. Used here with permission.

Daoud Kuttab is a Palestinian journalist and founder and director of Ammannet, the Arab world's first internet radio station.