If interested in making peace...

by Musa Keilani

With the post-Yasser Arafat realities taking hold in Palestine, peace-making has reached a new point, where Arafat's successor Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will meet soon.

It will not be the first time that the two meet. They met in Arafat's shadow in 2003, but it came to naught because Sharon did not want to pursue contacts with Abbas as long as Arafat remained in control of Palestinian affairs; soon after the meeting, Abbas resigned as Palestinian prime minister.

What one fails to understand at this point is why weeks of preparations need to go into arranging an Abbas-Sharon meeting. Both sides know clearly well the issues that are involved and there is little ambiguity on what the basis for peace negotiations should be. The only reason one could think of is that Sharon wants to stretch the process as far as possible, hoping that Palestinian factions would torpedo it by staging armed attacks that could be blamed on Abbas and thus create a reason for suspending any movement. Sharon affirmed that he was "very satisfied" that Abbas is doing all he can to prevent armed attacks against Israelis. Such a statement is indeed a good reason for optimism, but knowing Sharon, one could not but be sceptical.

Let us look at the positive and negative sides of the present situation: the US seems to be genuinely interested in reviving an active role in advancing prospects for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. New Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has promised the US Congress that one of her priorities is peace in Palestine. She would be making one of the first trips after succeeding Colin Powell to the Middle East.

Fair enough. We welcome the move, and hope that she will not be just a listener to Sharon and dictate Sharon's terms to the Palestinians. There are good reasons to be afraid of such an approach from Rice because she has allowed herself to be led by Sharon's cunning adviser Dov Weisglass. Weisglass had been Sharon's "messenger" to Washington over the last three years and he was the one who was meeting Powell, Rice and other Bush administration officials to brief them on Israeli positions on various issues. In that capacity, he and Rice have become close and this relationship could prove to be crucial to the course of the peace process.

Let us not overlook that it was Weisglass who let the cat out of the bag that Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan aimed at turning prospects for peace in a reverse direction and freeze it there, with no chances for reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Weisglass also revealed that this approach was endorsed by the Bush administration. Most definitely, among those who were told this was Rice. No one in Washington bothered to deny Weisglass' assertion, thus affirming that his version of the Sharon plan was indeed conveyed to Washington, which obviously accepted it.

Now, we know that Sharon, despite his hawkish style, wants to solve the Palestinian problem, but the hurdle there is that he wants the solution on his own terms, that have little to do with the rights of the Palestinian people. Abbas or any other Palestinian leader would not be able to accept Sharon's terms for peace; hence, the scepticism over the Israeli prime minister's intentions with Abbas.

In the immediate context, there has not been any Palestinian armed attacks against Israel in the last few days, in what is deemed as a reflection of acceptance by armed groups of the truce proposal made by Abbas. Israel, in informal terms, has undertaken to suspend its policy of "targeted killing" of Palestinian resistance leaders. Again, it is a welcome development. The European Union is extending assistance that would help Abbas carry out reforms and also introduce some programmes that would alleviate the suffering of the people under occupation. Of course, it is far from meeting the minimum requirements, but then, there is always room to build on it. Armed resistance groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad appear to be shifting to a more politically realistic ground. The time is ripe for an immediate launching of a direct dialogue between Sharon and Abbas, rather than waiting for two weeks, as was suggested this week.

Sharon has to realise that his policy of "no dialogue under fire" is fundamentally wrong, because his own policies and brutal crackdown on the Palestinians have made the situation so delicate that Abbas or any other Palestinian leader, including those of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, is in no position to guarantee a continued suspension of armed attacks. The frustration among the Palestinians is so high that some of them might launch attacks on their own, without any links to Hamas, Fateh, Islamic Jihad or any other organised Palestinian group. In that eventuality, Sharon would immediately suspend all contacts with Abbas and the prospects for peace talks would go through the window.

Similarly, armed Jewish settlers, who are upset over Sharon's plans to relocate them from the Gaza Strip, and their supporters could also take things into their hands and stage attacks that would definitely provoke the Palestinians into retaliating. Again, the cycle of violence would freeze the peace talks if they get revived.

What the situation needs is a definite commitment from Sharon that peace talks would not be disrupted regardless of armed attacks on either side. That commitment should be based on the clear understanding that there would never be absolute tranquillity in Palestine conducive to Sharon's thinking that he would never negotiate with the Palestinians "under fire". If Sharon produces that commitment, then it would be understood and appreciated that he is interested in making peace.

This article was published in the Sunday, January 30, 2005 edition of the Jordan Times. It is used here with permission.