Absent presence
It is said that when Metternich, Austrian chancellor in the 1830s, was informed of the death (in 1838) of the person he hated most, French foreign minister Talleyrand, he commented: "I wonder what he intends." Apparently the debate over whether Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat is a real partner for a two-state solution or a charlatan who has never ceased to aim at the destruction of the State of Israel will not end even after his death.
Even in the Israeli peace camp, those who will shed a tear can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Amnon Lipkin-Shahak will not be one of them. As head of Military Intelligence, as chief of staff, as a government minister who participated in the second Camp David summit and as one of the leaders of the Geneva Initiative, he has accumulated scores of hours of observation of the Palestinian leader. Lipkin-Shahak, who was involved up to his neck in the negotiations for the second Oslo agreement, is convinced, on the one hand, that at the end of the 1980s, when the Palestine Liberation Organization adopted the two-state solution, and in the early 1990s, when he signed the Oslo agreements, Arafat was the right person at the right time. Only an authoritative leader like him could have made what looked to many Palestinians like very painful concessions on issues such as territory, Jerusalem and the refugees. On the other hand, Arafat kept in his own hands most of the power and during the past four years made use of it in a way that led to the breakup of Fatah, the increase in terror and a bankrupt leadership.
Shortly after his demobilization from the Israel Defense Forces, Colonel
(res.) Ephraim Lavie, who was head of the Palestinian arena in Military
Intelligence and the intelligence officer in the Peace Administration under
prime minister Ehud Barak, said the decision by the Palestinian Legislative
Council in 1988 to recognize the 1967 borders was the most far-reaching
compromise that Arafat and the PLO leadership could have made without
causing a schism in the Palestinian people and without losing the
leadership. The solution was not supposed to be final, but rather practical
- one that could act as a bridge between the national-historical narrative,
which included the armed struggle and the right of return, and the
aspiration of the inhabitants of the territories to independence and
release from the yoke of the Israeli occupation.
Lavie argued that Israel's greatest mistake lies in the fact that it did
not understand this position and did not evince sufficient sensitivity to
its complexity. It chose to dictate to Arafat a solution of a state that is
circumscribed with respect to the elements of sovereignty, within the 1967
borders - minus, and without recognizing the historical injustice of 1948
and its results - and despite this, to demand in return that Arafat see
this as the end of the conflict, as if he were the representative of the
inhabitants of the territories and not of the entire Palestinian people.
When he rejected this dictate, Israel stopped the negotiations and
interpreted this as though he were clinging to the policy of the liberation
of historic Palestine. Israel prefers to interpret the intifada as an act
of escape from a real agreement that was visible on the horizon.
Lipkin-Shahak argues that over the past four years Arafat lost both the
trust of the Israeli public and his international support. Without these
two elements, he says, there is no possibility of making progress toward a
solution. "I don't believe that we will miss him," Lipkin-Shahak sums up.
"The scar is too painful for anyone to believe that he is not responsible
for what has happened to us all since the summer of 2000."
Middle East specialist Dr. Mati Steinberg, who was formerly an adviser to
heads of the Shin Bet security service, says Arafat did not know how to
walk the fine line between taking Palestinian public opinion into account
and taking Israeli public opinion into account - a very difficult line
tobalance on. He failed with respect to the results, but prepared the
ground for the next generation of pragmatic leadership. Indeed, it is
precisely the fact that he did not prepare an heir - about whom people no
doubt would have said that he was Arafat's spitting image - that has put an
end to excuses.
"Now we will not be able to say that the Palestinian leadership is
continuing Arafat's 'despicable' policy," says Steinberg, who has long
warned against a policy based on Arafat's life expectancy. "This approach
has reached its end," he says. "We are now at the moment before the entry
into a spectrum of binational situations, from apartheid to the formal
expression of a binational state, and the question is whether we will take
advantage of Arafat's departure to stop the tumbling down this slope." He
also warns of a slippage of the Iraqi front into Jordan, which would put
the Iraqi anarchy right on our doorstep, in addition to the Palestinian terror.
After the passive approach of "It's all because of Arafat," the ball will
be in Israel's court, which will now have to decide whether to help the new
leadership. "Israel did not give Abu Mazen a thing so that he could deal
with Arafat," notes the Middle East specialist from Jerusalem. "Are we
going to give him anything now?"
Steinberg says that the no-partner policy has led to unilateral moves, and
that the departure of the "no-partner," the present and absent Arafat,
paves the way back to a bilateral approach. "There is no longer a scapegoat
that gives us an excuse for unilateral moves. Bilateral disengagement can
serve as a lever for the return to negotiations without this detracting
from our honor, since the lot with respect to withdrawal from Gaza has
already been cast. Though this will of course obligate the prime minister
to deal with the West Bank as well, the price will not be high. The very
fact of willingness to talk with them about the implications of the
unilateral withdrawal will give them the feeling that they are again a
partner. This will also create a change in the Israeli and Palestinian
public concerning the possibility of reviving the idea of two states."
With Arafat's end approaching, Steinberg proposes that we spare ourselves
the search for new excuses for preserving the no- partner theory and let
Arafat take it with him on his final journey.
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Source: Haaretz, October 29, 2004
Visit the Ha'aretz website at http://www.haaretzdaily.com/
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.
