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Tale of two visits
by Ibrahim
Nafie
Mahmoud Abbas's visit to
Washington marks a new phase in Palestinian-US relations, one in which the
US is willing to take an active part in promoting a Middle East peace
settlement, in which Israel no longer has exclusive access to Washington's
ear and in which there is now a direct link, through the person of then
Palestinian prime minister, between the PA and the White House.
This phase was a long time in
coming. There were numerous impediments, the foremost being certain
attitudes the current US administration inherited from its predecessor.
President Clinton had -- unjustly -- held President Yasser Arafat
responsible for forfeiting a historic opportunity to resolve the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict at Camp David II. He therefore advised
president elect Bush not to waste his energies on the Middle East because
the Palestinians were not yet ready to sign an agreement and, instead, to
give Israel full leeway to "defend itself" until the Palestinians were
ready to accept the conditions Arafat turned down at Camp David. The
Clinton administration further recommended that his successor sever all
dealings with Arafat and begin the search for a new Palestinian
leadership.
Nor should we underestimate
the impact of the repercussions of 11 September on the situation. Not only
did Washington charge that the Arabs were insufficiently committed to
cooperating with the US in the fight against terrorism, pro-Israeli forces
deftly exploited the post-11 September climate to muddy the waters further
through a sustained campaign to depict Arab and Islamic societies as prone
to fundamentalist violence and to brand the Palestinian resistance
movement as terrorist. The campaign succeeded in making Washington more
pro- Israeli than ever, evidence of which manifested itself following the
outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Rather than checking the outrages
perpetrated by Israeli occupation forces it actively protected Israel from
international censure by blocking the creation of a fact-finding committee
on the crimes against humanity perpetrated in Jenin and Nablus.
Much of the credit for
Washington's renewed attention to the Middle East conflict, and
specifically to the Palestinian cause at its heart, is due to Cairo,
Riyadh and Amman, which succeeded in persuading the Bush administration
that only with intensive US involvement would it be possible to halt the
cycle of bloodshed between the Palestinians and Israelis. These efforts
bore tangible fruit in the US-Arab summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, during which
the US president reaffirmed his commitment to the creation of an
independent Palestinian state. True, Washington is still more open to
Israeli points of view, but as a result of Arab efforts it has begun to
show some sympathy to Palestinian- Arab causes.
Let us not forget that George
Walker Bush is the first US president to officially support the creation
of an independent, viable Palestinian state and to put forward a
comprehensive plan for resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict, beginning with
the Palestinian track.
Abbas's recent visit to
Washington, I believe, crowned this breakthrough in Arab-US relations.
Armed with the truce agreements with the Palestinian resistance factions,
demonstrating his ability to control the situation in Palestine, and with
solid support from Arab capitals, a message he ensured would be conveyed
to Washington by having first called on the Egyptian and Jordanian heads
of state, the Palestinian prime minister was in an excellent position to
outline a number of demands.
The general thrust of the
visit was to appeal to Washington to sustain its commitment to the full
implementation of the roadmap and to bring the necessary pressures to bear
on Israel to ensure it fulfills its obligations. Specifically, he urged
the Bush administration to ensure that Israel halts construction of the
so- called security fence in the West Bank, withdraws its forces from
Palestinian cities reoccupied since the outbreak of the Intifada, begin
the release of the approximately 6,000 Palestinian political detainees in
Israeli prisons and take concrete measures to alleviate the daily
suffering of the Palestinian people. In presenting such demands Abbas was
clearly drawing on personal experience in dealing with Israel. In view of
Israel's notorious record of wriggling out of its commitments under
agreements signed with the Palestinians, from Oslo through Wye River, he
fully realises the need for a binding mechanism that renders the parties
accountable.
The Palestinian prime
minister's visit to Washington took place in a climate that is more
propitious than ever for an agreement to emerge that will set the region
on the path to true and lasting peace. Drawing on his lengthy experience
in defence of the Palestinian cause and his close relations with Arafat
and other Arab leaders, Abu Mazen realises that the time is ripe to
transform years of armed struggle into tangible gains on the negotiating
table. In addition, in spite of the ultra-conservative nature of the
current Israeli government, he recognises that Sharon is the only person
capable of reaching, and delivering on, an agreement with the
Palestinians. Nor is he alone in this conviction. After all, as President
Mubarak pointed out, it was Sharon who personally drove the bulldozer that
began the raising of the Yamit settlement in northern Sinai in fulfillment
of one of the conditions of the peace agreement with Egypt.
Realism, cool-headedness and
clarity of vision -- these qualities, too, helped Abbas press home his
points of view to US officials. A significant testimony to his success was
Bush's stance on the Israeli separation wall: "It is difficult to build
confidence between the Palestinians and Israelis with a wall snaking
through the West Bank," Bush said. Then, in a press conference following
his meeting with Bush, Abbas said that when the US president saw a map
depicting the placement of the wall he asked: "And where is the
Palestinian state supposed to be? We want two states, one Israeli and the
other Palestinian."
The Bush administration's
position on the wall had earlier been voiced by National Security Advisor
Condoleezza Rice during her recent visit to the region, provoking an angry
exchange between her and members of the Israeli cabinet. The wall creates
new realities on the ground and risks being interpreted as demarcating a
permanent border between Israel and the West Bank.
Although Bush seemed somewhat
reticent on the issue of Palestinian detainees, a sign of the impact of
the Abbas visit could be seen in the Israeli government's approval of the
release of 540 Palestinian prisoners. These included more than two hundred
detainees from Fatah and another 210 from Hamas and Jihad. The remainder
are ordinary offenders.
More palpable were the
financial gains Abu Mazen obtained for his country during this visit. In
addition to an immediate $20 million to assist the PA in rebuilding the
Palestinian economy and lay the foundations for an independent state, Bush
instructed his secretaries of treasury and trade, John Snow and Don Evans,
to go to Palestine in September in order to study what measures can be
taken to build strong economic institutions for an independent Palestinian
state. Bush also announced that the US and the PA will form a joint
economic group to create job opportunities and explore ways to boost the
Palestinian economy.
On a more far-reaching level,
I believe that Abbas succeeded in driving home to the US administration
how skewed Israeli attitudes to security are. The PA, he told US
officials, had restored calm in Palestinian territories, succeeding where
Israel's massive military might had failed. The implications of this
cannot be overstated. Israel will never be able to realise security
through force of arms. I also believe that Bush now agrees with Abu Mazen
that it is not names but results that count. In reaching understandings
with the Palestinian factions over the notion of a truce Abbas delivered
on his commitment under the first phase of the roadmap, thereby nullifying
Israeli demands that he dismantle Palestinian resistance organisations. As
he put it: "We told them [the Israelis] that as long as we were able to
reach a truce, why should we use violence against our people?"
No sooner had Abbas left
Washington than the Israeli prime minister made his appearance, on his
eighth visit to the US capital. His primary mission was to roll back the
progress made by Abbas. Sharon's first tactic was to meet with the leaders
of American Jewish organisations in advance of his call on the White
House, obviously in order to remind Bush of the weight of the Jewish vote
in forthcoming presidential elections. His second was to go on the
offensive in his meetings with US officials. His government would go ahead
with the construction of the separating wall, he said. And rejecting the
notion of a truce, he called for "the complete dismantlement of
Palestinian terrorist organisations".
Contrary to the assertions of
some, I do not believe that Sharon succeeded in his mission. That Bush
continued to express reservations over the wall, even after Sharon left,
saying that the subject was sensitive and needed further discussion,
indicates the progress Abbas made in persuading Washington of the
rationality of Palestinian positions. In all events, in assessing the
results of his trip to Washington, we must bear in mind the three-year
legacy of deteriorating Arab- US relations in conjunction with the
specific nature of Washington's relations with Israel. Once we do, we can
only conclude that the Abbas visit marks a turning point in the US-
Israeli-Palestinian triangle.
Source:
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