Mideast Mirror
September 22, 2000

HIGHLIGHT:

* Since Oslo, the Palestinian negotiators have been lying to their people about where the talks are heading, and the shabby deal that results will inevitably lead to disasters -- Abdeljabbar Adwan in Asharq al-Awsat

* The UN can play a crucial role in untying the Jerusalem knot and helping resolve the other topics of dispute, provided it avoids becoming a mere camp follower of the U.S. -- Raghida Dergham in al-Hayat

BODY:

The prevalent feeling among Palestinians and Arabs is one of being kept in the dark about what has been going on in the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, and about the scale of the concessions that have yet to be officially announced, Abdeljabbar Adwan writes on Friday in the leading Saudi daily Asharq al-Awsat. This may be partly due to Israel's media tactic of giving the impression that everything has been agreed on other than the issue of sovereignty over Jerusalem's al-Haram ash-Shareef -- which, up till now, is certainly not the case, he says. But the overall outlines of the deal being arranged have been made fairly clear by the course of developments and by a succession of mostly unofficial Palestinian statements and actions. And both Palestinians and Arabs sense, from experience, that they are not being told the truth and are being lied to. And lies can be the root of all evil, leading individuals and nations to disaster.

In the words of the Prophet Mohammad, three things make a hypocrite: dishonoring a pledge, speaking lies, and betraying a trust. "Since the Oslo accords were signed seven years ago, we have been subjected to a torrent of statements and slogans that are inconsistent with the reality," Adwan writes.

We were told that the Palestinian reading of the agreement, which would be brought to bear at the negotiations, was that Oslo meant an Israeli withdrawal from all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including of course all of East Jerusalem; resolution of the refugee issue in accordance with the UN's resolutions regarding repatriation an compensation; and the establishment of a democratic Palestinian state. This would be in exchange for safeguarding Israel's security and recognizing Israel's political sovereignty over the part of Palestine occupied in 1948.

Things later moved in the opposite direction to the Palestinian reading of the Oslo agreement but, regardless of who is to blame for that, the Palestinian assertion remained unchanged. The negotiations continued veering further and further away from the declared goal, and despite daily assertions that they were adhering to Palestinian rights, the negotiators did not honor their promises in this regard.

Since the Camp David gathering in July, many things have come to light which confirm the unacknowledged abandonment of what were from the outset absolutely bottom-line rights, without which peace would have no meaning or guarantee of survival. President Bill Clinton, for example, clearly if unsurprisingly, abandoned America's role as an honest broker between the two parties.

Israel had a different reading of the Oslo agreement, and the U.S. and other international players swallowed a host of Israel's attitudes:

-- that the Oslo agreement "is the Palestinians' highest ceiling and the Israelis' lowest floor";

-- that negotiations to reconcile the two positions should take into account Israel's democracy -- as Israeli public opposition could bring down the government and hence the peace, whereas such considerations do not apply on the Palestinian side because there is no democracy there;

-- that as the Palestinians are getting rather than giving, then anything they get is better than nothing;

-- that the Israelis have made the tough decisions to seek peace whereas some Palestinians have not abandoned the idea of violence, therefore they must concur that the settlement is final and no claims can be made after it.

Within this approach and in line with his behavior for the past seven years, Clinton, at Camp David, clearly acted as though Oslo were not an agreement but a vision, and each side should back down from its demands and its reading of the agreement in order to meet the other half-way and compromise. The history of such compromises in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict needs to be recalled to gauge what the future holds.

Before 1948, the Jews had three percent of Palestine and mandatory power Britain granted them four percent. A year before the Naqba, or Great Catastrophe, the UN called for and agreed the partition of Palestine into two states (one Jewish and one Arab), and backed the creation of one (Jewish) state which took three-quarters of the country and refused to comply with the UN caveat that it allow the refugees to return. It later seized the remaining one-quarter by force too.

Then came the 1993 Oslo agreement promising to recover that one-quarter, and seven years on it transpires that the recovery of that one-quarter in accordance with UN resolutions is not on the cards. What is proposed is compromises to those compromises which were themselves the outcome of a compromise -- compromises that were never implemented, as things were always left to be resolved by force alone.

"Despite this, the Palestinian negotiator reiterates, yesterday, the day before and always, that he did not break any promise or betray any trust," Adwan remarks. "This is what no one believes." The real tragedy was over the issue of Jerusalem, Adwan writes. "Since Camp David, we and the rest of the world have been subjected to a process of brainwashing, in which Arab media and leaders and international mediators have also taken part.

"Everyone fell into the trap of proposing compromises over Jerusalem, and the result has been delving into details of how to build the Temple can in the al -Haram ash-Shareef courtyard between al-Aqsa and Dome of the Rock, and how to control the passage of people through the courtyard in the presence of international forces. This despite the fact that in all the agreements and negotiations there has never been any mention of a religious site called the Temple.

"The Palestinian negotiator should not have entered into any discussions about Jerusalem for a single moment, other than to demand withdrawal and see it implemented first. But the negotiator negotiated, and from the outset offered the Wailing Wall, i.e. the western wall of al-Aqsa, and the Jewish Quarter, thus falling into the ethnic trap. "He conceded other things too, only to find that the cousins had identified a new religious site -- the Temple located between the two mosques -- and were demanding control over it."

All of this was anticipated in advance and warnings were made about it years ago. Soon enough, they will claim to have found the Temple in the excavations which they have been engaged in for the past 25 years and to which the Palestinians and Arabs have turned a blind eye. They are already making use of the compromise proposals being bandied about to reaffirm their demand not to give up "the Temple." Whenever an Arab or foreign leader suggests a compromise, they reiterate their demand and insist on sole sovereignty. As a result of this, they will get to the courtyard with or without an agreement. Eventually, they will ban Moslems from praying at certain times to prevent them encountering and clashing with Jews, then partition the courtyard and the sites on it as they did in Hebron (at the Ibrahimi Mosque). It would not be surprising if after that part of the al-Aqsa floor will suddenly collapse accidentally because of a mistake in the archaeological excavations beneath it, enabling the Temple to be built.

They will find loopholes to exploit in any agreement which is concluded over Jerusalem now that does not guarantee the restoration of the status quo ante. "This does not arise from a vacuum. It is all a product of the concealment of the truth, the breaking of pledges, and the betrayal of trust in the quest to keep the negotiations going. And it has not come suddenly.

"Shortly after Oslo, word broke of the Abu-Mazen/Beilin document as a compromise solution to differences over the Oslo agreement. This week, the newsletter Mideast Mirror quoted a former U.S. official as saying that President Clinton considers the document to be a starting point for proposing ideas. In other words, the compromises contained in the document were taken for granted, and it was treated as representing the ceiling of Palestinian demands, which would have to come down for a compromise to be reached.

"The document's original sin was to negotiate about Jerusalem at all, because they always turn agreements round in this way. Clinton has accordingly treated the document as though it were the Palestinians' opening bid, proposing solutions that are even more unfair to the Palestinians and violate both the text and the spirit of the document -- which never made any mention of the Temple, but only of al-Aqsa and the Churches."

Clause 13 of the document said: "The state of Palestine will acquire additional sovereignty over the al-Haram ash-Shareef under the administration of the Jerusalem Waqf. The status quo regarding rights of access to places of worship will be guaranteed." Details of the document have been published for the first time this week on Newsweek's website, albeit without maps.

Regarding the refugee question, the concessions made in the Abu-Mazen/Beilin document are calamitous. If it is true that Clinton is taking it as a basis for compromise, it is not surprising that he and others should consider the matter to have been virtually settled. The document says the Palestinians have a right to return but that the situation on the ground does not allow it to be realized, that the Palestinian side "declares its readiness to accept and implement policies and measures that will ensure, insofar as this is possible, the welfare and well-being of these refugees" and that Israel for its part "acknowledges the Palestinian refugees' right of return to the Palestinian state and their right to compensation and rehabilitation for moral and material losses."

Thus the reports after Camp David that only 100,000 refugees would be allowed to return under a family reunification and the rest would get resettlement and compensation were not lies, Adwan says. "The lie was to claim that no concessions were made, and then get dragged into shabby deals that will inevitably lead to disasters."

UN ROLE:

Raghida Dergham, pan-Arab al-Hayat's New York bureau chief, thinks the UN could play a crucial role as a "third party" in finding a solution to the impasse regarding sovereignty over Jerusalem's holy places. Both sides agree to that in principle, including for the first time Israel which since 1948 had always rejected any political role whatsoever for the UN in the Palestine Question, she writes on Friday.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan sees this as a valuable opportunity, especially as the Palestinians have always been keen to involve the world body, and adhere to its resolutions as a key source of legitimacy. The UN could thus play a helpful part in helping find and implement an agreement between the two sides, provided its eagerness to build on the changed Israeli attitude does not turn it into yet another of the parties warning Palestinian leader Yaser Arafat that this is the unrepeatable chance of a lifetime -- i.e. into a means for putting pressure on the Palestinians rather than a genuine contributor to creative ideas.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's acceptance of a UN role is one of a number of changes for the better in his stance, following his troop withdrawal from Lebanon and his breaking of the taboo in any discussion of Jerusalem at all, according to Dergham.

Barak's record is full of contradiction. He squandered the opportunity to build on the big pro-peace mandate he got by dragging his feet, and then suddenly began leading Israelis and Jews into new ground and breaking old taboos. Perhaps, after hesitating because of his reading of the Israeli public mood, he concluded that it was in Israel's interests for Israeli society to be awakened to facts and forced to break taboos.

Whatever his motives, Israeli society is at a crossroads and must decide what it really wants. If a majority is ready to decide, it has to back Barak and encourage him to take bold decisions that are ultimately in Israel's own interest. If they are not, they are gambling with the future, for the collapse of the peace process and the resulting instability will not only hurt the Palestinians but pose a threat to Israel too.

It is not only the right-wing that Barak has to contend with, but also the likes of Shimon Peres who have denounced him for being prepared to consider anything less than total and exclusive Israeli control over both sectors of Jerusalem. He also has to reconcile his own conflicting instincts, and strike a balance between his political interests with his desire to be a true leader. Because of this, many of those involved in the peace process approach it from the perspective that the Barak "phenomenon" is a rare opportunity available to Arafat. They play the personality game to wrest more concessions out of him and use recriminations, warnings and threats as means of forcing compromises. "That is precisely what the UN has to avoid if it is to be an effective party in the search for a way out of the Jerusalem 'sovereignty' controversy and enable a historic agreement to be signed between the Palestinians and Israelis," Dergham says.

The UN's legal department has, at Annan's request, begun preparing studies about a possible UN role as "third party," which the U.S. and Israel have both endorsed. For the past two weeks there have been contacts on the issue between Arab diplomats and the UN Secretariat, as well as France in its capacity as current European Union president.

At Camp David, the Israelis suggested that the Security Council could exercise sovereignty over the holy places. That was rejected by the Palestinians, because it would give them no say in decisions and subject them to the U.S. veto, but it opened the door to the idea of a "third party."

The Israelis had insisted on sovereignty over what they term the "Temple Mount" -- i.e. the al-Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock and the sacred enclosure containing them -- but then started talking about neither Israeli nor Palestinian sovereignty over the Haram.

Arafat proposed another "third party" when he suggested that sovereignty could be held by the Islamic Conference Organization (ICO), which would mandate Palestine to exercise it. Although the Israelis rejected that, it opened up the concept of third party sovereignty to discussion, notwithstanding the Palestinians' insistence on de facto Palestinian sovereignty even if it is Islamic or international de jure.

What is being discussed with and within the UN is not for the Security Council to assume sovereignty as suggested by Israel, but for it to "realize" whatever is agreed regarding the city's future.

One proposal is for the secretary-general to name a "governing body" composed of international figures, with a strong Moslem component, to supervise the holy sites and guarantee access to the sanctuaries, thus creating an international mechanism that would give he Palestinian Waqf de facto control over the al-Haram ash-Shareef and the Mount of Olives as holy places, while Israel would exercise sovereignty over the Wailing Wall.

These ideas are still in the process of being formulated, and it is not clear if either side will accept them. But both sides implicitly accept the principle of some role for some third party, hence the diplomatic discussions that are underway. The UN feels it has a unique position, because it is trusted by both the Israelis and the Palestinians and because it embodies international law. Annan is proud that it oversaw the implementation of UNSCR 425 which demanded an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon without negotiations. And he sees Resolution 242, which envisages withdrawal based on negotiations, as opening the door to a unique role, now that Israel has accepted such a role after rejecting and opposing it for 50 years.

The UN oversaw the implementation of Resolution 425 skillfully, avoiding falling into the trap of acting as a mere "witness" to Israel's disengagement from the mess it caused itself in Lebanon. It can also play a unique role in Palestine, neither as an alternative to the U.S. nor as a mere camp follower either, as partner in meeting the needs of the Israelis and the Palestinians on the basis of international law and UN resolutions. At this juncture, the U.S. administration has confined the role allocated to the UN Secretariat to one of considering formulas for sovereignty over the al -Haram ash-Shareef. But this could prove to be only a starting point. The whole package of issues, from borders to refugees, gives the UN a variety of potential roles that bring it out of the cage into which the U.S. administration has hitherto confined it.

There is talk of international or multinational forces policing the borders and/or the holy places in East Jerusalem. There are also proposals related to the refugees' right of return which uphold that right in principle while mandating an international body to oversee compensation and the repatriation of a small number of refugees to Israel under a family reunification scheme. There is also the role the UN has played in refugee welfare via UNRWA.

The important thing is for the UN Secretariat not to fall into the trap of arrogance or over-confidence as the parties turn to it for the magic creative solution. It must also avoid becoming part of the campaign to plus the Barak "phenomenon" in order to put pressure on Arafat.

Annan is in touch with Arab and Islamic leaders, both those who oppose anything short of full Palestinian sovereignty over all the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, and those who want the Palestinians to opt for "creative solutions" because they believe the overall package serves their interest. He should appreciate, therefore, that his role is to avoid apportioning blame while exploring for solutions that both Arafat and Barak can prepare their constituencies to accept, and which combine considerations of international law with those of practical feasibility, Dergham says.