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COMMENTARY
July 19, 2003
Modest progress
In Israel yesterday Shimon Peres the country's perennial interim opposition leader uttered his latest Shimonism. A Shimonism as I understand consists of two clich?s linked together in a new and improbable way. He said that thanks to U.S. leadership the obstacles that derailed the Oslo peace process are being overcome . Since bad U.S. leadership was the crucial factor in the very creation of the "Oslo process" and doomed it from the beginning the statement might superficially make no sense. But no Shimonism can ever be parsed logically; the man's gift is for oblique allusion. Since even Mr. Peres's oblique allusions are almost invariably wrong I hesitate to endorse this one. But I am persuaded that there nevertheless may be some truth in it. Not much but some. Behind the scenes and away from the cameras -- which is where people go when progress must be made -- something entirely other than the Oslo process seems to be happening. The published "roadmap" -- endorsed by the disputing parties the U.S. the E.U. the U.N. and Russia -- is the cover story; it is pap released for the edification of the credulous. It contains in its text what a logician might call "negative meaning" in the sense that it sucks meaning out of an environment in which it would be a disruptive force. I have this growing impression directly and indirectly from people in the Bush administration. As ever I don't want to name people whose candour I have come to value. So as ever I invite the reader to just take my word for a few things and check against events later. I'm fairly sure I know what I' m talking about but time will tell. The Israel-Palestine negotiations are a U.S. State Department task and the secretary of state Colin Powell is the chief ball-carrier. But the team behind him is remarkable both for its informality and small size. President Bush's idea was to keep it this way on purpose: to avoid creating the kind of institutional force field that pushes problems further away as it advances towards them keeping them insoluble. He has instead created the diplomatic equivalent of one of the Pentagon's special forces which go in and out of hot spots without embedded reporters. Indeed most pre-announced meetings between any of the principals turn out to be nothing but "smiling events" -- mere reminders that "the process continues" (the next is scheduled between Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas in Jerusalem tomorrow). And I believe even the "frowning events" -- such as yesterday's Palestinian then U.S. complaint that the Israelis weren't releasing Hamas and other superannuated terrorists from their prisons quickly enough -- are themselves just ego-dressing. There was no real problem there. The sort of real problems that are being dealt with behind the scenes by truly tireless multi-person shuttle diplomacy include the Intifada legacy of Palestinian terror cells and media incitement on the one side; and specific over-visible Israeli security measures on the other. It is less like a constitutional progression towards a new Palestinian state and more like a protracted mutual disarmament and disengagement between two already existing governments. The point is to snuff out the Intifada and the Israeli response to the Intifada while building a new and co-operative security arrangement between the two sides modelled specifically on that which already exists between Israel and Jordan. While I'm going out on a limb to write this I think the grander operatic questions of border drawing and refugee settlements are already answered or more precisely mutually assumed. The de facto border will become de jure with minor adjustments to the Palestinian advantage in return for withdrawal of most Israeli settlements. Jerusalem will remain basically Israeli but with complex municipal arrangements over holy sites and Muslim neighbourhoods mirroring those for any remaining West Bank settlements. There will be a humungous pay-out to Palestinian refugee claimants mostly from the pockets of U.S. taxpayers; and as ever nothing for the Jewish refugees who were simultaneously expelled from Arab countries. And I think more of the planning consists in preparing the respective peoples -- Israeli and Palestinian -- to accept this "inevitable" result than in trying to get anyone to discuss it. (Whether such a result is indeed inevitable to say nothing of good is something upon which I'm not presently commenting.) What Shimon Peres meant by "U.S. leadership" -- the "new" thing that makes everything different from the "Oslo process" is that Bush team. The members of it are uniformly hard-headed and modest in ambition (two qualities that naturally go together). They have no interest in Clintonian theatre or in taking credit for whatever agreements emerge; for it is not in the U.S. interest exposed as it now is across the Arab world to focus any public attention at all on Palestine. It remains unfortunately in Yasser Arafat's interest to wait for his moment to blow everything up -- since his own power increases with conflict and diminishes with peace. It is an elaborate game getting him and keeping him sidelined -- one that's still being played. And the Europeans led by the French continue to indulge the soft-headed and immodest policy of throwing him diplomatic lifelines by publicly recognizing him in defiance of U.S. pressure. That is the chief external thing getting in the way. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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