Despite the confusion over the status of the Egyptian-Jordanian peace plan to end the Palestinian uprising and return to negotiations, it is at present the only initiative on the table. The plan, which focuses on calming tension, implementing past interim agreements and renewing final status talks, might not be perfect but it offers a possible way forward. It is at least the only diplomatic initiative since Ariel Sharon came to power to end more than seven months of bloodshed.
Now a month old and currently in its fourth version, the plan calls for a series of confidence-building measures as a road back to negotiations, among them a renewal of security cooperation in return for the Israeli Army’s withdrawal from Palestinian civilian areas. It has garnered the support of European powers, including Russia. The UN has called it a good starting point. The plan has the backing of the Palestinians, several Israeli politicians and has received the tepid blessings of the United States. It offers Washington a hitherto unused avenue, for it allows not only an end to the uprising and a road back to Oslo but direct American engagement in the process.
During his trip to Washington, Sharon drew from President Bush the line he most wanted to hear: “We’ll facilitate and we’ll work with those responsible for peace, but our nation will not try to force peace.” The last few weeks have shown the US cannot be as distant as Bush would have liked. While the Bush administration has criticized Sharon’s tough military tactics it has aided his hard-line strategy by not actively encouraging such negotiations. The Middle East simply cannot afford such US inaction much longer.
Faced with such a groundswell of support for the plan and chastened by his ill-advised decision to send Israeli tanks into Palestinian-controlled territory, which he still does on occasion, Sharon has said the initiative was important but that it needed some changes and improvements. The Palestinians fear that what Sharon’s revision really means is to scuttle the plan. Israel’s conditions for accepting the initiative are these: No negotiations of any kind before an end to Palestinian violence. As for the initiative’s insistence that negotiations resume from the point they left off at Taba in January, Israel will commit itself to only signed agreements with the Palestinians. And as for the Palestinian demand that there be an absolute freeze in settlement construction in the occupied territories, the Israeli stance is not so much an amendment as a refusal.
Thus, the initiative has been changed into Sharon’s election platform. The pursuit of a comprehensive Middle East settlement is now over, according to the Israeli premier who insists that there will be no return to final status negotiations but to something called long-term interim arrangements — an absurd contradiction in terms.
During his few months in office, Sharon has thus reverted to type. He is saying that there is actually no real chance for peace, that limited non-belligerency is the great hope now while displaying almost no room for compromise. Which is why, in the absence of any other alternative, the Egyptian-Jordanian initiative has taken on such added importance. The plan will certainly be more useful than the Mitchell report charged with investigating causes and possible solutions to the current conflict. Sources who have read it say it finds fault with both sides for the clashes and can only offer recommendations for preventing flare-ups but precious little else.
They indicate that it does not apportion blame on any side in particular and makes no specific recommendations as to what steps should be taken to end the violence. It makes clear the violence itself is a product of the failure of negotiations and, therefore, cannot be ended unless ways are found to restart the negotiation process.
The latest plan, if implemented the way its sponsors envisioned, could serve as a way back to the negotiating table.
