Less process, more peace. Words by Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa a few days ago. It is now 10 years since the peace process began in Madrid. It has produced a great deal of process but little in the way of peace.
It is clear by now that the issues separating Palestinians and Israelis are too difficult and too emotionally charged for any Israeli leadership, including that of Ariel Sharon, to reach a peace agreement. This realization on the Israeli side has already led to much discussion on unilateral solutions to be imposed by Israel. The army’s policies of a blanket siege, partial withdrawals and assassinations confirm Sharon’s policy of repossessing large swathes of territory in the West Bank and Gaza, snuffing out Palestinian political and military resistance and demonstrating to all that there is now no place in the occupied territories the Israeli Army cannot enter. Sharon has succeeded in turning Area A into Area B.
Sharon’s draft plan foresees the establishment of a vaguely defined Palestinian state in Gaza and parts of the West Bank while leaving unresolved such vital issues as the borders, sovereignty and Jerusalem pending future negotiations. It proposes continued Israel control of the Jordan Valley, border crossings and strategic hilltops. As for the refugees’ right of return, the plan rejects it outright. His position on settlements: not a single one, anywhere, anytime, will be dismantled.
The type of negotiations Sharon has in mind cannot result in a just and lasting peace because he has nothing to offer the Palestinians that can serve as basis for negotiations. He rejects the principles of international legitimacy, the terms of reference of the Madrid peace talks and the provisions of the Oslo Accords. Any Palestinian state he might consider would be only nominally sovereign and created on a patchwork of no more than 42 percent of the West Bank and Gaza.
The conventional wisdom that Palestinian-Israeli violence should end, and negotiations resume makes sense - up to a point. The intractability and critical importance of the conflict call for some radical and unorthodox thinking. Palestinians are being urged to renounce the internationally recognized right of resistance to an illegal occupation in return for the opportunity to negotiate with Sharon: an absurd situation. How can peace be made when the man standing firmly on the side of the status quo is the same individual sitting at the negotiating table?
Israel’s refusal to implement UN Security Council resolutions has left the Palestinians with no option but resistance and this resistance will continue as long as peace based on the Palestinian right to self-determination has not been achieved. The Palestinian and Israeli people desperately need to put a definite end to their conflict but it is now obvious that negotiations with Sharon, if they ever happened, would only provide a very brief lull in the hostilities before they flared up again, probably even more ferociously.
In his remark, Moussa said the Arabs were not ready to spend 10 more years in a vicious circle of talks and more talks without results. But if the current conventional wisdom holds, the world will no doubt be discussing how to revive the peace process, not just 10 years from now, but perhaps 20 or 30 years on.
