Whether it was an official Arab League delegation that visited Israel as the Israelis claimed or a mission acting on its behalf as the Arab League insisted, the trip was highly significant. By simply meeting, on whatever terms, both sides reached out and touched across a chasm that has been a source of great evil and misery for sixty years.
It was the encounter itself, not anything that was said, nor even the smiles and jokes that were there for the photo calls, that really mattered. No conflict anywhere, particularly none with such a history of enmity and destruction as that between the Arabs and Israelis, can be resolved without the opposing parties sitting down together and talking. Wednesday’s meeting proved that this first essential is now possible.
It seems that there was little formal discussion of detailed issues. The Jordanian and Egyptian foreign ministers Abdul Ilah Khatib and Ahmed Aboul Gheit set forth the Arab League’s thinking based largely upon the Saudi Arabian peace plan to offer Israel recognition and territorial guarantees in exchange for a full and just settlement for the Palestinians, including their own independent state. The Israelis for their part agreed upon the importance of the creation of Palestine but jibbed at the return of all the West Bank and of East Jerusalem. It didn’t take this meeting to discover these views. They are widely available. But this encounter has proved that from hereon they can be discussed and argued over as part of a process that can lead to a lasting peaceful settlement.
The Arab delegation was rightly careful to insist that it was not seeking to supercede direct Palestinian-Israeli negotiations but was anxious to support and facilitate them. Because Jordan and Egypt are the only Arab states that have diplomatic relations with Israel, the Arab League wanted to keep a formal distance from the talks. However, no serious onlooker can doubt that at Wednesday’s meeting, the Arab participants were representing the voice of peace and moderation throughout the Arab World.
Nor should this meeting be viewed in isolation. The Middle East Quartet’s envoy ex-British Premier Tony Blair was last week undertaking his first fact-finding visit to the region. Of perhaps greater significance, Jordan’s King Abdullah has just met with George W. Bush in Washington and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is due to visit the Middle East in the coming week.
As ever, the American role is pivotal. It will dictate both the sincerity of the Israeli response to the peace plan and the enthusiasm with which the Arabs, particularly the Palestinians, will pursue it. Could it be that Bush has finally realized that main force and the imposition of Washington’s malformed policies are not going to work? Will he seek to rescue the reputation of his presidency with a genuinely evenhanded push to a lasting Palestinian settlement? Is this why he wanted his good and far more subtle friend Tony Blair hot-footing it around the region in search of peace? Leopards are supposed not to change their spots, but ....
