President Bush, being unable and unwilling to propose an amicable solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, has given one more reason for us, the Saudis, to get out of the driving seat of the Palestinian question.
If the purpose of our being out front on this issue is to prove our leadership in the Arab and Muslim world, then we should withdraw now. “Leader of the Arab Nation” is after all a worn-out, anachronistic phrase from the 1960s, that is useless in this day and age. Better bury it next to Gamal Abdel-Nasser.
The intense religious and nationalist significance of the Palestinian question for us Saudis doesn’t negate the fact that we played no part in defining the rules of the game: The Oslo Agreements. Neither do we wield any great influence on how the game is played. We can’t choose or change who the direct participants in this game are. They are notoriously difficult to manage anyway. Our Palestinian allies don’t seem to be able to deal transparently with their own people, much less with us. As for our Israeli adversaries, they are extremely devious. The Israelis have made a habit of interpreting each agreement they sign in a thousand different ways. Additionally, they usually introduce a thousand changes and amendments to agreements they have already signed.
The broker here is not in great shape either. The present American administration has limited its options by vowing to ensure the security of Israel and demanding an end to violence without demanding an end to the occupation. This has driven the whole peace process into a deadlock. Violence and occupation are a package. They always come together.
Oslo was, in essence, a security agreement. It was drawn up with the express purpose of guaranteeing Israel’s security after the first Palestinian Intifada (1987-1992), when the security situation in the West Bank and Gaza was threatening to spiral out of control. Consequently, each and every setback it faced was because of Palestinian violations of its security-related clauses. As for Israeli violations such as continued settlement activity and procrastination in carrying out withdrawals agreed to previously, they were not seen as being serious at all. That was because the Palestinian Authority (PA), itself a creature of the Oslo Agreements, was too weak to object to Israeli transgressions. The PA grew into the habit of accepting whatever changes the Israelis decided to introduce to the original agreement according to their political whims and their ever-changing security requirements.
Even if it was assumed that we Saudis would be prepared — for the sake of peace — to take a leading role, we cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, provide the Israelis with the security guarantees they demand. Nor indeed could we guarantee that the Palestinians would not violate Oslo’s security-related clauses, for the simple reason that the Palestinians themselves are not agreed on accepting Oslo in the first place. It is easy to say that recent events have overtaken Oslo, and that, as a consequence, the agreement has become irrelevant. But this is not strictly correct, for so long as the PA exists, so does Oslo. This would be so even if the PA’s civil and security infrastructure were totally destroyed. Yes, Israel has reoccupied most of the West Bank, but does this negate Oslo? The Israeli and American emphasis on ending the violence first meant that all forms of Palestinian resistance were covered under the legal obligations enshrined in the Oslo Agreements.
That agreements signed in 1993 banned any form of armed struggle, and obliged the PA to punish those who indulged in this form of activity. What we saw recently was Israel imposing this requirement by force on the Palestinian leadership, which had tried not to fulfill this obligation completely. While the Americans merely objected in the beginning to this PA position, Israel used more heavy-handed methods. Now the Americans have gone as far as restructuring the Palestinian’s leadership.
There is another aspect to the present dilemma: So long as there is an Oslo, there will always be crises cropping up. Last April we had the siege of Ramallah and Bethlehem. Now we have the reoccupation of the West Bank. Next month it could be Gaza. Why should we Saudis put ourselves in such an accursed position? If we decided to involve ourselves in all the intricacies of these crises, we would have to deal with thousands of maps and documents, dozens of Palestinian commitments, and scores of American guarantees — all of which have gone unfulfilled. We would also have to deal with bizarre Israeli explanations and interpretations, and with legal tricks devised by Israel’s Manhattan-based lawyers.
We Saudis neither played a part in creating Oslo, nor indeed even accepted it. In fact, a significant portion of the Palestinian people have never accepted Oslo, nor recognized the commitments it imposed. Saudi Arabia enjoys good relations with all Palestinian forces, and even better relations with the Palestinian people. We should keep it that way, and avoid siding with one party at the expense of others. In fact, Saudi Arabia has already received some flak because of rumors that Riyadh played a part in the deal by which Arafat was released in exchange for handing over PFLP activists to American-British prison wardens.
Regardless of the future of Yasser Arafat, any future Palestinian leader who comes to power under Oslo’s arrangements, must accept their conditions completely. That means the future can only get worse as far as inter-Palestinian relations are concerned. One of Oslo’s major flaws was that it wasn’t based on a consensus among the Palestinians. It was imposed by force. Now, the PA is required to ram the Oslo remit down the throats of the entire Palestinian population, and to strictly enforce the ban on armed activity according to the desires and indeed under the supervision of America and Israel.
As the PA begins to reorganize its security services under American and Israeli supervision, inter-Palestinian differences will become even greater than they were at the outbreak of the second Intifada. There will be arrests of Palestinians by Palestinians, and blood will be spilt. It will be an ugly situation from which we Saudis should distance ourselves.
As far as the Palestinian question is concerned, Saudi Arabia has been trying to maintain its traditional cautious diplomatic approach. Senior Saudi officials have restricted themselves to the broad picture. They have been talking of Crown Prince Abdullah’s peace initiative and the broad outlines of a just solution, without delving into the complicated day to day details. Yet it seems that the US wants to involve Riyadh in these details, citing a joint role by which Washington pressures Israel (the most recent manifestation of this “pressure” was an emergency aid package of $200 million and Bush’s full adoption of the Likud position), while the Saudis pressure the Palestinians. In other words, we Saudis are supposed to help stop the Intifada and any operations against Israel.
We might differ with the Palestinians — or at least with some of them — as to what constitutes resistance. Yet whichever vision is the more correct, we cannot purport to lead the Palestinian struggle, nor should we try. Saudi Arabia has come under intense pressure to adopt a hostile attitude toward Palestinian resistance. But the Saudis have rebuffed these pressures in regard to condemnation of the controversial Palestinian suicide operations. We condemned all violence that targeted civilians. Unfortunately, America’s president has repeatedly failed to do the same. On the contrary, he gives the green light to Israeli violence every time he speaks about their right to self-defense.
It was only recently that Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal declared: “So long as the Palestinians themselves condemned these (suicide) attacks, we agree with them that they are detrimental to the interests of the Palestinian people.” Prince Saud thus absolved the Kingdom of the responsibility for defining what is permissible in Palestinian resistance and what is not. While we can voice an opinion on suicide bombing, we should refrain from making a commitment to stop it. President Bush is trying to lead us into one big trap. We simply don’t have forces in Jenin or Ramallah, and in any case such operations need only a few committed people to succeed. Come to think of it, Israeli actions and Americans statements have done far more to encourage such attacks than the “incitement” by Saudi religious leaders that the pro-Israel American media hold responsible.
We Saudis must be wary of putting ourselves in a position to be, or even appear to be, responsible — as the Americans would prefer — whenever Palestinian youths decide to blow themselves up in Israeli shopping malls or whenever Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decides to blow his top.
Those who say that so long as Israel’s occupation continues there will always be resistance have a very strong argument.
Even King Abdallah of Jordan, who has more friends in Washington than any other Arab leader today, is saying quite clearly that we must move immediately to final status talks. King Abdallah called for the proposed international conference to discuss a final settlement rather than concentrate on details and interim measures. This is the same position adopted last May by the leaders of Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia in their meeting at Sharm El-Shaikh. However, the American “peace plan” has postponed all serious efforts to bring an end to the conflict until the Palestinians emerge with new leader that both the US and Israel accept.
While this seems enough to allay our anxieties, we are justified in feeling concerned so long as men like Sharon and Bush are in power in Israel and the United States. Until Sharon and Bush are convinced that Israel’s occupation is the cause of terrorism and not vice versa, and until they demonstrate a genuine readiness to deal with the Arab peace initiative, it is better to leave them to slug it out with Arafat. After all, they were the ones who signed up to Oslo with him, not us.
