Mitchell Report Offers Little Hope

By Lucy Jones

The Mitchell Commission report on the Middle East published May 21 was greeted in Europe with scant optimism. The committee headed by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell called for an immediate and unconditional cease-fire, to be followed by “confidence-building measures” and, after a cooling-off period, the resumption of peace negotiations. On the Palestinian side, these confidence-building measures included an all-out effort to prevent terrorism and punish perpetrators. For the Israelis, the most significant recommendation was for a total ban on settlement building in the West Bank and Gaza.

On that issue, Britain’s Independent of May 24 called Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s insistence on continuing to build settlements to allow for natural growth “unacceptable and implausible.” The editorial continued: “Israel has thousands of empty properties on the West Bank—enough, calculate Israel’s Peace Now activists, to absorb nearly three years of growth without building a single new home. It is clear that Israel’s relentless settlement building during the Oslo era did much to undermine Arab faith in the peace process; the Palestinians now say that it is one of the driving forces behind their intifada.”

London’s Economist on June 1 also criticized Sharon’s settlement policy. “The settlements negate all chance of Palestinian-Israeli peaceful co-existence, and understandably so: which self-respecting people would allow their land to be thus expropriated?”

Britain’s Financial Times on May 22 cautioned that the Mitchell report is only an outline. “There is no timetable and no mechanism for implementing the steps to peace,” the paper editorialized. “It will be difficult to put the recommendations into practice.”

Germany’s Frankfurter Rundschau of the same date agreed: “The tender sprig of peace in the Middle East could still be buried under the victims of suicide and missile attacks. Never since the Oslo peace accord has war between Israel and the Palestinians seemed so likely,” said the newspaper. “And never before has the world stood so helplessly by. Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat, prisoners of their own biographies, are playing with the fire of escalation—a fire they no longer have under control.”

Italy’s La Repubblica also added to the gloom on May 22, writing: “There is now another peace plan, after hundreds, even thousands, in the last 50 years that cover the bodies of the dead like a burial shroud.”

But the Economist on June 1, acknowledging that the Mitchell report may only bring about a temporary stop in fighting, said, “Never mind: stopping the slaughter is worth doing for its own sake. The killing is leading to nothing good. It’s a tragedy in itself.”

Tenet Plan Cease-Fire

By mid June, however, there was a glimmer of hope that the Middle East situation could improve, following the acceptance by the Palestinians and Israelis of a cease-fire drawn up by American CIA director George Tenet. “Despite continuing doubts about the prospects for a sustainable cease-fire,” wrote London’s Guardian on June 13, “some observers have a little more hope than they would have had in recent days.” This despite the fact, it continued, that the Palestinians have accused Israel of seeking to add amendments to the Tenet plan which, they charged, were intended to block implementation of the proposals put forward in the Mitchell report. Moreover, should any violation of the cease-fire occur during the six-week-period, Israel would probably begin counting again from day one. This worries Palestinian officials, who think Israel could use this device to avoid moving to the confidence-building stage, which includes a freeze on Israeli settlement activity—a key Palestinian goal.

Wrote Italy’s La Repubblica on June 13, “Although the present situation in the Middle East is extremely volatile, one could nonetheless call it a cease-fire. CIA director George Tenet is doing his best to turn it into a peace plan.”

U.S. Mideast Involvement

June saw a renewal of U.S. involvement—albeit reluctant—in the Middle East crisis. Three weeks previously, Secretary of State Colin Powell had argued against Washington’s “over-involvement” in Middle East peacemaking. Since then, however, the head of the CIA has been to Israel for prolonged negotiations, President George W. Bush had a second White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, while the secretary of state himself made a second visit to the region.

“It is just the sort of crisis management the Bush administration had hoped to avoid,” commented a June 26 BBC report. “But once again, reality has intervened,” despite “a growing lobby in Congress to cut off all contacts with the Palestinians and to close their offices in Washington.The difference this time,” it continued, “is that Colin Powell has no illusions about a comprehensive peace deal. The American aim is just to stabilize the situation.”

In a June 1 cover story, London’s Economist argued that the U.S. must work for the resumption of negotiations: “No exit? America must help Israel and the Palestinians to find one.” The publication continued, “George Bush made it clear from the start that he would not be involved in the soul-destroying intricacies of helping Jews and Arabs to find a way of living together, but would be casting his regional eye farther east, reviewing policy toward…the Iraqis and the Iranians. But the issues are linked: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an unfolding tragedy that could have a decisive effect on America’s other interests in the region,” it concluded.

There was optimism in Italy that renewed U.S. involvement would help bring peace. Wrote Corriere Della Sera on May 24: “America is back. Washington’s words and the Mitchell Plan will perhaps mark the beginning of a turnaround in the Middle East. The European Union and the United Nations agree.”

“Trigger-happy” Israeli Troops?

The Economist asked on May 25 whether the Israeli army was simply “trigger-happy troops set loose.” Suspicions about individual behavior, the magazine said, are less relevant than the clear fact that the army, given its head by Ariel Sharon, has made a deliberate decision to take the fight to the Palestinians, even at the risk of escalation and of deepening Israel’s international problems. It went on to say that the killing on May 14 of five junior Palestinian police guards at a quiet checkpoint on the outskirts of Bituniya revealed “the army’s new attitude and tactics.” “The Israeli army, it seems,” the magazine continued, “has blurred its previous distinctions between defense and attack as it redefines the conflict, seeking to wrest the initiative, and to pre-empt Palestinian tactics.”

It also pointed out that, in the previous intifada in the late 1980s and early 1990s, any deviant actions by Israeli troops generally led to the soldiers being called to account. “But there has been precious little of that during the past seven months,” the publication observed.

Husseini’s Death a “Blow” to Peace

The death on May 31 of Faisal Husseini, a Palestinian statesman known for his commitment to human rights and his quest for peace with Israel, was described by London’s Guardian the following day as “another hammer blow to hopes for peace and progress in the region.” Husseini, 60, died while visiting Kuwait in his capacity as minister in charge of Jerusalem affairs for the Palestinian Authority. “His lofty title only hinted at the respect he commanded,” the paper noted. “He played a pivotal role in pursuing accommodation with Israel, while championing the centrality of Jerusalem in the Arab psyche. Arguably, without him, there would have been no United States-Palestine Liberation Organization rapprochement, nor the 1991 Madrid peace initiative.”

Husseini, who learned Hebrew to better communicate with Israelis, also helped create political committees to focus Palestinian opinion. Following the 1991 Gulf war, he increasingly was sought after as an interlocutor between U.S. and Israeli politicians, such as Shimon Peres, and the Palestinian population. Husseini’s intensive negotiations with U.S. Secretary of State James Baker led to the October 1991 Madrid conference, which facilitated the first open negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. Husseini would be missed deeply by both Palestinians and the Israel left, concluded the newspaper.

Musharraf Assumes Pakistan Presidency

Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s assumption of Pakistan’s presidency on June 20 was condemned by newspapers in Europe as another turn away from democracy. The general, ruling as “chief executive” since he overturned the elected government of Nawaz Sharif in 1999, removed the incumbent figurehead, President Rafiq Tarar, and dissolved legislatures suspended since the coup. The Financial Times of June 21 was unconvinced by the Musharraf camp’s claims that the presidency would give him “greater credibility” in a July summit with India and that it would provide “stability, continuity and faster progress” in reforms. While the newspaper praised Musharraf for cracking down on corruption and imposing fiscal discipline, it criticized his failure to implement political reforms, “leaving doubts about whether next year’s elections can be really fair. Far from ensuring stability,” it concluded, “his move is likely to upset international confidence in his regime.”

The Times of London said June 21 that Musharraf “must retrace his steps toward democracy” and “should not make the mistake of thinking that he can simply rewrite the democracy rule book whenever he sees fit. He has made sincere efforts to stop the corruption that set in under his elected predecessors from rotting Pakistan’s economy; but he must not replace one sickness in the body with another.”

Moderates vs. Mullahs in Iran

The European press in early June gushed over Iranian President Mohammad Khatami’s success in winning 77 percent of the votes in the country’s June 8 election—a larger margin than he achieved in 1997. Even though the country’s reactionary state-owned television and radio downplayed the election, the London Observer reported June 10 that Khatami won the electorate’s “unequivocal backing in his fight to transfer power from an orthodox clerical establishment to an Islamic democracy.”

All agreed that Khatami’s reform agenda faces a severe challenge, as control of Iran’s armed forces, judiciary, police, and the Council of Guardians rests with religious authorities headed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Financial Times speculated on June 11, however, that “the renewed mandate will give the president more bargaining power in his negotiations with hard-line clerics opposed to his program of political and social liberalization.”

Since the 1997 election, noted a June 11 editorial in Spain’s El Pa’s, seven million Iranians have turned 15, Iran’s minimum voting age. Demographics are on Khatami’s side: 45 percent of the Iranian population is under 15, continued the newspaper, and all statistics indicate that at least 90 percent of the new voters favor Khatami and an open and democratic Iran that rejects the medieval dogma of the mullahs.

A June 11 editorial in Britain’s Guardian ½rgued that the isolation caused by U.S. sanctions against Tehran fortifies religious fundamentalists and “pushes Iran further into Russia’s embrace and reduces the chances that Mr. Khatami, habitually outflanked by the theocrats, will be any more effective in a second term in modernizing his society.”

Lucy Jones is a free-lance journalist based in London.