Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August/September 2001, page 50

Special Report

UN “Media Encounter” Spotlights Palestine

By Delinda C. Hanley

The U.N. Department of Public Information (DPI) hosted its ninth “International Media Encounter on the Question of Palestine,” June 18 and 19 at the Paris, France headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). It was clear we weren’t in Kansas anymore—because the attendees, mostly European press, who were critical of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s brutal response to the Palestinian uprising vastly outnumbered Israeli speakers and supporters. Israeli panelists were on the defensive as they railed against what they alleged was the U.N. tilt toward Palestine. They suggested putting aside past and present Palestinian grievances and looking toward the future. Palestinian participants, on the other hand, sought to examine the past in order to avoid repeating mistakes in the future.

After examining complimentary copies of the Washington Report, several journalists told this reporter they were stunned to discover such an unbiased American journal. “I thought all the press in the United States was owned by Zionists,” a Russian journalist told me.

Moderator Shashi Tharoor, interim DPI head, read a message from Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who was touring the Middle East at the time. “The theme of this encounter—‘The Search for Peace in the Middle East’—could not possibly be more topical, indeed urgent, than it is today,” Annan said. “In the last nine months, violence between Israelis and Palestinians has taken over 600 lives. Unspeakable acts of terrorism have been committed—such as the horrific suicide bomb in Tel Aviv on June 1—and measures of harsh repression adopted. Too often, people on both sides have shown a callous disregard for human life.

“By far the larger number of those killed have been Palestinian, and it is also the Palestinian people who live in the conditions of far greater hardship, in the grip of an occupying power. Yet the trauma and insecurity suffered by both peoples are acute…Throughout the region there is anxiety that at any moment a new cataclysm may be unleashed…

“The cease-fire offers hope, but it is very fragile. There is no time to be lost in consolidating it, and this can only be done by embedding it in a wider political process—one which offers the Palestinians hope of an end to the occupation, and of an independent state. It is equally urgent to bring them economic aid, and give them the space to resume normal economic activity.

“Both sides understand, I believe, that they need the help of the international community. Your interest is therefore very important. Only a well-informed world public opinion can provide the basis for effective international action.”

Koïchiro Matsuura, director-general of UNESCO, expressed his hope that the two parties to the conflict will try to keep the peace process alive. Education, he said, is a powerful tool for changing attitudes, along with nonpartisan and objective information.

Loïc Hennekinne, secretary-general of France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that the Mitchell Committee report offered a way out of the crisis and that France had backed full implementation of its recommendations. He agreed that the question of ending settlements is at the center of the issue. France, he said, welcomes U.N. involvement in the peace process.

Hennekinne expressed his concern that far too many journalists have been hurt covering the Middle East. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) had met June 12 with Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., David Irvy, to express its concern over Israeli gunfire wounding 15 journalists while covering the West Bank and Gaza Strip since September. In some of these cases, journalists may have been deliberately targeted. Hennekinne concluded by underlining the responsibility of the media, noting that images are not neutral and can have a real effect on the situation. “The media war is going on,” he said, “and I encourage each of you to be vigorous in your work.”

Moderator Tharoor introduced the first session’s panelists, who spoke about “The U.N. and the Question of Palestine.” He noted that two Palestinian journalists who were to be panelists had not been able to join the session due to restrictions on travel by Israeli authorities.

Ibra Deguéne Ka of Senegal, chairman of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, gave an overview of the U.N.’s role in the question of Palestine. He reiterated that, based on Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, the U.N. has a principal responsibility concerning the question of Palestine until it is resolved. Ka said the situation in the field was getting worse, and that it was time for the international community to take positive steps to end the violence.

Later in the discussion period, Ka stated that the Palestinians could not renounce their right of return—though the modalities of implementation of this right were another matter. For the achievement of peace in the Middle East, he said, Israel—not United Nations policies—had to change. Reminding participants that settlements were illegal, he also noted that the media have a crucial role to play in raising awareness in an objective and unbiased way.

Dr. Nasser Al-Kidwa, who left a dentistry practice to become Palestine’s eloquent Permanent Observer to the U.N., expounded on Ka’s remarks, noting that Sharon rejected what the Palestinian side sees as an essential part of the Mitchell report, i.e., an end to all settlements. Israel also tagged onto the report invented “separate stages”: the cessation of violence, a cooling-off period, confidence-building measures, and finally a time to deal with the political dimensions of the crisis.

Al-Kidwa stressed that Palestinians especially welcomed the essence of the Mitchell report, which calls for the implementation of previous U.N. resolutions. Although the Security Council has continuously dealt with Palestinian and Israeli issues, none of the 25 resolutions adopted since 1976 has been implemented. “All resolutions have been publicly rejected by the Israeli government,” he pointed out. “No other country would challenge or reject U.N. resolutions without serious follow-up.”

With the usual, almost automatic, backing of the U.S., however, Israel can neutralize the U.N. International law is the responsibility of the entire international community, Al-Kidwa argued—not just the concern of Israel, the U.S. and Micronesia.

Palestinians are the largest and oldest refugee population in the world, Al-Kidwa pointed out, and Israel brooks no interference from the U.N. to help solve it. In March 2001, Washington vetoed the draft resolution which would have created an international observer mission. In October 2000, the U.S., abstaining, allowed the passage of Resolution 1322, deploring the provocation carried out at the Haram Al-Sharif and the subsequent violence there and throughout the territories occupied by Israel since 1967. The U.S. allowed no follow-up, however.

“We are not going to exempt the Security Council of its responsibility,” Al-Kidwa said. These resolutions have the force of international law and represent the ultimate “safety net” to preserve the rights of the Palestinian people.

Yuli Tamir, former cabinet minister in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s government, who has a good peace record, took care to note that she did not represent the current government at the conference. Israelis, she said, see the U.N. as a biased partner in the peace process. Tamir deplored the fact that Israel was absent from the conference name—the “International Media Encounter on the Question of Palestine”—and that there were no Israeli journalists in attendance. [The U.N. invited various Israeli journalists, who agreed to come but never attended, as well as two journalists from the Jerusalem Post, one from Ha’aretz and Israeli writer and free-lance journalist Israel Shamir, each of whom did attend.]

Tamir said that public opinion in Israel had changed for the worse in the belief that there now is no chance for peace. Yet, Tamir said, she believed that trust and dialogue could be rebuilt through discussion with the two parties. “We need to find measures that will reassure each other,” she urged, “and recognize the legitimate rights of both peoples.”

Tamir also made it clear, however, that no Israeli would accept the Palestinian right of return to sovereign Israeli territory. Israel and Palestine should exist side by side, she maintained, with Israel retaining the character of a Jewish state.

Tamir noted that there is currently a media war, with both sides seeking victory rather than dialogue and understanding. “Each side is seeing its own pain and suffering,” she said, “and not the pain and suffering of the other.”

Clovis Maksoud, director of the American University’s Center for the Global South, and former permanent ambassador of the League of Arab States to the United Nations, said that Palestinians are in great need of proper understanding of their cause. “Palestinians are dealing with a state that never defined its borders,” he noted. “Which Israel are Palestinians and Arabs supposed to recognize—Israel since 1948, before or after 1967?”

Israel never recognized East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza as occupied territories, Maksoud said. The lands are treated as “claimed” territories and, as such, Israel argues they aren’t subject to the Fourth Geneva conventions.

When it comes to the Middle East, Dr. Maksoud said, there is a duality at the U.N. that has created a situation of imbalance and frustration. “We are dealing with two United Nations,” he explained, “the U.N. as an international community and the U.N. as part of U.S. policy on the question of Palestine.”

Now that the U.S. has become the sole superpower, he added, Washington can decide to activate the U.N. on the question of Iraq and marginalize the U.N. on the question of Palestine.

Maksoud called it “mind-boggling” that Palestinians who have lived in refugee camps since 1947 are denied the right to return because they are not Jews. Israelis from both the left and the right say the return of Palestinian refugees would be suicidal for Israel. That just proves “Zionism is racism,” Maksoud said.

He reminded the international audience that for the U.S. Israel is not just a foreign policy issue, but a domestic political situation. Because of this, he said, Palestinian complaints cannot be treated on their own merits, but always must be examined for their possible political repercussions inside the U.S.

With guaranteed U.S. support for illegal Israeli actions, Maksoud observed, “Israel is totally contemptuous of U.N. resolutions. Israel has not yet admitted that it is an occupying power nor committed itself to the dismantling of the settlements.”

Palestinians don’t want compromise, they want reconciliation, Maksoud concluded. “They want the implementation of U.N. jurisprudence,” he stated. “They want the settlements dismantled, the right to an independent state without settlements, and equal treatment for Arabs and Israelis.”

Stephen Cohen, president of the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development, hailed the new policy of the U.N. and its Department of Public Information in addressing the question of Palestine not only as an issue of debate, but as a matter of conflict resolution. Rather than rehashing past grievances, he said, the U.N.’s priority should be to advance the cause of peace. “While the world is divided as to how to solve the problem and proceed,” he argued, “the parties are left alone to kill and be killed.”

Instead of passing new resolutions, Cohen said, the U.N. should concentrate on implementing the basic Resolutions 192 and 242. He considered it time to adopt a new language which could lead to the resolution of conflict and which would be inspired by a humanist vision, focusing on people. The international community should abandon solutions that quarantine countries, like Iraq and Israel, he urged.

Media panelists in the afternoon session discussed “Getting the Facts Right.” Jean-Luc Allouche, editor-in-chief of the Paris newspaper Libération, discussed the graphic images bombarding television and newspapers and changing world public opinion on Palestine. Noting that bad news and violent headlines sell more newspapers than headlines with good news and peace initiatives, he nevertheless concluded that it is up to journalists to stick to the facts and give the viewpoints of each of the protaganists in a comprehensive and fair manner.

Israel Shamir called for a state where Jews and other people could live together with equal rights. He said that the idea of a Jewish state already is obsolete: there are so many non-Jewish Russians where he lives, Shamir said, that they have their own newspapers, shops, and signs. He also criticized international media coverage of issues relevant to the Palestinian people. Days before this trip he watched armor-plated Israeli bulldozers that looked like creatures out of the film “Star Wars” demolish Palestinian homes. The West isn’t getting the Palestinian side of the story, he maintained.

Nabil El-Sharif, editor-in-chief of Jordan’s Addustour, added that, thanks to satellite television, the world—especially the Arab world—is following the intifada minute by minute. On the other hand, he noted, world news agencies rely first and foremost on Israeli sources for information, resulting in unbalanced reporting in the West.

London’s Guardian columnist Martin Wollacotte agreed that the media concentrated on images of violence without explaining the causes. Both sides in the dispute portray the other as the enemy rather than a partner, he noted, suggesting that the press should establish a common record of what happens in this conflict. It should put together a narrative that the two parties can agree upon, he proposed.

Breaking the Deadlock

The theme of the conference’s second day was “The Peace Process: Breaking the Deadlock.” Keynote speaker Terje Roed-Larsen, United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process and personal representative of the secretary-general to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority, enumerated the principles of Oslo: land for peace, based on Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338; ending the Israeli occupation; total rejection of violence and terrorism; the need for security for both parties; and Israel’s right to exist in security.

The Oslo agreement, he said, was based on the principle of “gradualism,” or keeping hopes alive by moving forward slowly. Roed-Larsen believed that approach worked until 1996, and that there was political, economic and social progress for Palestinians. The basic flaw of Oslo, however, was that there was no third party mechanism to oversee its implementation, and as a result, he said, the gradualism process broke down.

Spectacular photo-op ceremonies only produced more never-to-be implemented agreements, he observed. By 1993 Palestinians had lost hope for peace, especially as they saw massive expansions of settlements and no territorial transfers. On the Israeli side, there was concern about Palestinian implementation of security commitments. A crisis was in the waiting, he said, for which Ariel Sharon’s Sept. 28 incursion of Jerusalem’s Haram al-Sharaf became the trigger mechanism.

Having spent the previous day in Gaza, Roed-Larsen summed up the current facts on the ground: there is real misery on the Palestinian side—death, hunger, fear and frustration. Poverty breeds hate, he warned, and hate creates violence. On the Israeli side, there is fear and a sense of isolation. Suicide bombings recreate the historical trauma of the Jewish people.

The foundations for peace have to be rebuilt, the U.N. diplomat urged, and the Mitchell report is the only valid document which can establish such foundations. Using a “House of Peace” metaphor, Roed-Larsen said that improvement of the Palestinian economy and living conditions constituted the floor of the House of Peace. Political progress and the restoration of hope in Gaza and the West Bank were the walls. Security for both parties, he continued, would become the roof. But it was essential, he emphasized, that the political issue be addressed in a parallel way with security issues: “It is impossible to create security without peace,” Roed-Larsen argued, “and there is no peace without a just solution.”

The Mitchell report’s three sets of recommendations (security, economic and political) have to be dealt with simultaneously, he said, although there could be some sequencing in implementation. Leadership, with the ability to make very painful compromises, is needed on both sides, he stated. Roed-Larsen stressed the need for the full implementation of the report and for precise time lines. With the two sides worlds apart, they need a referee, he concluded, and the parties would have to agree on some sort of third-party mechanism.

Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian Authority’s minister for planning and international cooperation, recalled that Oslo produced the first real bilateral meetings between Israelis and Palestinians. There was euphoria and budding partnership at the government and grassroots levels, he recalled. Unfortunately, all timetables were soon broken—“dates were not sacred under [Yitzhak] Rabin and there were no dates for [Binyamin] Netanyahu,” Shaath charged. Today less than 18 percent of the West Bank is in full control of the Palestinian Authority, he pointed out, rather than the 92 percent envisioned at Oslo, and Israel has deepened its colonization.

By allowing Israel to determine which Palestinians could return to their homeland, Shaath said, it has meant no one could return. There is no safe passage, economy, or freedom for Palestinians, he stated.

In hindsight, Dr. Shaath said, Palestinians never should have have moved one inch in negotiations without requiring a halt to all the settlements after 1994. “Settlements create geopolitical facts on the ground that preempt negotiations,” he said.

Blaming the U.S. for supporting Israeli settlements, the PA minister said, “America has satellite images that show every new [settlement] house—the U.S. should have called a halt [to construction].”

Shaath described the Mitchell report as not “the best report in the world,” but said it was a fair compromise. The report did not set sequential conditional stages, he noted, with the recommendations to be implemented together as a package deal. The process would be sequential in terms of implementation, he said, but simultaneous in terms of planning.

A precise time line is needed, but to give Israeli Prime Minister Sharon control of this time line will create another catastrophe, Shaath argued: “Israel can’t be judge, jury, contestant and lawyer together. There is a need for a third party to decide.”

While he doubted Israel would accept this, Shaath commented that Israel didn’t seem squeamish when it quietly accepted European observers, armed with cameras and cell phones, stationed in Bethlehem. Their presence there, Shaath said, had created a perfect cease-fire. Already, he noted, there are third parties in Hebron, on the borders and in Jerusalem. Shaath recommended that Europe play a key role, in close alliance with the United States, to observe that both sides adhere to a cease-fire. It is time that the international community stepped in to create conditions for peace, he said.

Israel is playing the blame game, Shaath concluded. The sixth most important military nation, with its great command over media, and a lock on a built-in Western bias based on guilt makes the world accept Israeli arguments until they are proven overwhelmingly wrong.

General (Ret.) Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, former cabinet minister and Israeli chief of staff, speaking as a private citizen, said that the DPI encounter the previous day felt like “a meeting of the Arab League,” and was not sufficiently balanced. Looking back, he said that if Camp David had not ended in failure, some settlements would now be inhabited by Palestinians and not Israelis. He described Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount as a pure political act targeted at then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who had made some statements showing flexibility on the issue of Jerusalem.

At the moment, Lipkin-Shahak said, there is no dialogue and no hope: “We are waiting for the Messiah to solve our problems.”

The collapse of trust, he said, is the most tragic and difficult to rebuild, adding that the situation now is the most difficult since 1967. There is a level of hatred that never existed before, he continued, and both sides will have to make difficult concessions. Palestinians must understand Israel’s sensitivity on the question of security, Lipkin-Shahak insisted.

The general said it was necessary to start rebuilding confidence as soon as possible. That included ending violence and terrorism to restore trust, he specified, no limitation on people’s movements, and establishing a political dialogue. Life, he said, must be brought back to normal. Lipkin-Shahak suggested an international effort to give Palestinian refugees decent living conditions, and called on the leadership of both sides to implement what was promised and agreed upon. There was no other choice, he concluded, but to reach an agreement.

Robert Malley, senior policy adviser at the Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Development and special assistant on Near Eastern affairs to former President Clinton, reflected upon the characteristics of the current deadlock. Malley, who was not attending the conference as a U.S. official, said that Israelis believe Palestinians turned down a generous, unprecedented offer: “They had a peace dream team, yet under the best of circumstances there was no agreement—only violence.”

On the Palestinian side, people are frustrated by Israeli settlement expansion, non-implementation of previous agreements and a “take-it-or-leave-it” attitude, he noted. They have no trust or confidence left.

Today, he said, there are three deadlocks in one: a psychological deadlock with the breakdown of trust on both sides; a tactical deadlock, the two leaders having different views on how to move forward; and a political deadlock having to do with the permanent status. Malley insisted that the international community, in the person of the U.N. secretary-general and through Europe and the U.S., had to intervene quickly, because either side could not have a monopoly to decide if the other had lived up to its part of the bargain. The international community must help with the immediate imposition of a political calendar to implement all sides of the Mitchell report, Malley concluded.

“What the Future Holds”

Answering questions raised during the floor discussion of the morning session, Roed-Larsen said the U.N. was doing more than most in the Middle East. In fact, it was playing a multiple role in the region: political, social, economic and, in the field of peacekeeping, with the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) in Syria, its Interim Force (UNIFIL) in Lebanon, and the Jerusalem-headquartered UNTSO. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) was the largest U.N. agency, with 22,000 employees servicing millions of Palestinian refugees. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Roed Larsen continued, played a central role in convening the Sharm el-Sheikh conference and establishing the Mitchell Committee. The Mitchell report now was the only relevant document to bring the parties out of the current unfortunate situation, he said.

In response to a direct question about the U.N. being a third party in negotiations, Roed-Larsen said that, in an ideal world, the United Nations could be everywhere. The U.N. has to work with its partners, however, and this was why he often used the expression “coalition.” In addition to the regional powers, he said, the U.S. represented power, the European Union money, and the United Nations legitimacy. Any third party would be impossible, he argued, if not accepted by both parties.

Dr. Shaath maintained that a solution was desirable and feasible. Palestinians need sovereignty and an independent economy, he said. Despite all their suffering, a good number of Palestinians think that the only way out is a negotiated peace. Even though 65 percent of Israelis believe Sharon is doing a good job, Shaath noted, a significant majority also believe in peace.

General Lipkin-Shahak agreed the Mitchell report was the only thing that is now in front of the parties. The violence must be stopped immediately, he insisted, in order to gradually bridge the gap between the parties and rebuild trust.

Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC and editor of Middle East Report, considered that the question of Palestine was a global issue. In her view, the United States bore a mostly negative responsibility for the current events. Oslo was dead, she said, and there was a need for an entirely new peace process based on international law, with the U.N. at center stage. The United Nations should be the third party, she argued, because, unlike the U.S., it was not bound by support for one side, but by opposition to occupation. In his statement the previous day, Bennis recalled, the secretary-general spoke of the Palestinians being “in the grip of an occupying power.” The two sides faced not only a massive disparity of power, Bennis said, but a disparity of legitimacy. Only the United Nations, she concluded, could address such disparity and ensure justice.

Sir Ian Gilmour, former British deputy foreign secretary and secretary of state for defense, saw no sign of the present Israeli administration being better than the previous one. “The current situation suits Sharon,” he stated. As for U.S. mediation, Gilmour said, “The American government always does what Israel wants it to do.” Arabs always think the next administration will be better than the present, he noted, but they don’t understand the “supreme corruption” of American politics.

Gilmour deplored the illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. According to him, the situation in the West Bank is bad enough, but Gaza, he said, where the conditions are dire and dreadful, is an “affront to civilization. And the settlements are an inexplicable disaster,” he continued, “directly contrary to the spirit of Oslo. They’re stealing more land by the minute. The settlements are visually, sociologically, and politically thoroughly undesirable.”

Professor Yuli Tamir described the three vicious circles that she said were part of Middle East reality. The first one related to the fear each side has of being seen to surrender to violence. A solution was to agree to a timetable and to stick to it. The second vicious circle, according to Tamir, had to do with debating issues of a symbolic nature such as “Jerusalem,” “the right of return” and “a Jewish state.” The best plan, she argued, was to avoid philosophical discussion and go directly to concrete proposals. Finally, she referred to fear of the “hard” or “big” questions. Both sides agreed that there was a conflict between two peoples, she concluded, and they should be given two states.

Roed-Larsen said that the encounter had reflected the patterns of convergence and division which exist in the Middle East. He called the statement that Oslo is dead a very dangerous one, arguing that Oslo still can provide a road map for peace. While everybody wanted peace, and agreed that peace should be based on Resolutions 242 and 338, he said, there was a divide on how to get to peace. There are two schools of thought, he continued: the utopian one of an omnipotent U.N. playing a leading role, versus the realistic one seeing the world as it is, often ugly, and with deep inequalities of power and money. As stated before, he reiterated, it was necessary to build a coalition, and both Arafat and Sharon agreed that only one country, the United States, was capable of leading the peace effort.

Roed-Larsen stressed that what was needed was a U.S.-led coalition, to include the secretary-general, the EU, and the Russian Federation, as well as Egypt and Jordan. Such a coalition would take the peace process forward, he said. The U.N. could play a major role in terms of Jerusalem, security, borders issues and refugees, he believed, but trust in the U.N. had to be built. The U.N. official called for the Mitchell report to be implemented in its entirety, with time lines, and stated that there was a need for a third party in terms of the implementation. What was important at this point, he said, was to restore mutual confidence and hope.

Roed-Larsen concluded that the dialogue had given him hope that the gaps are not that enormous. What was needed now, he told the participants, was a leap of faith by the leaders of both sides.

Delinda Curtiss Hanley is the news editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.