Traction…and Closet Negotiations

By Eugene Bird

Secretary of State Colin Powell may not be the luckiest person to hold that position in the past 50 years, considering all that has happened in his first 150 days—including having the United States kicked off the U.N. Human Rights Commission, at least in part because of an adamant American refusal to condemn Israel for flagrant human rights violations; escalating Israel-Palestine violence; a heating up of differences with U.S. allies over sanctions on Iraq; and the tough events confronting him in the South China Sea. Yet the secretary is certainly the most active, organized and persistent cabinet officer in the Bush administration. Perhaps his luck is about to turn in the Middle East. Or is it?

The secretary of state described the report from former Senators George Mitchell and Warren Rudman as “excellent.” The Palestinians have agreed to it, providing it is fully implemented, and the Israelis have said they agree with it, but give every indication that they will not agree to freeze settlements. Nor did Tel Aviv say it would allow monitoring by a multinational group for implementation of any cease-fire and new security arrangements.

Without a freeze and without a monitoring group—even such a benign one as the Mitchell Commission itself—the whole deal will fall apart. It appears that this administration again will do no more than repeat the obvious, that America can do no more than the parties are willing to do themselves, and leave it up to a small team of American diplomats to find new “traction” in the process.

The highly touted Egypt-Jordan initiative (see the May-June Washington Report) has been reduced to the level of being a “complementary” plan to that of the Mitchell Commission, and one that Secretary Powell referred to as a “non-paper.” So much for regional initiatives, or bringing to the table Arab countries that already have recognized Israel to counter the presence of an America that remains heavily over-committed to the Jewish state.

In more than one of his eight appearances before Congress in which he laid out his view of a new minimalist U.S. involvement in the quarrels of the world, the secretary was asked about the intifada and its impact on both America and Israel. Powell spoke of “gaining traction” in an admittedly dangerous and difficult situation. He now has the luxury of utilizing all or parts of two proposals—both of which, however, deeply contradict Israeli policy, particularly on settlements. It will take some very slick diplomacy by the U.S. to get the parties back to the table on the basis of either of these proposals.

Does the Mitchell Report have any chance of bringing about an end to the intifada? In his long press conference in which he endorsed it, the secretary announced that his new peace team would work with both parties on the basis of the report. Quickly dubbed “The Three Wise Men from the West,” the team is headed by Ambassador to Jordan and soon-to-be Assistant Secretary of State William Burns, outgoing Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, and Jerusalem Consul General Ron Schlicher. Will this team of lieutenants be able to do any more than the secretary himself, who has failed to make a dent in ending the violence by either side?

During his appearance before the Senate Appropriations Committee, apologist for Israel Arlen Specter probed the secretary about his April 16 statement asserting that the Israelis were using excessive and disproportionate force. Powell rather lamely explained that he had made that statement after an Israeli general had said that Israeli troops had moved into Palestinian-controlled Gaza and planned on staying there. “At the time my statement was made,” Powell placated, “I did not know that they had moved out.”

Within a few days after his testimony, Israeli troops and tanks again were back in Gaza and Israel again announced they would remain as long as mortar shells continued to fall.

Davidka vs. Yasserdin!

Ironically, homemade mortars were an important weapon used by the Palmach and Haganah, the principal Jewish armies fighting in 1948 for more land than was alloted Israel by the 1947 U.N. partitition resolution. Indeed, there is a special square in Israel where one of those original mortars is a central statue. Such mortars were called “Davidka,” after David Ben-Gurion.

Will some Palestinian nationalist create a square in Gaza City and implant one of the new Palestinian mortars there—perhaps naming it “Yasserdin”? The Israelis claim there are hundreds of mortars being produced by small machine shops. So far, the Yasserdin have been no more effective than the first models of the Davidka.

House Staffers Listen

For the second time in as many months, a Palestinian negotiating support team was brought to Washington by Bannerman Associates, hired by the Palestine Authority (PA) to provide information about the peace process and the Palestine Authority. A principal associate at Bannerman is Edward Abington, U.S. consul general in Jerusalem from 1993 to 1997.

With only one or two PA officials having managed to be received by Secretary of State Powell, the legal teams appear to be part of an effort to create a dialogue with Israel’s friends on Capitol Hill.

Team members included Amjad Atallah, a legal adviser to the PLO and a graduate of the University of Virginia; Diana Buttu, a graduate of University of Toronto and Stanford University; and Rami Shehadeh, a graduate of Bethlehem University.

On May 23 Capitol Hill staffers attended the equivalent of closed-door hearings by one of the three, outlining exactly what could happen if the Mitchell Commission report were to be implemented.

The team brought a welcome optimism to the process of finding a new Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking policy. Although that optimism contrasted with events on the ground, the House staffers took careful notes on how the Palestinians interpreted the Mitchell Report.

The team from Ramallah told the staffers that the situation on the ground has been altered by the Bush-Powell decision no longer to go it alone in the peace negotiations. The Palestinians believe the administration now is willing to accept the advice and even the involvement of Europe and international bodies toward a new process. The Palestinian team also believes that Washington would not entertain any involvement of American ground forces.

There remain three key stumbling blocks to Israeli acceptance of both the Mitchell Report and the unofficial Egypt-Jordan proposals, the team said: the freeze on settlements, the timeline or schedule, and monitoring of implementation.

The failure of Oslo, it was suggested, could have been due to the fact that there was no policeman. The failure to monitor both the rate and integrity of the agreements’ implementation has rankled Palestinians and European observers throughout the Oslo process. The U.S. often excused Israeli delays in carrying out clear mandates negotiated after great effort by all parties. The Third Redeployment, for example, was never carried out, despite negotiations that spanned three agreements under the Oslo umbrella. The Palestinians repeatedly have asked, and Israel has rejected, for an international force on the West Bank and in Gaza.

The Mitchell Report considered and rejected an international “implementation force,” but only because it would not work unless both parties agreed to it. In response, the Palestinians have come up with a new proposal. The Palestinian team told its Capitol Hill audiences that, while both Israel and the Mitchell Commission have rejected a military force, Palestinians now are seeking an international team to act as a “judge” on the implementation of any cease-fire and follow-up negotiations. The proposed team would have to be multinational, according to the team, and could consist of the same people or the same countries represented on the Mitchell Commission. The monitors would neither be armed nor an official United Nations “observer force.”

The concept is that the parties need an implementation monitor to which either side could appeal violations, whether of process or timing. This is a critical need, the Palestinian team argued, if the intifada is to be ended. Had Oslo been monitored fairly by such a multinational team, they said, there might well never have been a second intifada.

The Capitol Hill dialogue represents the beginning of a congressional process of monitoring Israel’s interests. Staff questions on what was meant by a freeze on settlements were typical. “Does freeze mean no natural growth?” one staffer asked.

The Palestinians’ response was that the present settlements were half-empty—perhaps not too much of an exaggeration—but that they had had a promise privately from Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin years ago that there would be no settlement expansion beyond 50 meters from the perimeter fences around all the settlements.

Rabin had told the Palestinians shortly after the signing of the Oslo agreement that he could not give a written assurance of such a limited expansion policy, but that he would give it orally, which he did. According to the Palestinian team, an American letter of assurance at the time had repeated the promise in slightly different language.

The Palestinians’ one new demand was that not only should settlement construction cease but that the transfer of Jewish populations to the occupied territories should cease.

Knesset-Style Questions

Although the Palestinian team was in Washington, it might as well have been appearing before a committee of the Israeli Knesset. “What about the total cessation of terrorism?” the Americans asked. “How are you proposing to do that?”

The answer was that the Palestinian Authority always said no to terrorism. At the same time, however, the PA is not a police state, and peaceful demonstrations against the occupation would be allowed to continue. Palestinians have a right to demonstrate, the team said.

Another staffer asked the team if it was true that there were construction projects on the Temple Mount. The reply was that only a water line was being installed. Did it have Israeli approval or only the approval of the Palestinians? That question was not answered.

The Secretary’s New Team

Ambassador to Jordan William Burns’ mission on behalf of the secretary of state was a last-minute development, announced as Burns was on his way back to Amman after Senate confirmation hearings for his new job in Washington. It is an imaginative use of talent to explore whether the Mitchell Report recommendations can fly or will instead fail—with the added advantage of not engaging the administration or the secretary too deeply in what may at the moment be an impossible task.

The Mitchell Report could be a turning point for this star-crossed secretary of state. Or it could be yet another in a long line of emergency commissions and studies on how to divide up and share Palestine, dating back to the early years of the Mandate. One could speculate that it represents the latter, and that this time the Palestinians are going to continue their fight to save as much of their land as possible. The Palestinian street has little confidence that Prime Minister Sharon could deliver a package deal—even if he really wanted to—that would finally end the occupation and bring freedom to the three million Palestinians living on the West Bank and Gaza.

A question that must soon be answered by Foggy Bottom and the new team of Powell lieutenants shuttling between the parties, however, is how damaged U.S. relations with the Arab and Muslim world will be by an intifada that refuses to end.

Eugene Bird, a retired career foreign service officer, is president of the Council for the National Interest and diplomatic correspondent for the Washington Report.