Middle East Peace Process: An Overview
Saumitra Mohan
Since the conclusion of a peace accord between the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the State of Israel, on September 13, 1993, the peace process in that conflict-ridden region has generated a lot of hopes for the elusive peace there, which finally seems to be within the reach. The peace accord on that fateful day marked the beginning of a credible settlement of the contentious Palestine question, which had cast its baneful shadow on almost all events and developments in the region for close to three quarters of a century. Though still not fully settled, the entire peace process shows as to what could be achieved if the requisite political will is there in abundance to take on a problem which for long evaded a solution acceptable to both the parties.
The conflicting claims of the Jewish and Palestinian people lay at the heart of the Palestine question. The Jews staked their claim on Palestine because it was the seat of the ancient Kingdom of Israel from which they had been expelled by the Babylonians, and later once again dispersed by the Romans, in the distant past. During their long diaspora in Europe, the Jews endured discrimination and injustice at the hands of the European Gentiles. Towards the end of messianic movement, called the World Zionist Organisation, which promised resurrection of a Jewish national state in Palestine, this object could be achieved only at the expense of the Palestinians, who had been living in that country since time immemorial.
When, soon after the First World War, Jews from Europe began to enter Palestine under the protection of British arms to set up a Jewish national home, the seeds of a Jewish-Palestinian conflict were sown. Subsequently, as more Jews fleeing Hitler's persecution in Germany began to enter Palestine, Jewish-Palestinian frictions assumed grave proportions. During its 30 years rule as a mandatory power, Britain made a terrible mess in Palestine and, at the end of the Second World War, decided to hand over responsibility to the United Nations. Whereupon, the United States of America, the home of the largest concentration of Jewish population in the world after the holocaust in Hitler's Germany affecting six million Jews, jumped into the fray to muster a two-thirds majority in the UN General Assembly for creating a Jewish state in a good part of Palestine, leaving the rest for the Palestinians.
There was, thus, an international entanglement in Palestine which assumed sharper dimensions when, in the years following creation of Israel, in May 1948, American patronage of Israel was matched by Soviet support for the Palestinians and the neighbouring Arab States, which vociferously opposed the rise of Israel. In so far as the Arab States surrounding Palestine viewed Israel as an imperialist transplant in their midst and resisted its emergence by means of arms, the Palestine question took on a Arab-Israel dimension as well.
The Palestine question, as it stood in the aftermath of partition, centred on two issues; land and people. Partition opened the way for the in-gathering of the Jewish diaspora in Israel and the simultaneous expulsion of some 800,000 Palestinians from their homes. Some more lost their homes as a consequence of the 1967 Arab-Israel War. Current estimates put the total number of Palestinians at over six million. Of this two million live in the occupied lands including East Jerusalem, one million in Jordan and another one million in Israel proper. The remaining two million are refugees scattered all over the world. Hence, with the exception of those who have become nationals of Israel or Jordan, the vast majority of the Palestinians live either under Israeli military occupation or as refugees.
As for the land, Israel took over in 1948 some 77 per cent of the Palestinian territory, even though the UN partition plan had assigned it only 55 per cent of the total. During the 1967 war, Israel seized the remaining 23 per cent as well. In addition, Israel took possession of the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula, belonging respectively to Syria and Egypt. Soon after, Israel started setting up Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. The Palestinians were thus deprived of a good chunk of their best agricultural and urban lands for the benefits of Jewish settlers.
It is important to note that, for nearly 20 years following the establishment of Israel, the Palestinians depended entirely on the frontline Arab States to fight for their rights. However, after the shattering defeat of Egypt, Syria and Jordan at the hands of Israel in the 1967 war, the Palestinians resolved to organise themselves to carry on their struggle for self-determination and for an independent Palestine State. Al Fatah, founded in 1965, joined the umbrella organization, called the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), in 1968. Other guerrilla formations followed Al Fatah in 1969. The PLO carried out hit-and-run battles against Israel from its Jordanian base until 1970, when it moved into Lebanon, following a bloody show-down with King Hussein’s army. In 1982, the Israelis invaded Lebanon to flush out the Palestinians from their bases in that country. The PLO then shifted to far away Tunis in North Africa. This marked the beginning of a lean phase in the fortunes of PLO, which, however, turned out to be the proverbial lull before the storm. December 1987 witnessed the outbreak of the intifada, or the Palestinian uprising, in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
It is necessary also to mention some major international efforts towards unraveling the Palestine tangle. The Security Council resolution 242 of November 22, 1967, emphasizing inadmissibility of acquisition of territory by conquest, called for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from territories occupied in the June 1967 war and the termination of belligerency between the regional states (tacitly implying recognition of Israel by the frontline Arab States). With its overwhelming military superiority over the Arabs, the Israelis did not feel obliged to comply with the Security Council resolution until after the October 1973 war, which created the setting for American mediation. The Camp David Agreements of 1978 envisaged a comprehensive peace, including the creation of an autonomous Palestine in federal linkage with Jordan. But its immediate outcome was separate peace between Israel and Egypt. The core issue of Palestine was sidelined. The same held good for the Golan Heights. It, indeed, needed catalysts of the magnitude of the Gulf War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, which left America as the unchallenged power in the region, to break the impasse.
Over the years, the Palestinian cause gained strong international support, especially in the Non-aligned Movement (NAM) and at the United Nations. In November 1974, Yasser Arafat, Chairman of PLO, was invited by the UN General Assembly to address its special session which subsequently adopted a resolution reaffirming the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people in Palestine, including (a) the right to self-determination without external interference; and (b) and right to national independence and sovereignty. Mention must also be made of India's unwavering support to Palestinian rights, going back to the 1920's, when India itself was engaged in a titanic struggle for freedom from the British rule.
What gave a real big push forward to peace efforts more recently was the combined effect of Intifada, the outcome of the Gulf War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. It generated potent incentives for the three principal actors-the PLO, Israel and the United States-to start moving in the same direction with unprecedented resolve.
The United States achieved a decisive victory in the Gulf War, securing in the process, its own vital interest in the region's oil, as well as its market. The collapse and disintegration of the Soviet Union, which more or less coincided with the Gulf War, left America as an unchallenged power in the entire West Asian region. In the emergent situation, it was not in America's best interest to allow the chronic Arab-Israel problem to fester. Nor could the image of an America underwriting Israel's territorial expansions through military, economic and diplomatic support, be an asset to what followed on September 10, by exchange of mutual recognition by the PLO and Israel. On that day, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed a short letter recognizing the PLO as the "representative of the Palestinian People" and pledging to negotiate peace with that Organisation. PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat reciprocated by recognizing the "right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security" and committing the PLO to "a peaceful resolution of the conflict". He further affirmed that these articles of the Palestine Charter, adopted by the PLO in 1968, "which deny Israel's right to exist" and any other provisions that are "inconsistent with the commitments of this letter, are now inoperative and invalid".
Finally, at a historic ceremony at the White House in Washington, on September 13, 1993, Rabin and Arafat promised to end long years of enmity and mistrust between their peoples, as Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO executive member Mahmood Abbas signed Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles (DOP), the epoch-making agreement heralding peace. The DOP, inter alia, called for concluding an agreement by December 13, 1993, on Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and Jericho and the structure of the withdrawal; compelling Israeli withdrawal and transferring authority in Gaza and Jericho to the Palestinians by April 13, 1994; elections for an interim self-governing authority in the West Bank and Gaza by July 13, 1994.
The Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on the implementation of the first stages of the DOP began in Cairo and the Red Sea resort of Taba on October 13, 1993. However, due to the serious differences, for example, different definitions on what constituted the geographical area of Jericho, release of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons, and violence in West Bank and Gaza, the agreement could not be implemented.
In January 1994, Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres met in Switzerland to resolve the differences that were preventing the signing of an agreement on the implementation of the Gaza-Jericho component of the DOP. Sufficient progress was made and an agreement was reached on most of the issues. However, there was no resolution of the dispute over the size of Jericho enclave.
The peace process suffered a setback again in February 1994, When Baruch Goldstein, an American-born adherent of the extremist Kach movement carried out an armed attack on Palestinian worshippers in Hebron. In the beginning of April 1994, the PLO agreed to resume negotiations with Israel and amidst the unabated violence, the Israeli and the PLO officials signed the agreement on the implementation of the autonomy for Gaza Strip and Jericho on May 4, 1994 in Cairo. In the same month the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) evacuated the Gaza Strip and Jericho area and the Palestinian forces replaced them. For the first time, the PLO succeeded in establishing itself inside Palestine.
In the meantime, Israel signed a peace treaty with Jordan and it was feared that having achieved peace with Jordan, the Israeli government would not be pressed to pursue the negotiations on implementing the DOP. As feared, the negotiations were deadlocked by autumn of 1994. Though an ‘Early Empowerment Agreement’ was reached between them for the transfer of control in the fields of education, tourism, health and social welfare from the Israeli civil administration to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), it did nothing to resolve the other serious differences.
On the other hand, the series of violent incidents intensified when Israel decided to expand its settlements. At the end of April 1995, Rabin supported the construction of 7,000 new homes in East Jerusalem and announced plans to confiscate 130 acres of Arab land to facilitate the project. The deadlock over the signing of the Israeli-Palestinian agreement on the interim stage of Oslo II was broken and the two sides signed the Taba Agreement on September 28, 1995, which set the terms for the second stage of the peace process. In accordance with the Taba Agreement, the IDF began its phased redeployment on the West Bank in mid-October 1995, which was completed by the end of 1995. It opened the way for elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council.
In Israel, the elections in May 1996 brought the right wing back to power. Benyamin Netanyahu, associated with the nationalist hardliners in the Likud Party became the Prime Minister. His pre-election pronouncements included total opposition to the Palestinian self-determination and no change in the status of Jerusalem. Though he pledged to continue the peace process, his policies ran counter to the Palestinian expectations. Netanyahu announced the establishment of eight new settlements in West Bank. The Israeli Defence Minister, Yitzhak Mordechai, decided to reintroduce IDF undercover units to the West Bank and to expand their operations to include areas of PNA- Palestine National Authority control. In the first official contact between the PNA and the Netanyahu government, the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs, David Levy, informed the PLO leaders, that there would be no progress on resolving the outstanding issues of the interim phase period until certain conditions were fulfilled.
The implementation of the agreement of September 1995 on redeployment from Hebron had been postponed. During the electoral campaign, Netanyahu insisted on revising the terms of the agreement before committing himself to redeployment. Netanyahu and Arafat signed the Hebron agreement on the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Hebron on January 15, 1997, According to this, Israel accepted a proposal to complete its final West Bank redeployment by March 1998.
In addition, Israel agreed to begin immediate discussion on the outstanding interim issues of Oslo II, most notably the question of Palestinian detainees, Gaza airport and a West Bank-Gaza corridor. Also, in order to please the Israeli rightists Netanyahu decided to build 6500 new Jewish settlements at Har Homa (or Abu Ghneim), a hill-top between East Jerusalem and Bethlehem. As a result of these settlements, the negotiations were suspended by March 1997.
All this led to the renewed US efforts to save the Oslo process. The Clinton Administration pressed Israel for a pull back from at least an additional 10 per cent of the West Bank, which Israel did not accept. On the contrary, it offered a withdrawal from less than 10 per cent of the West Bank, in three phases over several months. In other words, it wanted to carry out only one withdrawal from the West bank matched by the reciprocal Palestinian actions against terrorism, before final status negotiations on a permanent settlement were held.
To achieve a breakthrough, the Clinton Administration called on Israel to withdraw from 13.1 per cent of the West Bank during second of the three slated interim stage pullbacks from the occupied Palestinian territory, over a period of three months, in exchange for specific Palestinian security measures. While Arafat agreed to the US plan, Netanyahu refused to accept it.
The US efforts led to the signing of the Wye River Accord between Israel and the Palestinians in October 1998. This agreement stipulated that the two sides will embark within a few days on direct negotiations on final status issues namely Jerusalem, the colonies (the settlements), refugees, border and water. The agreement also provided for an Israeli withdrawal from 13 per cent of the West Bank to be carried out in three stages. It also provided for the release of the 750 prisoners from occupation jails and the establishment of two safe passages between the West bank and Gaza. The agreement also called for starting work on the airport and forming a special committee to begin work on the Gaza sea port and forming a bilateral Palestinian-Israeli committee that will discuss over a period of four months the third Israeli redeployment in accordance with the letter of assurance of former US Secretary of State Warren Christopher. As far as the security was concerned, this agreement included an independent security document that outlined the measures that need to be taken by both sides regarding security. Regarding unilateral measures, it was agreed that the US President Bill Clinton will address separate letters to the Palestinian and the Israeli sides specifying each side’s commitment to refrain from taking unilateral measures that would affect the status quo of matters on the ground.
Regarding the clause forbidding the unilateral steps, Netanyahu held that it did not apply to building new settlements but to the Palestinians, who could not unilaterally declare a Palestinian State. Netanyahu by the present accord had delayed the third Israeli redeployment under the Oslo accords, while final status talks were to start ten days after the memorandum entered into force. Even after these agreements were signed, he continued to build new Jewish settlements and expand the existing ones.
In December 1998, Israel suspended the implementation of the accord, charging the Palestinians with failing to carry out their obligations. He listed five conditions, which he expected the Palestinians to fulfil. Those were: Palestinians must uphold their commitments, they must withdraw their intention to declare the establishment of a Palestinian State and their intention to declare Jerusalem as its capital, and that they must stop violence. Israel would not release prisoners with blood on their hands and that Palestinians must remove all illegal weapons.
Yasser Arafat embarked on a campaign in order to consult the Arabs and other countries regarding the controversial plan to declare the Palestinian Statehood by May 4, 1999, to persuade them to support the declaration and to urge Israel to implement the Wye Plantation Land-for-Security Accord. All the States whom he had consulted were in favour of postponing the declaration. The establishment of the Palestinian State was hence deferred as it required international support and recognition.
Moreover, Israeli election, which was on the cards, was also a factor in Arafat's decision of postponing the declaration of Palestinian State as Netanyahu was threatened from within his coalition especially by the National Religious Party, that the government would be brought down, if he handed over more territories to the Palestinians. The difficulties in his cabinet made the election inevitable. During the election, Ehud Barak, Netanyahu's main rival from the Labour Party registered a decisive victory over him. With the sidelining of the Netanyahu government, the prospects of peace in the Middle East became bright. Resolution of issues related to the Palestinians could now be hoped for.
Barak projected himself as being security-oriented, but willing to reactivate the peace process with the Palestinians. He promised a Palestinian State within four security red lines which were: a united Jerusalem under Israel's sovereignty as the capital of Israel, no return to 1967 borders, no foreign army west of Jordan River and most of the settlers in West Bank and Gaza will be in settlement blocs under Israeli sovereignty.
During his time, the differences between the Israelis and the Palestinians continued on setting the timetable for redeployment, safe passage, seaport and economic issues. There was also a wide disagreement on the release of Palestinian prisoners by Israel.
However, in order to implement the Wye River Accord, "Sharm El Sheikh Agreement" was signed between Israel and the Palestinians in the first week of September 1999. According to this agreement, talks on the permanent status between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) have opened. A framework agreement outlining the permanent status principles would be reached by February 2000 and the permanent status agreement would be drafted within a year (by September 2000). With the completion of troop redeployments, as the agreement envisages, the PNA will exercise control over civil affairs in 40 per cent of the West Bank. It will also be in-charge of security affairs in a part of the 40 per cent of the West Bank, while Israel will retain an overall supervisory role in respect of security affairs in the remaining area. Sixty per cent of the West Bank will remain under full Israeli control in respect of civil and security matters.
Within the next few months the two sides are scheduled to firm up an agreement on the opening of a seaport in the Gaza Strip. If this deal does come through, then Palestinians, whether living in the Gaza Strip or the West Bank, will be able to ship their produce out without being dependent on the Israelis or the Jordanians. The seaport is likely to remain under some form of Israeli control like the airport that was opened earlier this year, but, at least, the delays and other forms of harassment will be reduced. With the signing of the Wye II agreement, Israel reconfirmed the plans to open a safe corridor between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
As the Israelis and the Palestinians set out on the road to a final peace, both sides defiantly laid down their own terms. Israel is adamant that it would come to the permanent status discussions guided by four security red lines spelled by Barak. The Palestinian side too outlined a list of demands sharply at odds with the Israeli position. They aspired to live within the borders of an independent Palestinian State on June 4, 1967 boundaries, with holy Jerusalem as its capital. They also demanded full cessation of all Israeli settlement activities.
Today, PNA President Yasser Arafat is accorded the protocol due to a head of a sovereign state whenever he makes a diplomatic excursion and his officials are treated like representatives of a full-fledged government. It is also more than likely that most countries will extend recognition to the Palestinian State if Arafat declares statehood in a reasonable and responsible context and now in keeping with the spirit of the Wye II agreement whereby he is not supposed to act unilaterally, that is without taking Israel into confidence. Israel is keen to restrict the Palestinian's treaty-making powers so that they do not make alliances with countries hostile to Israel.
Arafat seems to have little hope of regaining those portions along the "Green Line" (the border between Israel and the West Bank after the 1948 armistice until the 1967 war), which Israel has built as if it was its own territory. About 90 per cent of the Israelis in the West bank live in this thickened "Green Line" and successive Israeli governments have indicated that they will not let go these areas of land. Both Arafat and Barak would have to find a suitable middle ground so as to come to an understanding in respect of these areas without compromising each other's vital interests.
Today, about five million Palestinians live in refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, not to count others scattered all over the world. Since they are classified as refugees, they are entitled to return to the lands from which they were ousted, which means to sites that are now part of Israel. But it is inconceivable that Israel can be persuaded to allow the Palestinian refugees to return to Israel proper. It has taken a tough position on allowing the refugees to return even to the territories that it will hand over to the Palestinian Authority. Besides, Israelis also nurture a fear that the Palestinians might block their access to holy sites in and around the Walled City, if East Jerusalem were to be handed over to them.
In fact, there are many scruples which keep haunting both the parties, and both harbour doubts about each other's real intentions but notwithstanding that, they would have to move along the extant path of peace if only to give peace and security in that hapless region a chance.
Given the sharply divided views, no immediate solution seems to be in sight. It requires a tremendous amount of hope to believe that the talks would be settled in favour of both the parties. Bark seems to be dodging already—"If the two sides do not agree to as outlined by February (2000), they might have to settle for mutually agreed long term interim agreements on most issues". This would mean that they would fail to get a genuine final peace accord. He has pledged to strengthen the largest Jewish settlement in the West Bank, Malleh Adumin and intends on cultivating the hard-liners even as he moves to revive the peace process. The talks on issues particularly "Jerusalem" and "settlements" might take months. One wonders if it would be settled on Israeli terms.
Barak is, as one observer says, 'fortunate to have the international community, including the United States, on his side'. With all hopes pinned on him, the day is not far when the peace that has eluded the region for years would prevail between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
(1999)
Saumitra Mohan
Since the conclusion of a peace accord between the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and the State of Israel, on September 13, 1993, the peace process in that conflict-ridden region has generated a lot of hopes for the elusive peace there, which finally seems to be within the reach. The peace accord on that fateful day marked the beginning of a credible settlement of the contentious Palestine question, which had cast its baneful shadow on almost all events and developments in the region for close to three quarters of a century. Though still not fully settled, the entire peace process shows as to what could be achieved if the requisite political will is there in abundance to take on a problem which for long evaded a solution acceptable to both the parties.
The conflicting claims of the Jewish and Palestinian people lay at the heart of the Palestine question. The Jews staked their claim on Palestine because it was the seat of the ancient Kingdom of Israel from which they had been expelled by the Babylonians, and later once again dispersed by the Romans, in the distant past. During their long diaspora in Europe, the Jews endured discrimination and injustice at the hands of the European Gentiles. Towards the end of messianic movement, called the World Zionist Organisation, which promised resurrection of a Jewish national state in Palestine, this object could be achieved only at the expense of the Palestinians, who had been living in that country since time immemorial.
When, soon after the First World War, Jews from Europe began to enter Palestine under the protection of British arms to set up a Jewish national home, the seeds of a Jewish-Palestinian conflict were sown. Subsequently, as more Jews fleeing Hitler's persecution in Germany began to enter Palestine, Jewish-Palestinian frictions assumed grave proportions. During its 30 years rule as a mandatory power, Britain made a terrible mess in Palestine and, at the end of the Second World War, decided to hand over responsibility to the United Nations. Whereupon, the United States of America, the home of the largest concentration of Jewish population in the world after the holocaust in Hitler's Germany affecting six million Jews, jumped into the fray to muster a two-thirds majority in the UN General Assembly for creating a Jewish state in a good part of Palestine, leaving the rest for the Palestinians.
There was, thus, an international entanglement in Palestine which assumed sharper dimensions when, in the years following creation of Israel, in May 1948, American patronage of Israel was matched by Soviet support for the Palestinians and the neighbouring Arab States, which vociferously opposed the rise of Israel. In so far as the Arab States surrounding Palestine viewed Israel as an imperialist transplant in their midst and resisted its emergence by means of arms, the Palestine question took on a Arab-Israel dimension as well.
The Palestine question, as it stood in the aftermath of partition, centred on two issues; land and people. Partition opened the way for the in-gathering of the Jewish diaspora in Israel and the simultaneous expulsion of some 800,000 Palestinians from their homes. Some more lost their homes as a consequence of the 1967 Arab-Israel War. Current estimates put the total number of Palestinians at over six million. Of this two million live in the occupied lands including East Jerusalem, one million in Jordan and another one million in Israel proper. The remaining two million are refugees scattered all over the world. Hence, with the exception of those who have become nationals of Israel or Jordan, the vast majority of the Palestinians live either under Israeli military occupation or as refugees.
As for the land, Israel took over in 1948 some 77 per cent of the Palestinian territory, even though the UN partition plan had assigned it only 55 per cent of the total. During the 1967 war, Israel seized the remaining 23 per cent as well. In addition, Israel took possession of the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula, belonging respectively to Syria and Egypt. Soon after, Israel started setting up Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. The Palestinians were thus deprived of a good chunk of their best agricultural and urban lands for the benefits of Jewish settlers.
It is important to note that, for nearly 20 years following the establishment of Israel, the Palestinians depended entirely on the frontline Arab States to fight for their rights. However, after the shattering defeat of Egypt, Syria and Jordan at the hands of Israel in the 1967 war, the Palestinians resolved to organise themselves to carry on their struggle for self-determination and for an independent Palestine State. Al Fatah, founded in 1965, joined the umbrella organization, called the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), in 1968. Other guerrilla formations followed Al Fatah in 1969. The PLO carried out hit-and-run battles against Israel from its Jordanian base until 1970, when it moved into Lebanon, following a bloody show-down with King Hussein’s army. In 1982, the Israelis invaded Lebanon to flush out the Palestinians from their bases in that country. The PLO then shifted to far away Tunis in North Africa. This marked the beginning of a lean phase in the fortunes of PLO, which, however, turned out to be the proverbial lull before the storm. December 1987 witnessed the outbreak of the intifada, or the Palestinian uprising, in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
It is necessary also to mention some major international efforts towards unraveling the Palestine tangle. The Security Council resolution 242 of November 22, 1967, emphasizing inadmissibility of acquisition of territory by conquest, called for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from territories occupied in the June 1967 war and the termination of belligerency between the regional states (tacitly implying recognition of Israel by the frontline Arab States). With its overwhelming military superiority over the Arabs, the Israelis did not feel obliged to comply with the Security Council resolution until after the October 1973 war, which created the setting for American mediation. The Camp David Agreements of 1978 envisaged a comprehensive peace, including the creation of an autonomous Palestine in federal linkage with Jordan. But its immediate outcome was separate peace between Israel and Egypt. The core issue of Palestine was sidelined. The same held good for the Golan Heights. It, indeed, needed catalysts of the magnitude of the Gulf War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, which left America as the unchallenged power in the region, to break the impasse.
Over the years, the Palestinian cause gained strong international support, especially in the Non-aligned Movement (NAM) and at the United Nations. In November 1974, Yasser Arafat, Chairman of PLO, was invited by the UN General Assembly to address its special session which subsequently adopted a resolution reaffirming the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people in Palestine, including (a) the right to self-determination without external interference; and (b) and right to national independence and sovereignty. Mention must also be made of India's unwavering support to Palestinian rights, going back to the 1920's, when India itself was engaged in a titanic struggle for freedom from the British rule.
What gave a real big push forward to peace efforts more recently was the combined effect of Intifada, the outcome of the Gulf War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. It generated potent incentives for the three principal actors-the PLO, Israel and the United States-to start moving in the same direction with unprecedented resolve.
The United States achieved a decisive victory in the Gulf War, securing in the process, its own vital interest in the region's oil, as well as its market. The collapse and disintegration of the Soviet Union, which more or less coincided with the Gulf War, left America as an unchallenged power in the entire West Asian region. In the emergent situation, it was not in America's best interest to allow the chronic Arab-Israel problem to fester. Nor could the image of an America underwriting Israel's territorial expansions through military, economic and diplomatic support, be an asset to what followed on September 10, by exchange of mutual recognition by the PLO and Israel. On that day, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed a short letter recognizing the PLO as the "representative of the Palestinian People" and pledging to negotiate peace with that Organisation. PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat reciprocated by recognizing the "right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security" and committing the PLO to "a peaceful resolution of the conflict". He further affirmed that these articles of the Palestine Charter, adopted by the PLO in 1968, "which deny Israel's right to exist" and any other provisions that are "inconsistent with the commitments of this letter, are now inoperative and invalid".
Finally, at a historic ceremony at the White House in Washington, on September 13, 1993, Rabin and Arafat promised to end long years of enmity and mistrust between their peoples, as Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and PLO executive member Mahmood Abbas signed Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles (DOP), the epoch-making agreement heralding peace. The DOP, inter alia, called for concluding an agreement by December 13, 1993, on Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and Jericho and the structure of the withdrawal; compelling Israeli withdrawal and transferring authority in Gaza and Jericho to the Palestinians by April 13, 1994; elections for an interim self-governing authority in the West Bank and Gaza by July 13, 1994.
The Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on the implementation of the first stages of the DOP began in Cairo and the Red Sea resort of Taba on October 13, 1993. However, due to the serious differences, for example, different definitions on what constituted the geographical area of Jericho, release of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons, and violence in West Bank and Gaza, the agreement could not be implemented.
In January 1994, Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres met in Switzerland to resolve the differences that were preventing the signing of an agreement on the implementation of the Gaza-Jericho component of the DOP. Sufficient progress was made and an agreement was reached on most of the issues. However, there was no resolution of the dispute over the size of Jericho enclave.
The peace process suffered a setback again in February 1994, When Baruch Goldstein, an American-born adherent of the extremist Kach movement carried out an armed attack on Palestinian worshippers in Hebron. In the beginning of April 1994, the PLO agreed to resume negotiations with Israel and amidst the unabated violence, the Israeli and the PLO officials signed the agreement on the implementation of the autonomy for Gaza Strip and Jericho on May 4, 1994 in Cairo. In the same month the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) evacuated the Gaza Strip and Jericho area and the Palestinian forces replaced them. For the first time, the PLO succeeded in establishing itself inside Palestine.
In the meantime, Israel signed a peace treaty with Jordan and it was feared that having achieved peace with Jordan, the Israeli government would not be pressed to pursue the negotiations on implementing the DOP. As feared, the negotiations were deadlocked by autumn of 1994. Though an ‘Early Empowerment Agreement’ was reached between them for the transfer of control in the fields of education, tourism, health and social welfare from the Israeli civil administration to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), it did nothing to resolve the other serious differences.
On the other hand, the series of violent incidents intensified when Israel decided to expand its settlements. At the end of April 1995, Rabin supported the construction of 7,000 new homes in East Jerusalem and announced plans to confiscate 130 acres of Arab land to facilitate the project. The deadlock over the signing of the Israeli-Palestinian agreement on the interim stage of Oslo II was broken and the two sides signed the Taba Agreement on September 28, 1995, which set the terms for the second stage of the peace process. In accordance with the Taba Agreement, the IDF began its phased redeployment on the West Bank in mid-October 1995, which was completed by the end of 1995. It opened the way for elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council.
In Israel, the elections in May 1996 brought the right wing back to power. Benyamin Netanyahu, associated with the nationalist hardliners in the Likud Party became the Prime Minister. His pre-election pronouncements included total opposition to the Palestinian self-determination and no change in the status of Jerusalem. Though he pledged to continue the peace process, his policies ran counter to the Palestinian expectations. Netanyahu announced the establishment of eight new settlements in West Bank. The Israeli Defence Minister, Yitzhak Mordechai, decided to reintroduce IDF undercover units to the West Bank and to expand their operations to include areas of PNA- Palestine National Authority control. In the first official contact between the PNA and the Netanyahu government, the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs, David Levy, informed the PLO leaders, that there would be no progress on resolving the outstanding issues of the interim phase period until certain conditions were fulfilled.
The implementation of the agreement of September 1995 on redeployment from Hebron had been postponed. During the electoral campaign, Netanyahu insisted on revising the terms of the agreement before committing himself to redeployment. Netanyahu and Arafat signed the Hebron agreement on the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Hebron on January 15, 1997, According to this, Israel accepted a proposal to complete its final West Bank redeployment by March 1998.
In addition, Israel agreed to begin immediate discussion on the outstanding interim issues of Oslo II, most notably the question of Palestinian detainees, Gaza airport and a West Bank-Gaza corridor. Also, in order to please the Israeli rightists Netanyahu decided to build 6500 new Jewish settlements at Har Homa (or Abu Ghneim), a hill-top between East Jerusalem and Bethlehem. As a result of these settlements, the negotiations were suspended by March 1997.
All this led to the renewed US efforts to save the Oslo process. The Clinton Administration pressed Israel for a pull back from at least an additional 10 per cent of the West Bank, which Israel did not accept. On the contrary, it offered a withdrawal from less than 10 per cent of the West Bank, in three phases over several months. In other words, it wanted to carry out only one withdrawal from the West bank matched by the reciprocal Palestinian actions against terrorism, before final status negotiations on a permanent settlement were held.
To achieve a breakthrough, the Clinton Administration called on Israel to withdraw from 13.1 per cent of the West Bank during second of the three slated interim stage pullbacks from the occupied Palestinian territory, over a period of three months, in exchange for specific Palestinian security measures. While Arafat agreed to the US plan, Netanyahu refused to accept it.
The US efforts led to the signing of the Wye River Accord between Israel and the Palestinians in October 1998. This agreement stipulated that the two sides will embark within a few days on direct negotiations on final status issues namely Jerusalem, the colonies (the settlements), refugees, border and water. The agreement also provided for an Israeli withdrawal from 13 per cent of the West Bank to be carried out in three stages. It also provided for the release of the 750 prisoners from occupation jails and the establishment of two safe passages between the West bank and Gaza. The agreement also called for starting work on the airport and forming a special committee to begin work on the Gaza sea port and forming a bilateral Palestinian-Israeli committee that will discuss over a period of four months the third Israeli redeployment in accordance with the letter of assurance of former US Secretary of State Warren Christopher. As far as the security was concerned, this agreement included an independent security document that outlined the measures that need to be taken by both sides regarding security. Regarding unilateral measures, it was agreed that the US President Bill Clinton will address separate letters to the Palestinian and the Israeli sides specifying each side’s commitment to refrain from taking unilateral measures that would affect the status quo of matters on the ground.
Regarding the clause forbidding the unilateral steps, Netanyahu held that it did not apply to building new settlements but to the Palestinians, who could not unilaterally declare a Palestinian State. Netanyahu by the present accord had delayed the third Israeli redeployment under the Oslo accords, while final status talks were to start ten days after the memorandum entered into force. Even after these agreements were signed, he continued to build new Jewish settlements and expand the existing ones.
In December 1998, Israel suspended the implementation of the accord, charging the Palestinians with failing to carry out their obligations. He listed five conditions, which he expected the Palestinians to fulfil. Those were: Palestinians must uphold their commitments, they must withdraw their intention to declare the establishment of a Palestinian State and their intention to declare Jerusalem as its capital, and that they must stop violence. Israel would not release prisoners with blood on their hands and that Palestinians must remove all illegal weapons.
Yasser Arafat embarked on a campaign in order to consult the Arabs and other countries regarding the controversial plan to declare the Palestinian Statehood by May 4, 1999, to persuade them to support the declaration and to urge Israel to implement the Wye Plantation Land-for-Security Accord. All the States whom he had consulted were in favour of postponing the declaration. The establishment of the Palestinian State was hence deferred as it required international support and recognition.
Moreover, Israeli election, which was on the cards, was also a factor in Arafat's decision of postponing the declaration of Palestinian State as Netanyahu was threatened from within his coalition especially by the National Religious Party, that the government would be brought down, if he handed over more territories to the Palestinians. The difficulties in his cabinet made the election inevitable. During the election, Ehud Barak, Netanyahu's main rival from the Labour Party registered a decisive victory over him. With the sidelining of the Netanyahu government, the prospects of peace in the Middle East became bright. Resolution of issues related to the Palestinians could now be hoped for.
Barak projected himself as being security-oriented, but willing to reactivate the peace process with the Palestinians. He promised a Palestinian State within four security red lines which were: a united Jerusalem under Israel's sovereignty as the capital of Israel, no return to 1967 borders, no foreign army west of Jordan River and most of the settlers in West Bank and Gaza will be in settlement blocs under Israeli sovereignty.
During his time, the differences between the Israelis and the Palestinians continued on setting the timetable for redeployment, safe passage, seaport and economic issues. There was also a wide disagreement on the release of Palestinian prisoners by Israel.
However, in order to implement the Wye River Accord, "Sharm El Sheikh Agreement" was signed between Israel and the Palestinians in the first week of September 1999. According to this agreement, talks on the permanent status between Israel and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) have opened. A framework agreement outlining the permanent status principles would be reached by February 2000 and the permanent status agreement would be drafted within a year (by September 2000). With the completion of troop redeployments, as the agreement envisages, the PNA will exercise control over civil affairs in 40 per cent of the West Bank. It will also be in-charge of security affairs in a part of the 40 per cent of the West Bank, while Israel will retain an overall supervisory role in respect of security affairs in the remaining area. Sixty per cent of the West Bank will remain under full Israeli control in respect of civil and security matters.
Within the next few months the two sides are scheduled to firm up an agreement on the opening of a seaport in the Gaza Strip. If this deal does come through, then Palestinians, whether living in the Gaza Strip or the West Bank, will be able to ship their produce out without being dependent on the Israelis or the Jordanians. The seaport is likely to remain under some form of Israeli control like the airport that was opened earlier this year, but, at least, the delays and other forms of harassment will be reduced. With the signing of the Wye II agreement, Israel reconfirmed the plans to open a safe corridor between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
As the Israelis and the Palestinians set out on the road to a final peace, both sides defiantly laid down their own terms. Israel is adamant that it would come to the permanent status discussions guided by four security red lines spelled by Barak. The Palestinian side too outlined a list of demands sharply at odds with the Israeli position. They aspired to live within the borders of an independent Palestinian State on June 4, 1967 boundaries, with holy Jerusalem as its capital. They also demanded full cessation of all Israeli settlement activities.
Today, PNA President Yasser Arafat is accorded the protocol due to a head of a sovereign state whenever he makes a diplomatic excursion and his officials are treated like representatives of a full-fledged government. It is also more than likely that most countries will extend recognition to the Palestinian State if Arafat declares statehood in a reasonable and responsible context and now in keeping with the spirit of the Wye II agreement whereby he is not supposed to act unilaterally, that is without taking Israel into confidence. Israel is keen to restrict the Palestinian's treaty-making powers so that they do not make alliances with countries hostile to Israel.
Arafat seems to have little hope of regaining those portions along the "Green Line" (the border between Israel and the West Bank after the 1948 armistice until the 1967 war), which Israel has built as if it was its own territory. About 90 per cent of the Israelis in the West bank live in this thickened "Green Line" and successive Israeli governments have indicated that they will not let go these areas of land. Both Arafat and Barak would have to find a suitable middle ground so as to come to an understanding in respect of these areas without compromising each other's vital interests.
Today, about five million Palestinians live in refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, not to count others scattered all over the world. Since they are classified as refugees, they are entitled to return to the lands from which they were ousted, which means to sites that are now part of Israel. But it is inconceivable that Israel can be persuaded to allow the Palestinian refugees to return to Israel proper. It has taken a tough position on allowing the refugees to return even to the territories that it will hand over to the Palestinian Authority. Besides, Israelis also nurture a fear that the Palestinians might block their access to holy sites in and around the Walled City, if East Jerusalem were to be handed over to them.
In fact, there are many scruples which keep haunting both the parties, and both harbour doubts about each other's real intentions but notwithstanding that, they would have to move along the extant path of peace if only to give peace and security in that hapless region a chance.
Given the sharply divided views, no immediate solution seems to be in sight. It requires a tremendous amount of hope to believe that the talks would be settled in favour of both the parties. Bark seems to be dodging already—"If the two sides do not agree to as outlined by February (2000), they might have to settle for mutually agreed long term interim agreements on most issues". This would mean that they would fail to get a genuine final peace accord. He has pledged to strengthen the largest Jewish settlement in the West Bank, Malleh Adumin and intends on cultivating the hard-liners even as he moves to revive the peace process. The talks on issues particularly "Jerusalem" and "settlements" might take months. One wonders if it would be settled on Israeli terms.
Barak is, as one observer says, 'fortunate to have the international community, including the United States, on his side'. With all hopes pinned on him, the day is not far when the peace that has eluded the region for years would prevail between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
(1999)
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