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ALBRIGHT VISITS THE
MIDDLE EAST
.
MER - Washington - 9 September:
A
new American Secretary of State is on the way to the Middle East. And the
press is full of all the usual fluff and banter.
The
basic reality that the Clinton Administration is the most Israeli-controlled
government in American history and that Madeleine Albright is already the
most Israeli-manipulated Secretary of State in American history; these
realities are purposeful obscured by the rhetorical fog of the moment.
Nor should
we overlook that even the semi-independent policy think- tanks in Washington,
including the "leftist" Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), have
for decades now shown no serious leadership or even consistent independence
of thought on basic matters relating to U.S. Middle East policies.
As
a group Washington think-tanks have a well-defined pattern of refusing
to publicly engage in a serious and on-going manner regarding the urgent
need for basic new American attitudes and policies toward the countries
and peoples of the Middle East. And as a group they have in lock-step fashion
refused to speak up about how both the Israeli/Jewish lobby, and in more
recent years the well-paid P.R. agents of the Arab "client regimes",
have so miserably manipulated and distorted American policy toward the
Middle East -- with ever-growing levels of political and financial corruption,
as well as arms sales.
IPS sadly
had been no exception, but for an occasional brown-bag lunch that no one,
not even they themselves, took seriously. Catering to its liberal Jewish
constituency and the money grants it has so eagerly pursued, IPS has been
cowardly in dealing with matters relating to Israel in a very shameful
and hypocritical manner.
This
said, the following article by a current fellow at IPS is pretty much on
the mark when it comes to both Albright and the "peace process".
It's not all that difficult however -- not now anyway in mid-1997 -- to
criticize Israel's Likud government and to conclude that Oslo has failed.
In
a coming MER article we'll look back a few years to when such criticisms
were far more courageous and outspoken. Even so, with Albright in the air
on her way to the boiling region this article by Phyllis Bennis is insightful,
so long as one remembers the overall context, so long as one understands
that an occasional useful article (one it should be said with major omissions
including any comment about the terribly corrupt and incompetent "Palestinian
Authority" and how it came to be) doesn't obscure the miserable IPS
record of saying and doing so little over so long a period of time.
.
WASHINGTON'S "NEW
INITIATIVE" THAT ISN'T
by Phyllis Bennis
.
U.S. envoy Dennis Ross' recent
trip to the region does not, contrary to many overheated press reports,
inaugurate a "new U.S. initiative" in the Middle East. Instead,
it reflects a newly-overt endorsement by the Clinton administration of
the initially-ignored April 1997 call by right-wing Israeli Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu to abandon the Oslo Accords' "interim" negotiations
and move instead directly to the "final status" talks.
.
This time, it is clear that Washington
has finally come to recognize what much of the world, and certainly the
key players in the Middle East (Netanyahu with a certain relief, Palestinian
leader Yasir Arafat with despair), have known for a while: Oslo, in its
current incarnation, has failed. It has failed even to achieve the very
modest goals the U.S. had in mind: to keep talks in motion, to keep "the
process" alive whether or not there was any real hope of real peace
resulting.
.
What is not acknowledged, is that
the failure of Oslo had little to do with violations or failures of implementation
on either side. Certainly the failures were legion -- but they are not
the point. The real failure of Oslo was its failure from the beginning
to challenge the disparity of power that lay at the heart of Israel's occupation
of Palestinian land.
.
The only hope now, for a Ross-Albright
"initiative," would be if the U.S. were prepared to offer a significantly
different approach to final status issues, while continuing the Israeli
military redeployments mandated under Oslo's "interim" phase.
And so far, there's little reason to think the U.S. has any such intention.
.
The overwhelming focus on Palestinian
violence allows the Clinton administration's embrace of Israel to remain
intact. Albright's allegedly "ground breaking" speech mentioned
Israeli settlements only by brief, indirect, and cautiously critical reference,
referring to them only as "unhelpful" in the search for peace.
The one-time U.S. position that settlements were a violation of international
law has long been abandoned; even the modest "obstacle to peace"
has been watered down.
Instead, the demand that the Palestinians
make a "100% effort" towards rooting out terrorism is limited
to the call for the Palestinian Authority to round up and arrest anyone
thought to sympathize with Islamist organizations, whether or not they
have any sympathy for, let alone indications of involvement in, military
attacks. We shouldn't be surprised -- it's the same method sequential U.S.
administrations starting with Ronald Reagan have used against the Palestinians
facing deportation in the Los Angeles 8 case: here we call it guilt by
association. And here federal courts have already called it illegal. Israeli
military courts have done it for years in the West Bank and Gaza -- they're
still doing it now, with Palestinians never charged with a crime languishing
for years under sequential six-month terms of "administrative detention."
And it never did work to stop all military attacks.
.
Fighting suicide bombings -- and
they must be fought, because they are terrorist attacks, targeting random
civilian victims -- is a major challenge. But it has to be recognized that
police deterrents don't work. If the perpetrator of such an attack not
only is willing to risk, but actually plans on dying, deterrents are not
the answer. Fear of death or arrest will not stop these attacks. So we
need to look at the root causes that lead young people to believe that
the desperation of their lives is not only degrading, but that it will
never change, that there is no reasonable hope of it improving.
.
The only thing new in Secretary
Albright's speech was her brief reassertion of UN resolution 242 and the
exchange of land for peace as the basis for a future settlement. This was
interesting precisely because the U.S. has largely abandoned 242, and certainly
abandoned a land for peace formula, throughout the Oslo process. Oslo never
called for an exchange of land for peace -- rather it was a call for an
exchange of limited municipal authority in exchange for peace. Not exactly
the same thing. But there was no indication that Washington has changed
in its understanding of what a REAL land for peace exchange would look
like.
.
In fact the question of land lies
at the heart of the continuing crisis in Palestine and Israel. A Washington
Post columnist the other morning wrote that the crisis "is not about
occupation" but he was wrong. It's EXACTLY about occupation, since
all the land, including that designated "Area A" to be under
autonomous Palestinian authority, is ultimately still under Israeli control.
(It was telling that in the debate among Israeli officials about whether
their troops should enter the "self-rule" areas to arrest alleged
Islamists, there was only tactical disagreement on whether the timing was
right, there was no principled disagreement on Israel's right to enter.)
Unless there is a new focus on
land -- meaning U.S. support for an end to Israeli settlements, creation
of a real Palestinian state rather than the truncated Bantustan of autonomy
currently contemplated, right of return for Palestinian refugees, and a
sharing of Jerusalem between the two states -- it's hard to imagine that
the "new Oslo" Albright, Ross and Clinton have in mind will get
any further than the old Oslo.
.
The U.S. is the key backer of Israel
-- financially ($4 billion/year in aid, meaning $1000+ per Israeli), politically
(in continuing to veto UN Security Council votes), strategically (by maintaining
Israel's conventional military superiority over all combinations of Arab
states, as well as through condoning Tel Aviv's extensive nuclear arsenal).
So how can Washington expect to be viewed as an honest broker?
It's time to recognize that U.S.
domination of Middle East diplomacy has failed. We need to support a more
significant role for Europe, the UN, and the rest of the international
community. An enhanced role for European special envoy Miguel Angel Moratinos
would be a good start. The recent UN special session of the General Assembly
passed an important resolution (despite U.S. opposition) calling on Israel
to identify goods produced on settlements in the occupied territories so
they can be excluded from the special trade privileges accorded to goods
made inside Israel itself. That same idea is being discussed in a number
of European capitals too. It could be a good next step. It can be implemented
despite U.S. opposition -- it doesn't require a veto- vulnerable Security
Council vote, and every country as well as the European Union can implement
it on its own.
.
The U.S.-backed Oslo process has
failed. It's time for Washington to step aside and allow Europe and others
in the world to take a real "new initiative" that might bring
about a chance for real peace -- a peace with justice -- in the troubled
Middle East.
.
* Phyllis Bennis is a fellow at the Institute
for Policy Studies in Washington D.C.
M I D - E A S T R E
A L I T I E S
(202) 362-5266, Ext 638 Fax:
(202) 362-6965 MER@MiddleEast.Org
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