Molding a Mideast peace camp
THERE ARE many reasons why a two-state resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has proved so elusive. The two peoples have staked their identities on very different accounts of their common history. The core issues of occupation, security, land, sovereignty, refugees, and Jerusalem are both tangled and entangling. No less daunting, though, is the difficulty of getting all the concerned parties aligned at the same time in the peace camp.
The current warfare in Gaza between Hamas and Fatah belongs to a pattern that is all too familiar. Both factions are putting their power struggle before the need for peace negotiations with Israel. Indeed, Hamas is firing rockets into Israel with the transparent aim of provoking an Israeli retaliation that might provide an escape from its internecine conflict with Fatah. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is coming under domestic pressure to take military action, must not fall into this trap.
The complexity of the quest for peace could be glimpsed last week, when Israel's foreign minister Tzipi Livni met in Cairo with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. They discussed issues of mutual concern such as Iran, arms smuggling into Gaza, and the rise of Hamas. The most encouraging news from their talks was the announcement that the foreign ministers of Egypt and Jordan will go to Israel soon to discuss with Olmert the Arab League peace initiative first broached five years ago in Beirut and reissued in March at an Arab League summit in Riyadh.
The initiative offers Israel normalized relations with all 22 Arab states once Israel and the Palestinian Authority negotiate a two-state peace agreement. Earlier Israeli leaders hardly dared hope for such regional acceptance. It is being offered now to provide Israel with a strategic incentive to halt the downward spiral in the region and to give Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas the sort of legitimating Arab mandate that Yasser Arafat failed to acquire before he journeyed to Camp David in the summer of 2000 for the fatefully failed negotiations brokered by Bill Clinton.
Wisely, the Egyptian and Jordanian foreign ministers told Livni in Cairo they will not present ultimatums or insist on preconditions when they visit Israel. But they also made it clear their visit cannot be treated by Israel as a substitute for direct talks with Abbas or his negotiators.
The Arab League's action opens up a rare chance for Israel, the Palestinians, and the United States to escape the looming threats of new regional wars, the extension of Iranian influence from Baghdad to the Mediterranean, and mounting threats from Sunni Arab jihadist networks. But to seize that chance, weak or discredited governments in Jerusalem, Ramallah, and Washington will have to act strong and align themselves with the camp of the peacemakers.
