Image Credit: White House photo.
Israeli occupation of Palestine should be handled by someone with experience in the area
BBSNews Commentary 2007-02-27 -- US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice went on yet another whirlwind tour of the Middle East and she was greeted not by cheers for the "Road Map," but instead by the hugely popular 2002 Arab Peace Initiative. On the eve of an Arab summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to reiterate support for the 2002 peace initiative, Ms. Rice said according to The BBC:
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President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon during a press conference in the Cross Hall of the White House on April 14, 2004.
Image Credit: White House photo. |
"The Arab states must be reaching out to Israel... to show Israel that they accept its place in the Middle East."
Exactly five years ago today according to CNN:
"Prince Saud al Faisal, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, told a news conference, "This is the way toward security ... Israel can't keep the land and want security at the same time. It has to withdraw and give the Palestinian their rights."If Israel does that, the Arab states will put an end to the state of war. That will give Israel its security."
Secretary Rice is five years too late, and she apparently missed the point. Which is ironic given that the US is currently being attacked as an occupier of Iraq while smack dab in the middle of a civil war. The Arab initiative came before the "Road Map" on March 28th, 2002. Even though mentioned by George W. Bush in a speech in late June 2002, the release of the "Road Map" was held up in December 2002 at its hoped for release for the Israeli elections. Then the US and Israel would not deal with Arafat so they held out until a Palestinian Prime Minister, that was Mahmoud Abbas stepping in, four years ago. Only then on April 30th, 2003, more than a year after the Arab Initiative was the "Road Map" finally released. A plan by the way that was to lead to a Palestinian state by 2005. The impasse has simply been Israel expanding settlements and continuing to occupy land where it does not belong and the US sitting by enabling it and hoping for the Second Coming. The Arab proposal for peace came from Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah five years ago. Instead of wasting all of this time Israel should have been doing its part to comply and preparing to re-absorb all its settlers illegally occupying Palestinian land.
Former president Jimmy Carter mentions the Arab initiative several times throughout the book "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid" (Simon and Schuster 2006), he even includes it in an appendix. And Carter recognized that while Saudi Arabia believes that the initiative, driven by King Abdullah (then Crown Prince) is "quite compatible" with the US made road map, the Saudis have a relatively small population; not a huge military presence, and that they are surrounded by "potentially dangerous neighbors" so cautious moves are prudent.
It's also important to note, as Carter did in a time line at the beginning of his important book, that when the Arab League summit in 2002 endorsed the plan that includes UN Resolutions 242 and 338 as an important underpinning to the plan, Ariel Sharon had been prime minister of Israel since 2001, Yasser Arafat was under attack by the Israeli Army in his Ramallah office building and Israel began building the Apartheid Wall. Arafat could not operate in such a manner with his offices in ruin, internal disputes raging and demands for him to stop violent factions from acting out their aggression fueled by the occupation by attacking Israel. Arafat could not control what was being done to him by Sharon, he had no hope to control the Palestinian countryside.
George W. Bush and Sharon acted as if Arafat could have done something to stop all of it. Sensible people could see that was impossible. Arafat had as much chance of stopping all such violence as Bush had at stopping Abu Ghraib; or for that matter, leaks about covert CIA officers to the news media.
Recognition of Israel
Carter wrote that "Most Palestinians and other Arabs maintain that the proposal by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, a proposal approved at the Arab Summit in 2002, is a public acknowledgment of Israel's right to exist within its legal borders and shows willingness to work out disputes that have so far not been addressed directly."
Resistance or "terrorism?"
Americans should think long and hard about what they would do if they were occupied by a foreign country. Would they simply sit on their hands and do nothing? Or would they resist the occupation of their land with every fiber of their beings and long for a just peace in the same way as do the Palestinians? Terrorism is not resistance, and resistance to illegal occupation is not terrorism.
What will it take for peace?
The critical points for peace have been spelled out for decades in accordance with UN Resolutions 194, 242 and 338:
Is the Arab Peace Initiative comprehensive enough?
Not everyone is convinced that this latest Arab summit renewing the call to the 2002 initiative goes far enough. Mohamed Khodr wrote in a commentary about the current Arab summit for Media Monitors Network:
"Rice also met with the beleaguered Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a man barely surviving politically, to co-develop the Summit's agenda that addresses Israel's concerns regarding King Abdullah's Peace Initiative which offers Israel everything without clearly spelling out Arab demands other than a general withdrawal of Israel to its 1967 borders. Despite 60 years experience with Israel's firm rejection of all peace proposals, including American proposals, do the Arab leaders truly expect Israel to simply abandon its hundreds of settlements, its annexation of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, tear down the Apartheid Wall that has incorporated large settlements into Israel proper, its military zones along the Jordan River, its theft of Arab water, release of thousands of prisoners, abandon its goal of a Greater Israel, and its design on the Litani River—if so, then one needs to test the water in Riyadh."
To be sure, unless those issues are addressed there can be no real peace. Unless Shebaa Farms is returned to Lebanon where it belongs there will still be that tension. The Golan Heights being occupied by Israel is a source of contention for Syria, even though Carter points out that Syria had offered to agree to a withdrawal and a buffer zone that would see Syria actually pulling back further than Israel due to geographic concerns. And the issue of water rights is something that every American from the western United States should understand.
Yet the impending Arab summit reaffirming the 2002 Arab initiative, now being reported as to be unchanged even as others had urged that it should be watered down to placate Israel, is a very important development that could render the US forgotten "Road Map" irrelevant if the Arab world really stands as one and work together and often to ensure a united front for peace.
Most importantly the United States should recognize that it just cannot be an effective broker for peace anymore. Before Israel laid waste to Lebanon, the US was already seen as a one sided supporter of Israel. After that pulverizing bombing that the US kept re-supplying even with cluster-bombs, the Arab street knew it had no effective fair mediator in the US. The Americans were going to support Israel no matter how far against the pale they went. Currently the Bush administration holds great stock in UN resolutions for Arab countries but not Israel. When they were touting 1441 in Iraq they were talking about a little more than a decade of non-compliance; 194, 242 and 338 were long before. Arab countries, quite rightly, can ask where is the fairness in this? Should the treatment not be equal for all? Or only enforced for the few that America currently does not favor?
Even when the Bush administration is gone, there is still no guarantee that whoever is next in the US administration will be a fair and impartial peacemaker, because as Carter made quite clear, to even so much as criticize Israel is political suicide in America for any politician (and for commentators). Sadly, by not really solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the United States makes ripe the fetid conditions for terrorism to fester.
Under those conditions, it may very well be that the Arab world will simply have to solve the problem themselves. It is unknown when, if ever, that the Americans will be able to stop enabling Israel until the influence of radical right-wing Christianity is on the wane and a more pragmatic and sensible US presence is regained. And no one knows how long it will take the world to get over the Bush administration and its pre-emptive war doctrine and the damage it has wrought.
The Arab world really needs to make this work because having a viable partner in a US administration that is not mired down in Iraq and endless investigations of wrongdoing is years away. This Arab summit could speed things up to be ready for a new US administration by being completely united with one strong voice in favor of a just peace with Israel playing fair and a viable Palestinian state, and demanding uniformity in the enforcement of UN resolutions for all countries.
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