As the familiar patterns governing the Arab-Israeli conflict reassert themselves it is moderate Arab states that appear most vulnerable, argues Abdel-Moneim Said* The Palestinian-Israeli settlement plan known as the roadmap has been delivered a severe blow in a scenario that is all too familiar in the eternal conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis. Israeli occupation forces assassinated a leader from Islamic Jihad who was, allegedly, planning paramilitary operations against Israel. Jihad retaliated with a suicide bombing that claimed 20 lives and left 130 wounded. After Jihad claimed responsibility for the bombing Hamas, feeling that it should not be left out of the scene, issued its own statement claiming responsibility. Within hours of their declarations Hamas and Jihad then issued a joint statement declaring that they were willing to abide by the truce but only if Israel halted its assassination policy. Israel refused, and the cycle of tit-for- tat revenge has once more been set in motion. It is time for all parties to realise that the patterns that have long driven Arabs and Israelis into endless rounds of bloodshed are now redundant. The Palestinians are engaged in a trial run in terms of statehood and self- determination. As part of this process the central Palestinian Authority has the right of sovereignty over a given area of land and the right to issue decisions affecting the people within it. Yet once again Hamas, Jihad and other radical factions insist upon conducting a national struggle of their own without any consideration for the central authority and its legitimate right to take decisions with regard to resistance and negotiation, calculated on the basis of material and strategic circumstances. As US special envoy to the Middle East William Behrens said, without a single national authority a Palestinian state might as well be timetabled a thousand years hence rather than the three years stipulated by the roadmap. Thus, what lies at the core of the test the Palestinians must pass is the willingness of the Islamist movements to concede the ultimate decision-making power vis-à-vis resistance versus negotiation to the PA instead of vying with it for control over the Palestinian street. Unfortunately, it appears that the necessary decisions will not be forthcoming, not only because Hamas and Jihad have appropriated the right to steer the Palestinian struggle without mandate or accountability, but also because the Arab world has succumbed to these organisations' claims of leadership now that they have become a catchword for resistance. Israel, too, faces a major test. Not only has the government been unable to restrain the zealotry of Jewish settlers, it has probably encouraged them to undermine the essence of the first phase of the roadmap and further complicate the issues pertaining to the final settlement. Israel has failed to create a mechanism for dealing with security-related issues that relies not on brute force but on international institutions and procedures capable of discriminating between fact and fiction. Israel's persistent objection to any international presence in Palestinian territory puts paid to all its claims regarding the origins of the threat to its security. It follows, therefore, that Israel has effectively failed to honour the truce agreement, thereby legitimising the Hamas and Jihad reprisals. The US is the third party undergoing a crucial test. It was probably no coincidence that the recent Jerusalem suicide bombing followed the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad that resulted in the death of the UN secretary-general's envoy and many of his assistants. The UN bombing was, according to reports, perpetrated by Ansar Al-Islam, a militant organisation that appears to have nominated itself to play the role of Hamas and Jihad in Iraq. The two bombings make it patently clear that the US occupation of Iraq, and the continued Israeli occupation of Arab territories, have polarised the region between Washington and Tel Aviv, on the one hand, and fundamentalist Islamic forces on the other. This polarity is certain to grow more acute, with perilous consequences for the region and the world, not to mention for the US's regional and global interests, if Washington does not act intelligently and resolutely. Washington's test, therefore, is to resolve the Iraqi dilemma and the Arab-Israeli conflict simultaneously, something it will be unable to do as long as it lacks the ability and resolve to restrain Israeli violence. The Arabs are undergoing an even more arduous test. Moderate Arab states, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, are paying high economic and political prices for situations they had no part in creating. Circumstances in Iraq and Palestine rebound well beyond the geographical boundaries of these trouble spots. They have a profound impact on trade, tourism and investment in the region; political tensions arise from the contradictory pull of relations with the US and concern for Arab causes furnishing radical forces with endless fodder for fomenting chaos. The moderate states have invested considerable political capital in the Arab-Israeli peace process and the prospects of regional stability. These investments are in peril. Egypt engineered the beginning of the roadmap. Having lobbied European powers and Washington, it succeeded in convincing Yasser Arafat to give his Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) the opportunity to take the helm in Palestinian dealings with Israel and the US. Egypt crowned its drive with the Sharm El-Sheikh Summit that signaled the inauguration of the roadmap and then scored a further diplomatic success through its mediation with the Palestinian factions which resulted in the acceptance of the notion of a truce. Now, however, it appears that all these efforts have gone to waste. There is nothing to indicate that the truce can be reinstated, especially in light of the determination of Washington and Tel Aviv to "destroy the infrastructure of terrorism", the result of which will be to precipitate a Palestinian civil war. Riyadh's investment in peace and stability is epitomised by the Saudi peace initiative, adopted by the Arab Summit in Beirut and then incorporated into the roadmap despite Sharon's objections. Saudi Arabia also attended the Sharm El-Sheikh Summit, leaving its imprint directly on the peace process, and it was instrumental in convincing the Palestinian factions to agree to a truce. Riyadh, moreover, has demonstrated its resolve to counter the extremism that has manifested itself so tragically in Saudi Arabia recently. Amman, too, played no small part in getting the roadmap off the ground. In addition to hosting the Aqaba Summit it hosted, in June, the Dead Sea Conference that brought together all the nations of the Middle East. In addition Jordan, in cooperation with Egypt, took part in training the Palestinian police force. The current prospects for these three parties, as well as for other moderate Arab states in the Gulf and North Africa, are bleak. Without entering into the details of the ideological, political and strategic relationship between the fundamentalist organisations based in Palestine and those that operated in Riyadh, Casablanca and, at an earlier period, in Cairo, the fact is that all of them operate outside the strategic framework founded upon the principle of land for peace and the creation of an independent Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem. If Arab parties are to overcome this situation their task is to work to change the rules of play in the region so as to propel it from confrontation to negotiation and from conflict to peace. One possible way to alter the political climate in the region is to institutionalise the Arab initiative within the context of the roadmap. Towards this end one can envision the creation of an association consisting of the four countries of the Quartet and the five parties that attended the Sharm El-Sheikh and Aqaba summits (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and the PA). Such an association would bolster the legitimacy of the roadmap regionally and ensure that the voice of moderation prevails over radicalism in handling the various aspects of the Middle East conflict. Not only would this association ensure political and moral support for the Palestinian people: on a more tangible level it will transform the Arab initiative from a "deal" that Israel could either accept or reject into a concrete, phased process that would serve as both a deterrent and incentive to Israel. This would certainly enable the Arabs to play a more dynamic role in promoting the peace process. In the first phase of the roadmap as it currently stands Egypt and Jordan are to assist in the training of the Palestinian police force. In the second phase the Arabs will resume their relations with Israel as they stood before the outbreak of the Intifada and, in the third phase, following the resolution of all final status issues, the Arabs will normalise their relations with Israel. Within the context of an association that transforms the Arab peace initiative into a drive these phases will have more than symbolic value. By playing an active part in working towards the implementation of the various phases the Arabs will simultaneously minimise the pressures faced by the PA to make concessions by which it is unable to abide and to generate a climate in Israel more conducive to the prerequisites of peace. Without such a dynamic the laws that have regulated the course of the Arab-Israeli conflict and stability in the Middle East will once again operate against the interests of all, Arabs and non-Arabs alike, at which point further discussion will be futile. * The writer is director of Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
