Mohamed Sid-Ahmed argues that announcing the creation of a Palestinian state alone will not be enough to end the conflict There has been a great deal of talk in recent days of getting the protagonists in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to agree on a truce, even though they remain deeply divided over the shape of a final settlement. It is a formula reminiscent of the one used during the Cold War to keep another intractable conflict from boiling over into open warfare. Known as peaceful coexistence, it was in fact a sort of truce that kept the intense ideological, political and military rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States just short of military conflict. The underlying logic was that two incompatible political systems, communism and capitalism, could exist simultaneously and that war between them was not inevitable. Can the same logic apply to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, that is, can war between Israel and many of the Palestinian factions be avoided even if Sharon remains in office for quite some time to come, as is likely to be the case? Peaceful coexistence is a formula which allows two states to live in peace despite their intractable differences, even when, as in the case of the two superpowers during the Cold War, there is no prospect of overcoming these differences. But although there could be no settlement of the fundamental conflict between communism and capitalism, that did not mean that all aspects of the conflict were equally recalcitrant. For example, while the two superpowers refused to yield one inch on those aspects of the conflict which could be characterised as constants, they were more flexible when it came to the variables. A case in point was the arms race, which threatened them both with mutual annihilation. This particular variable came to overshadow the constants, and led to the need to find a way out of the fix. And so was born the era of peaceful coexistence between the superpowers. Can something be envisaged in the case of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, that is, can considerations related to transient phenomena come to outweigh those stemming from the permanent features of the conflict? If so, which of the parties is more likely to benefit from a shift in the variables/constants equation? Let us take globalisation, a new variable that has imposed itself on the constants of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and which is certain to work to Israel's advantage. With the Information Revolution, the liberalisation of trade flows and the integration of international capital markets eroding the ability of any society to isolate and boycott another, Israel's pariah status in the region is bound to change. On the other hand, the Palestinians are counting on another variable working to their advantage, namely, population growth. The Palestinian birth rate is much higher than the Israeli, and the demographic balance is eventually expected to tilt in favour of the Palestinians. Only time will tell which of the two protagonists will benefit more from the factors of change. The idea of a truce does not touch on the substance of a conflict but only on its form. It does not require the parties to give in on the fundamentals of the dispute between them, but only to alleviate its intensity and prevent it from spiralling out of control to the detriment of both. A truce does not aim at solving the reasons of a conflict at one go, only at giving the parties some breathing space in which they can address these reasons free from the pressure of armed clashes. In agreeing to call a truce, each party is betting that time and changing circumstances will work more to its advantage than to its opponent's, and that it will gain more by deferring the most contentious issues to a later stage than by attempting to resolve them all at once. One of the arguments used by opponents of this formula is that suspending hostilities without first resolving the more critical aspects of any acute conflict merely postpone the inevitable breakout of all out war between the parties. But that is not what happened when the Soviet Union and the United States, the respective standard- bearers of two mutually exclusive ideologies, devised their formula of peaceful coexistence, leaving it to time to determine the outcome of the conflict between them. The conflict was resolved not with a military showdown between the two superpowers but with the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, the way the Cold War ended was an exception, not the rule. The rule is that any conflict ends with the victory of one of the parties and the defeat of the other, as was the case in World War I and World War II. The peaceful resolution of the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union reinforced the logic that both parties to a conflict can be winners, the so-called "non-zero sum game plus", and saw attempts to generalise the exception and make it a rule applicable to other conflicts. This was the logic behind the Oslo agreements, which proceeded from the assumption that as the fundamental differences between the protagonists could not easily be overcome, the search for a solution of these differences should be left to the end of the negotiating process, by which time the successful resolution of the more immediate, often minor, issues will have created an atmosphere more conducive to a resolution of the basic issues at stake. But Oslo did not achieve the desired results. The Camp David summit between Clinton, Arafat and Barak postponed the more intractable issues to the last days of the summit and the summit ended without an agreement. The theory that solving the easier problems will eventually lead to solving the more difficult ones proved wrong, and the same mistake is now being repeated with the roadmap. The roadmap envisages a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict "that will only be achieved through an end to violence and terrorism". It calls on the Palestinian leadership to act decisively against terror and to build a practicing democracy and on Israel to affirm its commitment to the creation of an independent, democratic and viable Palestinian state. The roadmap aims to bring to an end the conflict and the occupation by Israel of the land it occupied in 1967, in exchange for recognition by the Arab states of Israel's right to live in peace and security, and to promote a comprehensive peace on all tracks, including the Syrian and Lebanese tracks. The roadmap is to be implemented in three phases. It was decided that Phase I should end in May 2003 (actually, it has not yet begun!). The document lays down in great detail the various mutual commitments of Phase I, especially the Arab security commitments towards Israel in exchange for the creation of a viable, independent Palestinian state with "attributes of sovereignty". When it comes to Phases II and III, however, which are supposed to cover 2004 and 2005, the document avoids spelling out the mutual commitments of the parties too explicitly. Contrary to the detailed elaboration of the steps to be taken in the first phase, it seems to be deliberately avoiding particulars. Phase II starts after Palestinian elections and ends with the "possible" creation of an independent Palestinian state "with provisional borders" in 2003. The Quartet will convene an international conference, in consultation with the parties, as a means to reactivate the process if it gets stalled, and pledges to promote international recognition of the Palestinian state, including possible UN membership. Phase II concentrates on the steps required for the creation of the Palestinian state, while the objectives of Phase III are the consolidation of reform and stabilisation of Palestinian institutions, sustained, effective Palestinian security performance and Palestinian-Israeli negotiations for a final status agreement in 2005, which will include the issues of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, Israeli settlements, etc, the very issues that the protagonists failed to reach agreement on at the 1999 Camp David summit. Thus Phase III of the roadmap, in the best of cases, will take us back to where things stood when Sharon assumed power, to a time when all the parties agreed that the peace process had failed, and the situation deteriorated into all out violence. According to the roadmap, at the end of Phase III the Quartet will announce that the conflict has been settled and that the Arab states will develop normal relations with Israel. But while the mechanism of mutual obligations between the protagonists is clearly defined when it comes to announcing the creation of the Palestinian state, it remains hazy and much less binding when it comes to solving the issues that brought about the failure of the Camp David summit in 1999. Such loopholes are all the more critical in the context of the 14 reservations raised by Sharon in respect of the roadmap. But most critical of all is Sharon's categorical refusal to proceed with negotiations before violence is brought to an end. Does he realistically expect this condition to be fulfilled while Israel remains ambivalent on the issue of the settlements and continues its policy of assassinating Palestinian activists? In a word, as long as the principle of resisting occupation by all -- including military -- means is not accepted as a legitimate principle enshrined in the UN Charter?
