By Gamil Mattar * People are baffled. Are we, as Arabs, really so bad as to merit our lot? Other peoples and nations have reached positions of power without possessing the human resources, financial capabilities and entrepreneurial know-how that we have. It would appear that we have a grudge against power, any kind of power. Yet we, more than anyone, feel that there is something fishy in all this -- that the situation demands reflection upon such issues as bad intentions, limited awareness, intellectual corruption and the flight of the educated elite to the recently discovered world of "globalisation", which offers lures and enticements to sway the most deeply-rooted loyalties, affiliations and concerns. Does the foregoing introduction have any bearing on the memorandum signed in Washington? Clearly, yes. Not that the memorandum, per se, or its contents, however ennobling or degrading, directly inspired this introduction. Nevertheless, the introduction does have an indirect bearing on the memorandum, and the various negotiations, shuttles and antics disguised as tactics that preceded and followed its signing. One could not help but notice, for example, that the US government wasted no time in pressuring most Arab governments to support the memorandum, or at least to refrain from criticising it. The pressure was expected, of course. The memorandum is not about the Palestinian track in the negotiating process. It is about the opposition; not just the Palestinian opposition, but all policies, governments and organisations that are classified as the "opposition". Under this heading fall those who might be reluctant to voice support because, for one reason or another, they are keen to safeguard Palestinian rights and remain obstinate in their refusal to deal with Israel. In fact, most Arab capitals issued statements of support, however cautious, for the memorandum. Certainly, the Americans must have noticed that these statements were devoid of the effusive enthusiasm they sought. Nevertheless, it has been said that some governments were actually pleased with the agreement the Americans, Israelis and Palestinians reached, but felt it would not have been appropriate to phrase their statements of support too ebulliently. It was also said, of course, that some Arabs dream of waking up one day to find that there is no Palestinian cause and no Arab-Israeli conflict. As in all rosy dreams, there is no wretchedness and no usurped rights. What is important is for the dream to come true. This is by no means intended to imply that certain Arabs who entertain this dream want to make it come true at any price. In fact, if the dreamer were to awaken and find that the Palestinian cause is no longer there to ruin his day and trouble relations with the US or Israel, but also discovered that the Palestinians had been forced to pay an exorbitant price in forfeited rights, land and hopes, the dream could well become a nightmare. Or would it? One Palestinian leader said, in effect, that the Arabs are to be held responsible for the wretched memorandum; that it was other Arabs, not the Palestinians, who actually signed the agreement, because it was they who forced the hand of the Palestinian negotiators by ignoring the PA's repeated calls for an Arab summit. In order to relieve the gravity of these charges, however, this Palestinian official added that the Americans also exerted pressure in order to forestall such a summit. At any rate, once again the message is clear. The Arabs have brought another calamity on the Palestinians, or, more precisely, the Palestinians, once again, have been forced to make concessions they would not have had to make if the Arabs had stood by them -- which they would have done if outside pressure had not prevailed. Most Arab capitals object to this reading of events. They say they have done, and continue to do, everything the Palestinians have asked. Some Arab officials have said the Palestinians told us to back off, so we backed off. Other Arab parties have said that, although they were distressed by what the Palestinian negotiators were doing to their own country, they refrained from making trouble and declared their support of what the Palestinian negotiators deemed satisfactory for their people and their country. The argument is as follows: if the Palestinian negotiators conceded vast stretches of their territory, agreed to ignore principles established in international resolutions, conferences (like Madrid) and agreements (such as the Oslo Accords), and pledged to tear up their national charter -- a pledge which the US president witnessed in a paroxysm of Schadenfreude -- then who are we to tell them what they want and what is better for their people? Still, one finds much to be angry about, in spite of that all too familiar caveat that no one can stand up to America's will, and that the US and Israel are merciless to those who disobey them. One wonders, for example, what might have occurred in Wye if Syria had not fallen prey, before and during the negotiations, to the sudden and deliberate revival of an old Syrian-Turkish problem. The only new factor this time around was Israel's and, perhaps even more so, Washington's desire to alleviate Syrian pressure on Israel and the Palestinians during the negotiations. Certainly, the Egyptians were only too aware of the true import of the savage assault against Egypt's stability. In fact, savage is an understatement, for I can imagine nothing more potentially devastating than an attempt to sow sectarian strife, nor can I conceive of any issue more capable of diverting the attention of Egyptians -- government and opposition alike -- away from crucial issues of regional security and stability. Washington and Israel are perfectly aware of this fact, which is why the Egyptian president could barely conceal his anger and virtually accused Israel of engineering this assault, leaving it up to others to censure the US Congress for persisting in its attempts to undermine Egypt's political stability and to condemn other US agencies that are bent on setting the Egyptians against each other and against the other Arabs. Not all lines, however, are so clearly demarcated. Some analysts have felt that what began in the Sharm Al-Sheikh summit as a modest scheme to protect the peace process and the Labour government under Shimon Peres developed, after Wye, into an ambitious project to eliminate all forms of opposition, no matter how timid. Democracy, human rights, political plurality and other such weapons that have been so cynically wielded to bring the Arab governments to heel for a time will be merrily cast to the wind in order to put an end, once and for all, to any plurality of policies which the Arabs may seek to employ in order to counter Zionism, Israeli expansionism and Likud racism. After Wye, I imagine, there will be no more need, in the Arab countries or in Israel, for groups that call themselves "peace advocates", because there will only be one policy line to follow: full and rapid normalisation with Israel and condemnation of all forms of resistance against Israel, as well as all forms of opposition to the PA. This version of peace has been touted by many so-called peace groups in the name of the "need to come to terms with reality". What they misunderstood was the fact that Israel has so transmogrified said "reality" as to render any notion of reality absurd. Little wonder that most of those who had voiced the call for "realism" have lost faith in the prospects of a realistic peace. Indeed, many have fallen victim to that ever-shrinking ground of reality because of the excessive weight they, and many Arab politicians and intellectuals, had attached to it. Israel has created a new reality of its own, a reality that has rendered the former reality -- as promoted by the peace groups -- a farce. Wye heralded the victory of the advocates of the Israeli formula for peace. Neither Israel nor the PA need peace activists anymore. All of Israel -- with the exception of a few hundred, or perhaps thousands, of Jewish extremists -- support Netanyahu's peace. No one in the Labour Party, or any other Israeli party, is ready to campaign for any other peace than Netanyahu's. What emerged from Wye, in fact, was a clear redrawing of the lines of entrenchment. Ensconced behind these lines, the Wye Plantation folks stare out at the enemy, that broad front of sharp-toothed saber rattlers who, we now know, includes anyone who opposes the Israeli formula for peace. As for the new lines of entrenchment themselves -- to the drawing of which the Palestinian negotiators were partners -- they are a new accretion of that excessive reverence for the mirage of "reality" manufactured by Netanyahu and company to impose a compulsory peace. "Realism" is not an idol before which we must bow and scrape as it leads us onward to ever bleaker realities. Indeed, the call to "be realistic" can be a siren that lures us on to dangerous, rocky shores, particularly when the "realities" on offer have become so paltry as to invite weakness and submission. This siren conveys a political message, and that message has its missionaries who seek to spread its principles throughout every corner of the Arab world. Of course, there are those who say that this is what we deserve. But, then too, there are those who disagree, and say that we should not surrender to a chimera -- as though we could reach out and change it. Finally, there are those who conclude that it is time to end the long-standing antagonism between the Arab people and any form of power. *The writer is the director of the Arab Centre for Development and Futuristic Research.
