Crescent of Crisis: U.S.-European Strategy for the Greater Middle East

Putting the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process Back on Track

An opportunity, unexpected and ephemeral, is taking shape to establish a credible Palestinian state within the next few years that enjoys geographical continuity and equitable borders— including a viable capital in East Jerusalem—as well as meaningful sovereign control over its population, territory, natural resources, and, no less important, land, sea, and air borders with the outside world. Such a state would be stable, not least because it could afford politically and territorially to absorb returning Palestinian refugees and so would contribute materially to ensuring that Israel, too, enjoys a peaceful and secure existence. Under such conditions the Saudi initiative adopted by the Arab summit in Beirut in March 2002 would come into effect, offering normalization of Arab ties with Israel in return for a full and mutually satisfying agreement with the Palestinians. This trend would both reinforce, and be reinforced by, wider regional developments such as the painful but positive emergence of a new, democratic Iraq, Syrian disengagement from Lebanon and interest in resuming formal negotiations with Israel, and U.S.-EU convergence in the difficult dialogue with Iran over its nuclear program. Reasons for hope include the fact that much of the ongoing debate in Israel revolves around the nature and extent of additional withdrawals Putting the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process Back on Track Yezid Sayigh 55 03-1689 section2 11/15/05 6:14 PM Page 55 that Israel might undertake in the West Bank (even including parts of East Jerusalem) following implementation of its Gaza disengagement plan, rather than around the principle of withdrawal. There is considerable divergence regarding both the process and the end goal, but all sides—the settler lobby and hard-line religious nationalists excepted—regard significant further territorial withdrawal and at least provisional Palestinian statehood within the coming few years as inevitable. A similar process may be discerned on the Palestinian side, where public opinion polls continue to show a majority in favor of a negotiated, two-state solution to the conflict (as they also do among Israelis). The mainstream nationalist group Fatah remains committed to achieving a negotiated peace with Israel, while its main contender, the Islamist group Hamas, is preparing to participate in the Palestinian Authority’s governing bodies—including both the cabinet and the Palestinian Legislative Council—and consequently to engage in direct negotiations with Israel over interim and permanent status issues.1 Challenges remain, however. The situation is fraught with potential threats. Israeli disengagement from Gaza and a sliver of the northern West Bank may lead to more, not less, polarization within Israel as it faces the unavoidable question of what comes “the day after.” Divisions among the Palestinians over strategy may also deepen once attention focuses on how to ensure Israeli withdrawal from the rest of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Bitter rivalries—factional, personal, and generational —within the Israeli Likud and Labor parties and within the Palestinian Fatah may inject an additional destabilizing factor into domestic politics at a critical moment, with the potential to complicate diplomacy severely if not derail it altogether. The scope for domestic politics and ideological struggles to impinge adversely on putative diplomacy—in particular attempts to resume the Quartet’s road map for peace—may expand further as government leaders and political parties on both sides approach general elections in the coming year.2 It is therefore by no means given that the peace process will unfold naturally in the wake of the Gaza disengagement. Nor will it simply pick up after a hiatus pending the Palestinian and Israeli general elections. In the meantime continuing Israeli settlement activity and extension of the security barrier in the West Bank and East Jerusalem could trigger a renewal of Palestinian violence, especially in the absence of an ongoing and credible peace process. The grinding Israeli siege could in parallel bring the YEZID SAYIGH 56 03-1689 section2 11/15/05 6:14 PM Page 56 Palestinian Authority (PA) to complete institutional collapse; already only massive external aid keeps the Palestinian economy from total meltdown. The United States and the European Union cannot afford to risk such an outcome, which would have adverse repercussions on their wider Middle East policies, and so they cannot suspend active diplomacy or forceful political interventions in the coming period. The United States and the European Union face a major challenge, but they have the means and opportunity to shepherd the local parties through rapidly unfolding events...