On November 16, 1997, United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright traveled to Doha, the capital of the oil- and gas-rich sheikhdom of Qatar, to take part in a long-planned regional economic conference. What might have been a step toward building a peaceful Middle East turned into a major embarrassment for United States policy, especially against the backdrop of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's nose thumbing at the un sanctions imposed after Iraq's defeat in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Without forward momentum in the peace process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, few Arab states were willing to send delegations. Most of America's key Arab friends--Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco--boycotted the meeting, citing the obstructionist tactics of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the diplomatic passivity of the United States.
Qatar, like many of the Arab states of the Gulf, had sensed economic opportunity as a dividend of the 1993 Oslo accords. The Doha meeting was the fourth in a series of economic conferences that began in Casablanca in 1994 with the goal of bringing together officials, experts, and businesspeople for multilateral and bilateral deal making. Just a few months before, Albright had emphasized in a major policy speech that the Doha meeting was central to the peace process and the economic future of the Middle East.
Until the no-show Doha session, the unsung multilateral dimension of the peace process had been remarkably successful, not least in fostering the normalization of relations between Israel and its neighbors. In addition to peace agreements with Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinians, Israel now has quasi--if not official--relations with Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates. Even Saudi diplomats and businessmen have interacted cordially with their Israeli counterparts at earlier sessions. Now these achievements have been put in jeopardy by the dying peace process.
At the same time, as Washington signaled its intent to use force to ensure Iraqi compliance with un-mandated weapons program inspections, it discovered that the unilateral use of force against Iraq had little support among its Arab allies. There are several reasons for this collapse in support, including the widespread view that the sanctions regime has punished innocent Iraqis while leaving members of the ruling clique unscathed. Equally important, Washington's aggressive enforcement of un resolutions against Iraq is often contrasted in the Arab media with American reluctance to demand that Israel meet its explicit obligations under the Oslo accords.
These developments illustrate that the health of the peace process deeply affects the fate of other United States interests in the Middle East. Policymakers naturally try to minimize these linkages, but this is only damage control, as senior United States officials privately concede.
The assumption that the peace process would inevitably reach its destination has lulled President Bill Clinton and his key advisers into a fantasy construction of the Middle East in which the obvious regional linkages have often been neglected. Peace between Palestinians and Israelis may only be a matter of time, as Albright argued in her pre-Doha speech, but the intervening period will remain perilous for all concerned, especially America's Arab friends.
This peril is clearly illustrated in Jordan, which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994. The political opposition in Jordan complains that there has been no peace dividend and that Israel's stonewalling of the Oslo agreement has been abetted by the United States. These are serious complaints, especially since more than half the kingdom's citizens are Palestinian Arabs. King Hussein has imposed severe restraints on the press and on freedom of speech in an attempt to intimidate critical voices, thereby jeopardizing the kingdom's fledgling experiment in democracy. Progress in the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians thus has a direct bearing on the fate of political reform in neighboring states.
Since September 1993, when President Clinton essentially catered the signing of the Oslo accords on the White House lawn, the United States has been only a shadow presence in the peace process. Rather than lending momentum to the effort, Clinton and his subordinates have been content to allow the negotiations to take their own course. For more than two years this approach sputtered along. Oslo was constructed on a foundation of confidence-building measures, and the central premise of the agreement was that trust would be built between Palestinians and Israelis through gradual implementation of these measures. The most contentious issues, especially the status of Jerusalem, would be saved for last, by which time sufficient confidence would presumably exist to permit a reasonable compromise. Despite the major differences that divided them, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, and Palestinian President Yasir Arafat attained a historic consensus. These men were truly partners in peace, as symbolized by the dramatic handshake between Rabin, the gruff old soldier, and Arafat, the veteran guerrilla leader. Israeli leaders were coy about what they said in public, but there was never much doubt that they understood privately that there would be a Palestinian state at the end of the process. This understanding was made concrete in a paper drafted by Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin and the chief Palestinian negotiator, Abu Mazin.
The assassination of Rabin in November 1995, by an Israeli college student, and the election of Netanyahu in May 1996 marked the end of a remarkable two and a half years of progress toward peace. During this time Israel began the process of withdrawing from most of the Gaza Strip (leaving behind protected enclaves inhabited by about 3,000 settlers). On the West Bank, Israeli forces withdrew from all the major cities except Hebron. Nonetheless, Israel retained control of over 90 percent of the territory, including East Jerusalem and the West Bank settlements where over 120,000 Israelis make their homes.
The new prime minister, elected on the promise of "peace with security," a slogan with visceral appeal for many Israeli voters after a series of terror bombings in early 1996, has approached the Oslo accords with disdain. Many astute Israeli observers, including the distinguished journalist Ze'ev Schiff, argue that Netanyahu intends to kill the peace process, despite the fact that 60 percent of Israelis would accept a demilitarized Palestinian state and even some sharing of Jerusalem in order to achieve peace.1 Netanyahu rejects the idea of Palestinian statehood and he seems content to leave Yasir Arafat and his lieutenants tenuously ensconced in bantustans.
Consistent with this perspective, Israel has offered little beyond cosmetic withdrawals to the Palestinians. Thus, on March 7, 1997, in order to belatedly meet its obligation under the Oslo agreements, the Israeli cabinet approved a withdrawal of its forces from 2 percent of the West Bank, but most of the area affected was already under Palestinian control. The offer--promptly rejected by the Palestinians--reflects the composition of Israel's coalition government, which is heavily dependent on the support of religious parties that have declared their opposition to further withdrawals by Israel. The United States accepted the Israeli offer, although official spokespeople expressed the hope that future withdrawals would be more generous. With United States support, Israel claims the right to unilaterally determine the scope of its withdrawals.
Netanyahu's obduracy has hardly endeared him to the Clinton administration, which made no secret of its preference for his electoral opponent, Shimon Peres, one of the architects of Oslo. The administration has "adapted its policy" to Israel's Likud government, in the later officially corrected but startlingly accurate confession of then Secretary of State Warren Christopher. Adapting to the new Israeli government meant allowing it to interpret Oslo as though Israel's responsibilities were optional and those of the Palestinians mandatory.
Israel's strategy has been to keep the United States as far from the negotiating table as possible. Since the United States was rhetorically committed to supporting the Oslo accords, it was viewed by Israel as a de facto ally of the Palestinian Authority. The Clinton administration, meanwhile, has been content to do little more than pass proposals from one side to the other, rather than putting forth its own. The very idea that the United States might introduce substantive proposals has often been labeled in Tel Aviv and in Washington as "imposing a solution," which Clinton has vowed never to do.
No moral person can flinch from condemning the slaughter of innocents in suicide bombings in Israel. The killing of innocents, whether they are the children of West Bank laborers or strolling shoppers in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, is nothing short of opprobrious. In Washington, however, one hears a selective moral conscience at work that reacts strenuously to violence against Israelis while paying far less attention when the victims are Arabs. In contrast to their forceful denunciation of violence against Israeli civilians, American officials usually memorialize Arab civilians who fall victim to Israeli violence in anodyne statements bemoaning cycles of violence in the Middle East; State Department desk officers refer to such statements as "boilerplate."
The basic problem is that there is now little scope for imagination or balance in United States policy toward the Middle East. Clinton has been disinclined to publicly criticize Israel, since doing so could cause dissension in the American Jewish community and undermine domestic political support for the administration and the Democratic Party. Clinton views a tough-love approach to Israel (as favored by President George Bush and his secretary of state, James Baker) as counterproductive. The main concern of the man from Arkansas is domestic politics.
Most serious observers in the United States agree that no American administration has been as partial to Israel as Clinton's. Indicative of that partiality is the career of Martin Indyk, a bright and articulate man who has enjoyed remarkable success during Clinton's tenure. An immigrant from Australia, Indyk in 1988 created the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a scion of the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the main pro-Israel lobbying organization in Washington and where Indyk worked at the time.
Under his leadership, WINEP became the locale for discussion of Middle East issues in Washington. Along with a free lunch, WINEP served up an array of views, all more or less friendly to Israel, and enlisted the support of Washington heavyweights such as former Secretary of State George Shultz and Jeane Kirkpatrick, the barb-tongued Reaganite who served as United States ambassador to the United Nations. In a few short years the terms of debate for Arab-Israeli policy issues were largely shaped by WINEP; annual WINEP addresses by the serving secretary of state testify to the organization's clout. No other Middle East-oriented center in Washington can claim even remotely comparable influence.
Indyk was part of Clinton's campaign team in 1992. A few days before Clinton was inaugurated in January 1993, Indyk became an American citizen so that he would qualify to take up a position on the National Security Council (NSC), where he became the senior staffer dealing with the Middle East. Indyk's colleagues on the NSC were impressed with his sharp mind, but they would routinely comment that he seemed to view every development through a pro-Israeli lens. One colleague, who admires Indyk personally, noted that during a visit to the White House by the late Yitzhak Rabin, "Martin was ready to open all the drawers and give away the family silver." His presence on the NSC staff created a real credibility problem for United States diplomacy in the Arab world. After two years in the White House, Indyk was appointed ambassador to Israel, where he served until October 1997, when he moved to the State Department as the assistant secretary of state for the Middle East.
Traditionally reserved for a diplomat with extensive experience in the region, the assistant secretary's post is the senior State Department Middle East position. Indyk's appointment was privately criticized by many United States officials, some of whom remain incredulous at the president's decision. Given Indyk's perspectives on the Middle East, few Washington insiders expect any important changes in United States policy toward the region. Of course, Indyk and his State Department colleagues, Dennis Ross (also a WINEP veteran) and Aaron David Miller, want to see the peace process move forward, and they deserve credit for working hard to nudge it in that direction. Netanyahu's hard-line policies have frustrated them. Some insiders claim that Indyk's experience dealing with Israel's Likud has profoundly changed him, and will prompt a tougher, less compliant policy approach to Israel. If so, this would be an important conversion, since Indyk is known to have an excellent rapport with Clinton.
For now, United States policy has been reduced to intermittent tactical reactions to troubling events in the region, as witnessed during the November 1997 Gulf crisis. "New ideas" and "initiatives," such as the much-anticipated opening of a badly needed airport and seaport in Gaza, often amount to no more than attempts to implement what Israel has already agreed to do in the Oslo accords.
Statements of principle--for example, that the fate of Jerusalem is unsettled in international law--have disappeared from the Clinton administration's boilerplate. Symbolically, the Old City of Jerusalem is the focus for the concern of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Yet the Old City accounts for only a tiny fraction of Jerusalem, and less than 2 percent of the city's population. Since 1967 Israel has significantly expanded the municipal boundaries of the city, thereby not only claiming it as the indivisible capital of Israel, but annexing large portions of the occupied West Bank in the process. The Clinton administration and the United States Congress have tacitly endorsed Israel's unilateral redrawing of the municipal borders of Jerusalem, and have also been silent on Israel's recent policies to reduce the Arab population of the city by canceling the residence permits of long-term Palestinian residents. When Israel announced its decision, in January 1997, to build homes for Israelis in Har Homa, to the consternation of the Palestinians, no official voice noted that the settlement lies well outside the traditional municipal boundaries and is actually in the occupied West Bank, although Clinton did remark that the settlement decision "built mistrust."
The administration's passionate preoccupation with anti-Israeli terrorism and its reluctance to seriously challenge Netanyahu's rejection of Israel's obligations under the Oslo agreements, have meant that only if Yasir Arafat is willing and able to become an Israeli satrap is peace possible. If Arafat is to hold hundreds of Islamist militants in preventive detention--as Israel demands--he must have some progress to show for his efforts. While polls show that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians continue to support peace with Israel, support for Arafat and his crew has declined significantly in the absence of a real peace.
When visiting Gaza in October 1997, vehement criticism of the Palestinian Authority could be heard, criticism strikingly similar to that voiced by the Jordanian opposition to King Hussein. Instead of the rewards of peace, Gazans suffer 70 percent unemployment, declining per capita incomes, and political oppression at the hands of Arafat's many police and paramilitary forces. Arafat's health is also a subject of widespread but quiet concern; physicians surmise that he has had a series of small strokes. Replacing this flawed but uniquely important leader with a man or woman willing and able to negotiate effectively with Israel will be no easy matter.
As we listen to the death rattles of the peace process, it is past time to acknowledge the obvious. Under the leadership of President Clinton, the United States has proved itself incapable of playing the role of honest broker in the difficult negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. There are two interconnected reasons for this: First, Clinton and his advisers have been unwilling to jeopardize domestic political support by even a hint of pressure on Israel in the negotiations. Second, despite the grossly asymmetrical bargaining relationship between the Israelis and the Palestinians, United States diplomats are constrained to do little more than host Israeli-Palestinian meetings.
American diplomats such as David Satterfield, the State Department desk officer for Arab-Israeli affairs, justify America's anemic diplomacy by emphasizing that the United States is not a party to the conflict. In other words, it is Israel and the Palestinian Authority that must reach agreement. For its part, the United States is ready to provide any assistance both sides request. That this posture puts the weaker side at an extraordinary if not fatal disadvantage is obvious.
The Clinton team's shadow presence in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is in marked contrast to the strenuous mediation of President Jimmy Carter at Camp David, and the outright arm-twisting of George Bush and James Baker in the run-up to the Madrid peace conference of 1991, which launched the present peace process. President Bush, in 1991, refused to underwrite $10 billion in loan guarantees for the government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who had refused to rein in the illegal construction of settlements on the West Bank. It is instructive to note that Bush's stance was overwhelmingly supported by the American public, and that Shamir's bungling of Israeli-United States relations contributed to Likud's defeat by Rabin's Labor Party in 1992.
Bush articulated a clear strategic position and couched his decision as an essential step in support of the peace process. Clinton has failed to do so. Instead, his administration occasionally expresses mild chagrin over Israel's actions. Characteristically, there is little in the way of follow-through. Of course, unbending United States support for Israel is popular on Capitol Hill, where pro-Israel lobbying groups such as AIPAC freely throw their weight around. Like parochially minded members of Congress, the Clinton White House has no appetite for bucking Israel's hard-line supporters. This is ironic, given the many friends of Israel who are committed to fostering the peace process and who oppose many of the policies of Netanyahu and the Israeli right wing.
By the summer of 1997, the American Jewish community had become increasingly discomfited by Netanyahu's obstructionist approach to the peace process, as well as his coalition's support for measures in the Knesset that would resolve Israel's perennial "Who is a Jew?" debate in favor of the Orthodox rabbinate. Since over 80 percent of America's Jews follow Reform or Conservative traditions, there was widespread anger and concern over their religious disenfranchisement. In private letters to President Clinton (the author has been shown some of these letters by the writers), prominent American Jews have urged a more active United States role in the negotiations, as well as the appointment of a highly respected diplomat--Ambassador Thomas Pickering, the number three official in the State Department, was frequently mentioned--to reinvigorate Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
One representative poll conducted in October by the pro-peace Israel Policy Forum found broad support among American Jews for the United States taking on the role of honest broker. The poll also showed that Clinton was far more popular with American Jewry than Netanyahu. In his reelection in 1996, Clinton won 83 percent of the Jewish vote, suggesting that he enjoys a wide latitude of trust.
An unpublicized meeting between Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, Israeli President Ezer Weizman, and key leaders of American Jewish organizations was held at the White House on October 6, 1997. Mel Salberg, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, told Clinton that "a very large majority of Jews, perhaps 85 percent, support the peace process. We stand behind you to create an environment that will allow the parties to make peace."
Weizman, while cautioning Clinton to avoid the "Bush-Baker heavy hand," observed that "the U.S. should not push just one side. It has its own interests in the Middle East too." The Israeli president's message could not have been clearer, and it was consistent with the reaction to Albright's major policy speech. Mainstream American Jewish leaders responded enthusiastically when the secretary of state linked demands for a Palestinian Authority crackdown on terrorism with a halt to "provocative" acts by Israel. Buoyed by the domestic pressure, Albright and National Security Adviser Sandy Berger have argued for a less passive United States role in the peace process. Respected elder statesmen such as former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski have seconded this advice, although Vice President Gore, with his eyes on the 2000 national elections, has continued to urge uncritical support for Israel.
To his credit, Clinton has been moved by the advice of Albright and Berger. Thus, during Netanyahu's November 1997 visit to the United States, "scheduling problems" prevented an appointment with Clinton, an unprecedented snub. Earlier, in September, Albright called for a "time-out on actions that make it more difficult to have successful negotiations," a diplomatic way of asking for a halt to the building of settlements, including the Har Homa development. To date, Israel continues to defend the "natural growth" of settlements and has refused to agree to a time-out.
On November 30, the Israeli cabinet approved in principle the combining of the three-stage withdrawal stipulated in the Oslo accords into one stage that would be completed within five months. While the precise land area was not specified, the Israeli press cited informed sources as saying that between 6 and 8 percent of the West Bank would be involved, or roughly half of what the United States was urging and about one-quarter of what the Palestinians demanded. Netanyahu said the withdrawal would be linked to continuing cooperation from the Palestinian Authority in fighting terrorism and the opening of final status negotiations, which will address the most contentious issues, including the status of Jerusalem and the question of refugees.
Palestinian officials dismissed the offer as a trial balloon. In Israel, Ma'ariv, the pro-Labor Party newspaper, argued editorially that the "intention is to destroy the Oslo agreement," and the respected independent newspaper Ha'aretz claimed that the goal is "reducing the Oslo agreements to rubble and paving the way for a total severing of ties with the Palestinians."
The big question is whether Clinton will have the political fortitude to ensure that the obligations of the Oslo accords are met by both sides. Recent events have shown that domestic support for Israel is not unconditional, not even among Israel's strongest supporters or in the United States Congress. In October, when Israel refused to extradite an accused murderer to Maryland for trial on the grounds that the suspect was an Israeli citizen and therefore could not be extradited for a capital crime, members of Congress were furious and threatened to cut the $3 billion in annual aid that Israel receives. The Israeli government switched course and decided that the suspect's claim of citizenship was faulty and that he could be extradited after the appeal procedure was exhausted. In this instance, there is no mistaking the fact that aid can be an effective means of leverage.
If the Clinton administration wants to see constructive movement in the peace process, four things must happen.
First, the United States must play a more assertive and more impartial role in negotiations, even to the point of specifying its vision of a settlement. This necessarily implies security for both parties, and addressing Palestinian aspirations for an independent state.
Second, the president must articulate a clear statement of United States policy based on an elaboration of United States interests in the Middle East. Clinton must take his case to the public, where he is likely to find widespread support for a fair and balanced policy.
Third, the United States must demand that Israel as well as the Palestinian Authority meet their obligations under Oslo. This means that Arafat must address the security concerns of Israel with a 100 percent effort and that Israel must demonstrate its commitment to withdraw its forces from significant portions of the West Bank. Israeli agreement to the opening of the Palestinian seaport and airport in Gaza, and the opening of safe passage corridors between Gaza and the West Bank--measures that are specified in the Oslo accords--would be meaningful signals of good intentions.
Fourth, decisive steps must be taken to improve the depressing economic conditions under which many Palestinians live. Peace must bring some palpable benefits to a people whose per capita income is one-twentieth Israel's per capita income of $16,000 a year. The Palestinians will evince little appetite for tough concessions that benefit Israel's security but leave them mired in lives of misery.
By any historical standard, the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict would stand as a great accomplishment, but the Clinton administration is in danger of falling well short of resolving it. Most distressing, through its diffident diplomacy the United States has conceded the initiative to the belligerents, who may be imaginative, but not necessarily in peacemaking. Many senior officials are skeptical that Clinton will rise to the challenge, but there may still be time for aggressive steps to resuscitate the dying peace process. Otherwise, there will be a requiem.
Augustus Richard Norton is a professor of international relations and anthropology at Boston University. A Current History contributing editor, he is chair of the Council on Foreign Relations study group on United States foreign policy and the Muslim world.
1 Gallup poll cited in The New York Times, August 4, 1997.