Arafat's Camp David Conundrum

Jewish World Review July 31, 2000 / 28 Tamuz, 5760

At least he still has a dream

Arafat's Camp David Conundrum

To understand Yasser Arafat's situation
is not necessarily to forgive his decision.

By Josh Pollack

http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- A PLANE CRASH BEATS A TRAIN WRECK: this seems to have been the unwritten rule governing Tuesday's news coverage. The smoking remains of the Concorde outside Paris, ratings-worthy at any time, handily beat out the diplomatic train wreck that left the smoking remains of a second Camp David Accord outside Washington. But in truth, the devastation at one scene was no less than that at the other.

As reporters, pundits and diplomats pick through the wreckage on the tracks of the Middle East peace process, hunting for the cause, one culprit looms large: Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, who failed to throw the switch in time. American and Israeli editorialists have roundly condemned Arafat for his obstinacy. At a mournful White House press conference Tuesday afternoon, President Clinton's phrasing was oblique, but his meaning was clear: Arafat fell short, particularly on the issue of Jerusalem.

According to Thursday's Jerusalem Post, the summit concluded when Arafat rejected an American "bridging proposal" offering Palestinian sovereignty over some Arab parts of Jerusalem, sweeping administrative powers elsewhere, and "formal custodial status" on the sacred Temple Mount, the symbolic core of a conflict at once territorial, national and sectarian. All this, on top of a recognized Palestinian state, a surprisingly large chunk of territory and billions of dollars of aid, seems entirely too good to pass up. Why, then, did Arafat balk?

In fairness, Arafat's circumstances were far more difficult than has generally been recognized. He found himself in a poor position to compromise on Jerusalem, particularly on the Temple Mount. During the hundred-year Arab-Zionist dispute, control of the ancient mound, with its contrary layers of faith and history, has generally been understood as the ultimate source of legitimacy, a cause for rioting and killing as early as the 1929 Hebron massacre and as recently as the "Hasmonean Tunnel" battles of 1996.

Given the familiar Middle Eastern pecking order (first Muslim, then Christian and lastly Jew), an acknowledgment of Israeli sovereignty over this tiny, intense parcel would signal nothing less than the final surrender of Muslim supremacy over an upstart people -- a touchy notion indeed in an era of Western (i.e., Christian and Jewish) power and Arab-Muslim subordination.

For these reasons of Middle Eastern psychopolitics, Yasser Arafat was not too confident of his ability to make a deal. Several reports claimed that he expressed fear of assassination were he to compromise. Still, it should be noted that Arafat has made several radical breaks with the past since the Declaration of Principles in 1993 -- signing accords with Israel and pledging no longer to seek the destruction of the Jewish state. Why could he risk these steps, but not make the final move?

An answer can be found in the events that have accumulated over the past decade. The Oslo Accords came only after the start of the Madrid process in 1991, when representatives of a wide range of Arab countries, including Israel's neighbors and old enemies Syria and Jordan, sat openly at the same table with Israelis for the first time. Palestinian representatives were seated among the Jordanian group. At the time, the Palestinians had company, and therefore cover, for serious negotiations. What is more, they were finally separated from their rejectionist Saudi backers, as a punishment for embracing Saddam during the Gulf War.

PLUMMETING POPULARITY, AILING AUTOCRAT, MISSING MONARCH...
But since then, several key supports have fallen out of place. In the mid-1990s, as the popularity of Arafat's corrupt and undemocratic rule began to suffer and the prominence of the Hamas Islamist terror organization grew, the Palestinian leader sought to bolster himself by taking a harder stand on Jerusalem, particularly on the Temple Mount. The Tunnel battles and the fight over the Israeli "Har Homa" project, which Arafat sought to connect with Christian sites in nearby Bethlehem, threw gasoline on the fire.

Then, earlier this year, Syrian leader Hafez Asad finally refused any territorial compromise with Israel, terminating Syrian participation in peace negotiations. When he died shortly afterward, the ailing autocrat placed the weight of his prestige permanently on the rejectionist side of the ledger.

Even more significant was the death of King Hussein the previous year. The Jordanian monarch not only had sponsored the Palestinian presence at Madrid, he signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, and repeatedly threw his support to the peace process at crucial moments. Only by coming along himself was he able to persuade Arafat to attend an emergency summit in Washington after the Tunnel battles, which restored high-level contacts after the apparent demise of the peace process. During the negotiation of the Hebron Accords in 1996, and at the talks at the Wye Plantation in 1998, when he was deathly ill, Hussein again showed up to persuade Arafat to cease holding out and sign, endorsing the outcomes with his personal presence.

King Hussein offered crucial cover when the Palestinian leader might not have acted otherwise; now that he is gone, no one has the stature and the inclination to do the same. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who could certainly play the same role, has instead sought to stiffen Arafat's spine.

... A PERIPATETIC PRESIDENT ...
Neither was President Clinton's approach to mediation ideally suited to producing a deal. Departing the scene all too often, staying fully engaged in national and international politics, the President allowed himself to be excessively distracted. By not clearing his schedule, Clinton essentially declined to take the time to hold the parties' feet to the fire until a deal emerged. The summit nearly broke apart when the President departed for the G-8 summit in Okinawa, an occasion that history will soon forget. Finally, at his insistence, negotiations were pushed to a conclusion on Monday night.

At the first Camp David summit, President Carter famously stood in the door to prevent Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin from walking out. President Clinton, by contrast, walked out. This eventuality was painfully foreseen at the outset by former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Sam Lewis during a National Public Radio interview:

"I've never seen in Clinton the sort of single-minded dedication and almost obsession with carrying an issue through to an endgame that Carter showed at Camp David... Now Clinton gets restless in between meetings and he's talking about coming back and forth. So it's hard for me to see that he's going to be as single-minded as I think you need to be in this situation to get over what are really tough, tough issues."

...WEAK WILL
But to understand Yasser Arafat's situation is not necessarily to forgive his decision. Despite all these complications, what Bill Clinton offered and Ehud Barak accepted did give Arafat grounds for loudly proclaiming victory, and going home in triumph. After all, "formal custodial status" on the Temple Mount, recognized by all parties, smacks of control by right, not by suffrage. Arafat could have taken the risk. Failing that, he could have made a counter-offer, insisting on more explicit forms of sovereignty in more parts of Jerusalem. But rather than negotiate, Arafat stood on his opening position. After the last difficult late-night session with Clinton, he dispatched a note stating his firm objection to the American proposal. There was nothing left to say.

WHAT NEXT?
Despite the brief statement issued Tuesday affirming the parties' recognition of the need to avoid taking unilateral steps, Yasser Arafat has returned home without retreating from his insistence that he will declare a Palestinian state on September 13, the anniversary of the 1993 Declaration of Principles and, in his view, the expiration date of the Oslo process. The outcome of this step would be unpredictable, and potentially catastrophic for the Palestinians. Clearly enough, Arafat senses that time remains to do a deal. He may even believe that no deal should be done before the last moment, with maximum concessions extracted.

There are considerable risks to this approach. As Prime Minister Barak seeks to rebuild his shattered coalition, no guarantees exist that the reconstituted Israeli government will be as free to negotiate as the last. The possibility also exists that new elections will soon be forced upon the Prime Minister, terminating the negotiating process for the time being, perhaps closing the window of opportunity for some time. Whatever the form of the next Israeli government to negotiate with the Palestinians, it is unlikely to offer the same flexibility and daring that Ehud Barak brought to Camp David this July.

Should that prove the case, Palestinians would be well advised to recall that the American proposal at Camp David represented at least the third proposal for the partition of the former Palestine Mandate over the course of the century, each of them accepted by the Jews and rejected by the Arabs. Each version, in turn, has left the Arab side with progressively less land. The next offer, whenever it comes, is not especially likely to deviate from this pattern. If the present Palestinian leadership is not prepared to accept the best offer going for territory, self-determination, and control of important symbolic areas, perhaps new leadership is needed.