VOL. XLVI
No 37
15
The Political Scene (15 September 2003)
After further mayhem in Israel and the occupied territories, the Israelis have decided that the answer to their problems is to expel Palestinian President Yasir 'Arafat. Meanwhile Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmud ‘Abbas has resigned and his successor, Ahmad Qurai’, is having second thoughts about accepting the job. Campaigning has begun in the Security Council on a new resolution on Iraq. And there was good news and bad news for the US from the Arab League.
Israel Decides To Expel 'Arafat
If Palestinian Authority (PA) President Yasir 'Arafat is as “irrelevant” as the Israelis have spent the last year or so proclaiming, it is legitimate to wonder why they think removing him can solve any of their problems with the Palestinians (let alone all of them). Yet that is apparently what the Israeli security cabinet decided on 11 September, following two suicide attacks in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on 9 September which left 15 dead, when it agreed “in principle” to expel Mr 'Arafat from the occupied territories. According to a cabinet statement “the events of these last few days have proved again that Yasir 'Arafat is an absolute obstacle to all attempts at reconciliation between the Israelis and Palestinians. Israel will act to remove this obstacle in a manner and at a time which will be decided afterwards.” This announcement elicited warnings from sources as varied as Egyptian President Husni Mubarak, who said that expelling Mr 'Arafat would be a “monumental error,” and the EU’s Javier Solana, whose spokesperson said that it is “absolutely necessary for Israel to weigh carefully the consequences of such an action.” More germanely, in Washington State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said that the US agreed that Mr 'Arafat “is part of the problem, not part of the solution,” but added that “we think it would not be helpful to expel him because it would just give him another stage to play on.” If the US is against removing Mr 'Arafat, the odds are that the Israelis will refrain from doing so, at least for the time being (particularly since the cabinet statement was scrupulously vague as to timing). But if they were to expel or even assassinate the Palestinian leader (as the Jerusalem Post advocated on 11 September), it would be the final nail in the coffin of the international quartet’s “road map,” and by extension of the peace process that began in Oslo in 1993.
'Abbas Resigns: Road Map In Extremis
Even before the decision to expel Mr 'Arafat, the road map was in serious trouble after Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmud ‘Abbas resigned on 6 September. Indeed, with the Israelis continuing to assassinate Hamas officials and Hamas continuing to send suicide bombers into Israel, it looked very much as if the road map was on its last legs, if not already dead. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon reacted to Mr 'Abbas’s resignation by issuing a statement to the effect that “Israel will not accept a situation in which the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA) would fall into Yasir 'Arafat’s hands or one of his partisans’.” Meanwhile an unnamed “senior Israeli official” told AFP that Mr 'Abbas would remain “Israel’s sole Palestinian interlocutor for every matter pertaining to the peace process on the basis of the roadmap,” which sounded very much as if, in addition to their obsessive boycott of Mr 'Arafat, the Israelis were now attempting to choose the Palestinians’ negotiators for them. Mr 'Arafat for his part on 7 September nominated a noted moderate, parliament speaker Ahmad Qurai', to replace Mr 'Abbas as prime minister, a nomination that Mr Qurai' accepted after some hesitation on 10 September. Whether he will fare any better than his predecessor is open to doubt, however, since the Israelis, with American backing, continue to insist, in the words of the 11 September cabinet statement, “that it will negotiate only with a prime minister who will act immediately to dismantle and eliminate terror organizations, execute full reforms in the PA and full obligations stemming from the road map.” The statement also said that the Israeli government would not agree to a cease-fire. In other words, the Israelis will accept nothing less than Mr Qurai’ acting as “the security subcontractor for the occupying power” (as one Palestinian spokesman put it) and starting what would amount to a Palestinian civil war by attacking Hamas and other militant groups. In the circumstances, it was little wonder that Mr Qurai' appeared to be having second thoughts about accepting the job after the Israeli cabinet statement. “If the government of Israel doesn’t revise its position,” he said in an 11 September statement, “if it continues to use the principle of force and violence against the Palestinian people and its leadership,. In this case the composition of any Palestinian government will become an issue without substance. This is the reason why I will study the possibility of suspending any efforts to form a Palestinian government under such pressure and such threats that only benefit the enemies of peace.”
America Courts UN
If the outlook for the road map looked bleak, it cannot be said that the prospects for the other main plank of US regional policy, the renaissance of a new and better Iraq, were any brighter. President George Bush finally bit the bullet publicly on 7 September by acknowledging that “some countries have requested an explicit authorization of the UN Security Council before committing troops to Iraq. I have directed Secretary of State Colin Powell to introduce a new Security Council resolution which would authorize the creation of a multinational force in Iraq, to be led by America.” He also sounded a conciliatory note about international opponents of the invasion of Iraq, saying “I recognize that not all of our friends agreed with our decision to enforce the Security Council resolutions and remove Saddam Husain from power.” (Actually, most, if not all, of those friends would not agree that the Security Council had ever passed such a resolution.) But, he went on, “we cannot let past differences interfere with present duties…members of the UN now have an opportunity, and the responsibility, to assume a broader role in assuring that Iraq becomes a free and democratic nation”
It remains to be seen how far the other members of the international community will agree that they have either
a duty or a responsibility to rescue the Americans from a predicament of their own making. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov gave a cautious thumbs up to the American proposal for a UN-sponsored multinational force in Iraq on 5 September, saying “this initiative deserves attention because the draft resolution in part reflects principles that Russia had been repeatedly fighting for,” but adding that while the draft was moving towards these principles, “for them to be outlined in full the document needs very serious work.” Russian UN ambassador Sergei Lavrov warned on 9 September that “neither western Europe nor Russia wants a catastrophe to develop in Iraq,” and that therefore “it would be politically irresponsible to tell the Americans that we warned you, you did not listen, and now you get out of this mess yourselves.” But he went on to suggest that a precondition for the creation of an international force might be a timetable for the establishment of a constitutional and elected Iraqi government. “What is most important for us now is to agree that a half-ruined Iraq that is overrun by anarchy is a threat to everyone,” he said. “We have to develop a certain roadmap for Iraq. In it, we should determine a time frame for the creation of a transitional government, the formation of a constituent assembly, the creation of a constitution and the election of a permanent Iraqi government. And only then can we talk about the formation of an international force. In essence we have to break all existing logic and start with a clean sheet.” It was probably less than coincidental that a Franco-German proposal circulated in the Security Council on 10 September contained a similar provision. The proposal would have an eventual resolution call to “immediately initiate, under the auspices of the UN, a new process leading expeditiously to the full restoration of Iraqi sovereignty.” It also urged cooperation between the UN and the Governing Council (GC) to develop “a timetable for the establishment of a fully representative Iraqi government, including the drafting of a constitution and the holding of democratic elections.” It is very much open to doubt whether at this stage the US is prepared to concede to the UN the power to set a timetable for Iraq’s return to sovereignty. But then again, it is early days in the battle over a new resolution, and it does not appear that time is on the Americans’ side.
Good News And Bad News At The Arab League
There was good news and bad news for the Americans at the Arab League foreign ministers’ meeting in Cairo on 9 September. The good news was that the ministers decided to accord Iraq’s GC “temporary” recognition by allowing the council’s recently appointed foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, to represent Iraq, with the proviso that the decision will be reviewed if an elected Iraqi government is not established within a year. (Mr Zebari was probably going too far when he described the decision as “a major political achievement for the GC.” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher was closer to the mark when he welcomed it as a “growing acknowledgement” of Iraq’s progress towards self-government.) The bad news was that the Arab League Secretary General, 'Amr Musa, dashed whatever hopes the Americans may have had that, as things stand at the moment, the Arabs might agree to send troops to Iraq to help the US out. According to Mr Musa, “it’s not accepted and it’s not logical to send Arab troops to protect the occupation forces or to take part in the occupation of an Arab state.”
Charles Snow