Middle East agrees: Peace Deal is Dead
The Independent
05/05/1998
By Robert Fisk
Middle East Correspondent
Benjamin Netanyahu and Yasser Arafat came to London yesterday, dragged the
corpse of the Oslo Agreement out of its coffin and - with respective
satisfaction and despair - threw it back into the ground. Hours of
fruitless talks between the US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright,
and Israeli and Palestinian leaders - they were due to meet separately again
last night - proved that the "peace process" for which President Clinton
promised his full support in 1993 is in effect dead. The losers - at least for
now - are the Palestinians.
The day began with individual visits to Downing Street by Mr Netanyahu and Mr
Arafat, both of whom thanked the Prime Minister for his encouragement, but
then went on to blame each other for the collapse of the Oslo agreement. Mr
Arafat warned of "chaos" in the Arab world if the original land-for-peace
deal agreed in Washington was not fulfilled. Mr Netanyahu's spokesman
warned that if the deal was "land-for-terrorism", Israel could no
longer continue talking. Mr Netanyahu's advisers remained publicly optimistic,
talking in hopeful soundbites. Israel had gone the "extra mile", Mr Netanyahu
himself said. But US officials apparently did not discover what this
extra mile was. Nor - in five hours of mostly intense talks with Mr Netanyahu
- did Mrs Albright.
The Palestinians openly admitted that they now accepted a forthcoming Israeli
withdrawal from only 13 per cent of occupied Palestinian land, which was
America's "compromise" proposal to break Mr Netanyahu's insistence on
giving up only another nine per cent. But a glance at the original Oslo
agreement shows what a mockery the discussions have now become of the
document so solemnly signed by Israel and the PLO five years ago. Under the
terms of the September 13, 1993 treaty, Israel should now have withdrawn from
much of the West Bank and Gaza strip in preparation for final status talks on
refugees and settlements next year. But the PLO still control only four per
cent of the land for themselves - a larger part is under joint Israeli and
Palestinian control - and Mr Netanyahu, far from discussing Jewish settlements
next year, is busy building more on occupied land close to Jerusalem. Mr
Arafat, who is supposed to be in charge of security in PLO territory, now
boasts 12 intelligence services (he is allowed three under Oslo) and his
secret service men have killed 14 Palestinians in PLO detention.
Yet he is now being asked by the Israelis to demonstrate greater
security for them with fewer policemen; his 40,000 police are way over the Oslo
permitted figure. The figures of 13 per cent and nine per cent over which the
two sides are now haggling bear no relation to the any paragraph in the
Oslo agreement.
While Mrs Albright lunched with the Israeli leader at the Grosvenor House
Hotel, Mr Arafat sat in his suite at Claridges hotel, expressing his ever
greater resentment at being kept waiting. "We only came because the
Americans asked us," Saeb Erekat, one of his ministers, said. Mrs Albright
called to apologise, but Mr Arafat then kept her waiting for half an hour
before turning up at the Churchill Hotel.
As photographers took their pictures in the conference room, Mr Arafat sat in
silence, staring for much of the time at the floor.
He left within 90 minutes, unsmiling and in silence. "The Palestinians have
accepted the figure of 13 per cent," Mr Erekat said. "But what we want is the
full implementation of Oslo ... we are not optimistic about the talks." In the
Churchill Hotel, US officials glumly admitted that the "peace process"
appeared to be near an end.
Behind them in the lobby stood the bust of Winston Churchill, himself a fervent
Zionist but one who by 1948 pronounced Palestine a "hell-disaster". He would
have said the same again yesterday.
The door to peace is opened in vain
05/05/1998
By Robert Fisk Middle East Correspondent
A POLICE helicopter purred lazily over us when Benjamin Netanyahu came out of
No 10 to tell us how grateful he was to Tony Blair. It drifted back, high in
the spring sunshine, when Yasser Arafat emerged from Downing Street an hour
later to thank the British Prime Minister for his commitment to the
"peace process". How they loved Tony. How they hated each other. And all the
while, behind us, looms that fateful building in which Lord Balfour had
composed in 1917 Britain's declaration of support for a Jewish homeland in
Palestine.
So there was "Bibi", immaculate as ever in dark suit and thick white hair,
telling us that there could be progress if both sides showed "flexibility".
Israel, he claimed, "had already gone the extra mile". The Palestinians took
the view that Mr Netanyahu's extra mile was the distance that Israel's latest
Jewish settlement extended into occupied Arab land. Mr Arafat -
emerging from his own separate meeting with Mr Blair, ashen-faced, lower lip
quivering, his keffiyeh untidy - warned only that "Netanyahu must take the
responsibility of . the chaos that might take place in the region if the
result of these talks is not positive."
A mile away, through streets left empty by the bank holiday, the Israeli prime
minister was already talking to Madeleine Albright, in the sumptuous
suites of the Grosvenor House Hotel. The foyer - with its fake log fire and
oil painting of ice skaters - looked ominously like the smoking room of the
Titanic; and within minutes, there was Israel's spokesman, David Bar Ilan,
with his ice-cold public school accent, strolling through the lobby to tell
journalists - in response to Mr Arafat's statement - that "if the
formula is land-for-terrorism, we can't go on with this".
It was the language of children that
both sides spoke yesterday, the language of threat and false
compromise. How Mr Netanyahu and Mr Arafat loved peace, strove for peace.
But they could not even bring themselves to talk to each other. Mr
Arafat was so politically weakened that all he could do, pathetically, was to
accept Washington's demand for a further 13.1 per cent Israeli
withdrawal from the West Bank - in itself a hopeless diminution of the
Oslo agreement. In the Grosvenor House, Ms Albright- the supposedly
tough-talking US Secretary of State who has used all the anger of a sheep to
persuade the Israelis to stop building settlements on occupied Arab land and
adhere to the Oslo timetable - tried to persuade Mr Netanyahu to cede more than
9 per cent of the land in the next handover of territory to Mr Arafat. In
vain.
So much for the Palestinian state. So much for its putative capital of
Jerusalem. So much for peace. Outside No 10, the networks were telling their
viewers - in the words of the man from the BBC - that Netanyahu had "little
room for compromise" because of his divided cabinet. There was no hint in
his broadcast that Israel is not abiding by the terms of the signed Oslo
deal.
Mr Bar Ilan spelt out the situation all too clearly. Israel wanted more
security from Mr Arafat and demanded that he reduce the number of his
Palestinian policemen. Better security, fewer police. Who, one wondered,
dreamed up these crazed formulas?
The Blair theory, that "it's important just to talk", also failed yesterday.
For all Messrs Netanyahu and Arafat wanted to do was blame the other for
the darkness approaching the Middle East and make sure that the world took
their side when the storm broke.
As for Ms Albright, she uncharacteristically avoided the press
for much of the day; when she arrived in London on Sunday night, she had
nothing to say. And precious little to do. Five years ago, on a bright autumn
afternoon on the White House lawn, President Bill Clinton promised
America's "active support" in "the difficult work that lies ahead".
Yesterday, fearful as ever of the Israeli lobby in the United States, and
unwilling to criticise Israel, Washington seemed ready to walk away
from the "peace process" it once guaranteed.
