Building A Tunnel To Peace

By

Mark Rosenblum

 

August 2, 2002

President Bush’s recent speech on the Middle East was criticized for providing a light at the end of the tunnel-but no tunnel. However, several unofficial efforts are now underway to create a passage between today’s grim reality of Israeli-Palestinian violence and the two-state solution that Bush envisions for tomorrow. Although the success of such work does not look promising at the moment, it nonetheless can help create a political climate more conducive to negotiations.

There are four major attempts being made at present to flesh out the broad concept of a peaceful solution.

First, the International Crisis Group-a private multinational organization working to address global conflicts-has produced a detailed set of recommendations for reaching bilateral agreements between Israel and the Palestinians, Syria, and Lebanon. The ICG proposal is unique in recognizing the broader dimensions of the Israeli-Arab conflict and the need to address Syrian and Lebanese issues-as well as Palestinian ones-in the context of the Saudi initiative. Indeed, some of the more interesting aspects of the ICG effort are the serious proposals that it offers for the Syrian and Lebanese tracks, which have been largely overlooked since the collapse of the Israeli-Syrian negotiations during former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s administration. The ICG plan also carves out a prominent role for the international community in monitoring compliance with agreements, patrolling borders, deterring attacks, helping with reconstruction, and assisting refugees.

Second, the former director of the Israeli internal security service, Maj. Gen. (res.) Ami Ayalon, and Dr. Sari Nusseibeh, the top PLO representative in Jerusalem, recently produced a plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on Israeli recognition of a demilitarized Palestinian state in the 1967 borders with land swaps and slight border revisions, in exchange for Palestinian concessions on the right of return.

Third, Ziyad Abu Zayad, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, has released a working document from a group of Palestinian intellectuals that looks generally like the Clinton proposal from December 2000. Both the Ayalon/Nusseibeh and Abu Zayad concepts include significant concessions on the refugee issue and the abandonment of the concept of sovereignty over the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount.

Fourth, former Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin and Palestinian Information Minister Yasir Abed Rabbo are leading an effort to complete the work started at the bilateral negotiations held in Taba, Egypt, in January 2001. These talks benefit from being led by two of the main participants at Taba.

All four of these efforts attempt to revitalize and improve upon many of the concepts proposed by Bill Clinton towards the end of his presidency. It would be preferable for the Bush Administration itself to be picking up the threads of the peace talks and attempting to build upon them. But these unofficial proposals still perform the vital function of putting serious alternatives to violence into the public forum in the hope of stimulating debate and perhaps building momentum for political change on both sides. They are establishing guideposts for future negotiators to follow and floating trial balloons for ideas that may lack broad support at the moment.

Further, with opinion polls consistently showing that Israelis and Palestinians are willing to pursue reconciliation once the violence stops and with the Arab League’s adoption of the Saudi initiative, unofficial peace proposals can encourage these better instincts. The proposals demonstrate to Israelis and Arabs on the street that partners exist in both societies for undertaking peace talks and building a better future. Given the murderous political environment that currently exists and the willingness of leaders to demonize each other, one cannot underestimate the importance of putting a compassionate human face on Israelis and Arabs alike. The fact that Israelis and Arabs are still meeting and working on joint projects at any level, much less trying to tackle such weighty issues as those involved in the peace process, also contributes to the long-term effort of restoring confidence between the two peoples.

But important as they are, these attempts at crafting a final status plan will simply not be enough to turn the situation around. The focus at the moment is on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and with Israeli-Palestinian trust almost non-existent, it will take significant, coordinated unilateral gestures from both sides to reach a point where they are willing to seriously discuss final status arrangements. On the Israeli side, this should involve a call for a return to negotiations, accompanied by a withdrawal of settlements and soldiers from Gaza and an evacuation of many of the settlements from the West Bank as a way to improve its own security situation and signal that it is serious about future peace talks. On the Palestinian side, the establishment of a broad, sustained, and enforced cease-fire on both sides of the Green Line would improve the image of the Palestinian cause internationally and signal to Israelis a genuine commitment to returning to negotiations as the exclusive way of resolving differences.

Rebuilding a strong constituency for the renewal of negotiations is not going to be a quick process. It will take a vigorous multitrack approach to recover the ground that has been lost and to reach the goal of a contiguous, economically viable Palestinian state living along side a secure Israel, as well as to strike accords between Israel, Syria, and Lebanon. Public efforts to craft reasonable versions of peace deals can play an important part in that process. They should be taken seriously and encouraged.

Mark Rosenblum is the Founder and Policy Director of Americans for Peace Now.