PALESTINE -- PEACE NOT APARTHEID |
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Chapter 8: THE GEORGE H. W. BUSH YEARS Peace prospects seemed to improve in July 1988, when King Hussein decided to reduce Jordan's administrative role in the West Bank, and Yasir Arafat announced that the PLO would accept several United Nations resolutions that recognized Israel's right to exist within its 1967 borders. Arafat publicly disavowed terrorism as a means to achieve PLO goals and agreed that, with the formation of an independent Palestinian state, normal relations with Israel would be acceptable. Based on these statements, United States diplomats began exploratory talks with PLO officials. The glasnost policies of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev helped to end the Cold War, making it possible for the two superpowers to cooperate, and at the same time, Syria and other Arab nations lost their strong political and military support from Moscow and became more willing to ease tensions in the region. Arab leaders accepted Egypt back into the Arab League in May 1989, and that same year the USSR permitted hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel. Secretary of State James Baker understood the need to ease tension in the Middle East and in May 1990 stated to the annual convention of the powerful pro-Israeli lobbying organization AIPAC the basic requirement for peace: "Now is the time to lay aside once and for all the unrealistic vision of a Greater Israel. ... Forswear annexation. Stop settlement activity. Reach out to the Palestinians as neighbors who deserve political rights." These statements had a beneficial impact in the Middle East. For instance, when I visited Damascus in 1990, President Assad informed me that he was willing to negotiate with Israel on the status of the Golan Heights. His proposal was that both sides withdraw from the international border, with a small force of foreign observers and electronic devices to monitor the neutral zone. When I asked him if each nation would have to fall back an equal distance, he replied that Syria might move its troops farther from the border because of the terrain. He also gave me permission to report his proposal to Washington and to the Israelis, which I did in Jerusalem three days later. The following month I met with Yasir Arafat and other PLO leaders in Paris, where they all agreed to accept the Camp David Accords as a basis for future negotiations with the Israelis. As usual, I reported these conversations to the White House and State Department, but Washington was almost totally preoccupied with the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. There was no sustained American leadership in the Middle East peace process until after the Gulf War against Iraq in the spring of 1991, when Baker made several trips to the region. This resumption made possible a peace conference in Madrid in October 1991, convened jointly by the United States and the Soviet Union and attended by Israel, several Arab countries including Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, and Palestinians from the occupied territories. Subsequently, more than a dozen formal rounds of bilateral talks were hosted by the United States, aimed at peace agreements between Israel and its immediate neighbors. The discussions between Israel and the Palestinians addressed a five-year interim agreement with hopes of negotiations on the permanent status issues. Although the Madrid effort brought no specific resolution of the issues, the willingness of the participants to communicate with one another reduced regional tensions and renewed hope of future progress toward peace. Still, Israel put confiscation of Palestinian land ahead of peace, provoking an official White House statement: "The United States has opposed, and will continue to oppose, settlement activity in territories occupied in 1967, which remain an obstacle to peace." From the State Department, Secretary Baker added, "I don't think there is any greater obstacle to peace than settlement activity that continues not only unabated but at an advanced pace." As further proof of his seriousness, President George H. W Bush demanded a freeze on settlement housing being built or planned, especially a large complex between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. When he finally threatened to withhold a portion of the $10 million daily aid package, plus loan guarantees, from the United States, the Israeli government complied and the U.S. grants and loans were approved -- but with a deduction of $400 million, the amount that Israel already had spent on settlement activity. Later, after President Bush was no longer in office, I noticed that this major settlement was being rapidly completed. Political leadership in Israel changed several times during this period, including formation of national unity governments that shifted authority back and forth between Labor and Likud leaders. After an election victory in June 1992, the Labor Party was able to form a coalition under the leadership of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, without Likud participation. Israel then made clear its desire to reconcile differences with the Palestinians, Syria, and its other neighbors, and the Arab response was surprisingly positive.
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