I don’t think that even Barak and Arafat know what will happen 4 weeks from now, but we have learned some things from recent events and from history. Also, there have been enough leaks by now to get a pretty clear picture of where things are. We also see some parallels to the March meeting in Geneva with Assad.
Indications are that people are hastily declaring too many conclusions from the Camp David summit to suit their original thinking, particularly those who were opposed to an agreement. They may soon eat their words. More important things are happening that did not happen a month ago and there is a good deal of diplomatic activity going on right now. For instance, a Thursday editorial by the editor of Asharq-al-Awsat, the leading Saudi daily, tore into Arafat saying he was a consensus-seeking coward who should have made the deal with Israel, and said that Arab states that made treaties with Israel had no business telling other Arab states not to normalize relations. Clearly, such an article could not have been written without the approval of the Saudi government and is meant to prepare public opinion for future events. On Friday, Arafat told Egyptian television that Israelis should support Barak. Arafat understands that his fate is tied to Barak’s and that the heroism of coming back without a deal lasted all of 48 hours and that this is not a long term solution for him. Fortunately, there will be another chance because Barak should survive this week’s no confidence votes and have a 3 month grace period till the next Knesset session. The real deadline here is December; that’s the last chance a lame duck Congress has to pass the aid package to grease the wheels of peace. If a deal hasn’t been agreed to by that time, nothing will happen for at least a year.
When Arafat went to Camp David, he was full of bombast and it made no sense at the time. A person who is about to make concessions doesn’t come in talking like Rough Rider because the public is not being prepared for the outcome. Now we can tell that he didn’t have the rest of the Arabs in his pocket and, considering his lousy poll ratings at the time, he wasn’t thrilled to come to a summit since the US didn’t cover his ass and get the other Arabs on board, and anything short of Israel’s unconditional surrender he wasn’t going to agree to. Meaning this summit was doomed to fail before it started. David Levy is what he is, but he understands politics and he called this one right although at some point he will pay a price for abandoning Barak at a true moment of need. But now Arafat stands tall having appeared to stand up to the US, he is making the rounds paying homage and fealty to Arab leaders where appropriate and the US is pushing hard to get the rest of the Arabs on board. Now we see the steps being taken to prepare Arab public opinion for the compromises Arafat will have to agree to next month. So I believe there will be major news in the month ahead. Arafat wants to declare his state but Israel wants a declaration of an end to the conflict. Arafat’s state is meaningless if the US and Israel don’t support it; Arafat has no choice but to go along if he wants to declare his state and have it last.
A few points considering my recent reading of “In Confidence,” the memoirs of Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet Union’s ambassador to the US for 25 years from Kennedy through Reagan which details accounts of 25 years of superpower summitry. (1) Barak hoped to break the ice at a summit and get Arafat and Assad to agree to freshly-presented scenarios. Both attempts failed; Arafat and Assad negotiate from the Soviet school which is that the end-game is agreed to before the summit, and the summit is used to hammer out some final details. Remember that Camp David 20 years ago with the Egyptians was an event in which the end-game had been predetermined. It is clear that Arafat will not come to a summit to negotiate; he didn’t negotiate at all at Camp David; he just sat there and absorbed offers and said no to all of them. He showed no willingness to innovate, and his senior assistants likewise (Abu Ala and Abu Mazen) showed no interest in doing so either. The younger members of his delegation, from the new school, were frustrated, as were the Americans. Both Arafat and Assad may be or have been leaders but they are both not terribly intelligent or dynamic people who go out on a limb. Period. (2) Barak felt he could make decisions on his own; neither Assad nor Arafat felt likewise. Until Gorbachev, neither did any Soviet leader and Gorbachev gave away the store when he did. Americans tend to ignore the fact that even people we consider to be dictators have to gain consensus from certain constituencies and Arafat will not on his own initiative bargain away even partial sovereignty over Jerusalem and risk assassination and ridicule in Arab capitals.
Two interesting points: 1. Barak’s spokesman told political correspondents 5 days before the summit that everything about Jerusalem would be on the table. Nobody printed it. 2. Shlomo ben Ami, Israel’s Interior Minister, was permitted to prepare the groundwork for all issues except Jerusalem which Barak wanted to handle himself at the summit. Ami has proven himself a good manager and all issues he prepared were essentially resolved. Had Ami been permitted to deal with Jerusalem in advance, it is probable the summit would have succeeded on all points. Barak has been severely criticized within domestic circles for his management of the summit. The concept that Ami might at some point threaten Barak’s position or become the next prime minister is becoming more credible especially since he can attract Sefardi votes, which means he is a Labor candidate with crossover appeal.
One other word about Assad’s meeting. James Baker wrote this week in the NY Times that had Clinton presented Barak’s proposal re the Golan as an American bridging proposal, Assad would have been more receptive to it. Instead it came across as Clinton putting Barak’s offer in front of Assad as a fait accompli, which understandably Assad rejected. Again, both Clinton and Barak need to learn some lessons about how to deal with their Arab counterparts.
So my predictions are as follows:
1. The deal will be a mixture of A, B & C zones in Jerusalem, reflecting Israeli sovereignty, PA sovereignty, dual sovereignty or some kind of neutral zone in which neither party has sovereignty, and over which interim arrangements are made. This type of arrangement was implemented between Saudi Arabia and Iraq and Kuwait earlier this century and is at least familiar to the region. It is possible a deal can be reached without Jerusalem but I doubt it; the Israelis must have a declaration of an end to the conflict to sell the deal domestically, and Arafat needs some piece of Jerusalem to sell it to the Arabs.
2. 100,000 Palestinians to enter Israel, 5,000 apiece for 20 years under the cover of family reunification. If this sounds threatening, keep in mind that Israel absorbed 100,000 Russians a year during the past decade.
3. Israel to give up 90% of occupied territories; it will annex certain areas around Jerusalem and trade some territory within Israel in exchange.
At this point, #’s 2 & 3 are basically done deals; #1 was the problem. I am told that even Ariel Sharon will agree to dual sovereignty in parts of Jerusalem. Egypt and Saudi Arabia are not dying to have Arafat run the show at Al-Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem; they may hold their approval hostage and Arafat at some point must decide if he will take a deal with dual sovereignty and move the PA forward with a state, or possibly lose everything by letting the other Arab states call the shots. Arafat knows this and admitted to Clinton that his Arab brethren would sell him and his people out in two seconds, but he wants to be loved and feels that Jerusalem is not his alone to give away. This is not Israel’s problem to resolve for Arafat; sole Arab sovereignty over the entirety of East Jerusalem is unobtainable for as long as Israel remains in existence.
Two other points I think are of interest. Notice that Israelis no longer talk about staged withdrawals over a period of years. Any withdrawals will be made quickly. This represents a major change in the terms of the debate and reflects just how far things have progressed. There is no longer a sense that a generation needs to get used to the terms of peace with security. Israel is ready now. Notice that nobody even debates the idea of a Palestinian state anymore.
Why? Events of the past few years have taught Israelis that areas controlled by Arabs are places Israelis can go (ie: to shop, gamble, eat). No terror attacks take place in these areas. Areas under Israeli military control that are contested are places Israelis don’t go. The Arabs have done a good job for themselves of keeping a covenant that essentially lets Israelis feel safe in areas they give up. If this holds, it is simply a matter of Israelis trading sovereignty for peace of mind. This will be compelling with regard to East Jerusalem, a place Israelis have wanted to maintain under their flag but don’t feel safe visiting. An ideologue will beg to differ, but it is events on the ground that are convincing the majority of Israelis to move forward conceding sovereignty for uninhibited physical access.
It is rather amazing when you look back on the past year how easily public opinion came around to the various compromises, once the government announced them, and how few of the “gloom and doom” predictions came true. The Lebanese border is quiet, the Golan is very much on the block, and I believe that there will no trauma on the ground when Jerusalem, Hebron and Gaza are dealt with (the 3 most sensitive areas likely to provoke right-wing opposition). There will be no civil wars or disorder beyond the ceremonial. The majority of Israelis are not sympathetic and the settlers will not ultimately want to take on fellow Israelis.
It is of course possible that Arafat will yield to other Arab states and extremists and not agree to a deal and that he might even be nutty enough to declare his state anyway. If so, it will be a tragedy for the Palestinians. Their state will be a joke. The Israelis will give up on Arafat and wait for his successor. In the meantime, Barak will be replaced although I believe the successor would be Ben Ami faster than anyone from the Likud.
P.S. I have today declassified and posted a journal that I wrote in early1995 following my first visits to Jordan after the peace was made with Israel. It is striking how many of my predictions came true.
