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Clinton's Complete Mideast Failure

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7/25/00 4:45 p.m.
Clinton's Complete Mideast Failure
Simply, there was no way for it to succeed.

By Seth Gitell, political writer for the Boston Phoenix and former national editor of the Forward

wo weeks is enough. After days of grueling talks and negotiating — and the principals no closer to final agreement on Jerusalem — White House officials are now declaring the Middle East Peace Summit over.

The idea behind President Clinton's dealings at Camp David seem to have been based on that old Scandinavian hostage ordeal, the Stockholm Syndrome. If Clinton could only get the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat, and Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, together in a secluded location long enough, he could get them to acquiesce on almost anything.

But Clinton did not bargain that Arafat is a lot more familiar with hostage taking than Arkansas's favorite son.

Nevertheless, the failure at Camp David does not rest in Clinton's inability to convince Barak and Arafat to sign a deal. It failed because any deal it produced would not have been satisfactory or final. While many glum voices will soon warn that the breakdown of talks will lead to physical conflict, they will neglect the fact that an unsatisfactory deal would probably have lead to violence anyway.

Clinton has never understood that a steadfast and even-handed approach by America to issues between the Israelis and Palestinians is more than likely to produce a Camp David-style impasse. This has happened at each juncture during the "peace process." When the Palestinians ventured off the Oslo reservation, they were met with only the most polite admonishments. After Arafat gave the green light to violence when Israel opened the tunnel in Jerusalem, the United States responded tepidly. The Clinton administration's even-handed missives — warning both sides to avoid intemperate actions — would almost be comic if not for their damaging effect.

This permissiveness on the part of the Clinton administration — the looking the other way at Arafat's violations of Oslo, the winks, the nods — served to encourage an ultimate breakdown in the negotiations. Because Arafat came to believe he could use Clinton as a lever against the Israelis, he learned that he should always hold out for more. Even at the beginning of Camp David, this strategy seemed to work for Arafat. When Barak offered civil control of parts of Jerusalem, Arafat balked. Barak came back with a more generous proposal. Knowing that the Israelis are weary, that their morale is low, that they recently unilaterally surrendered Lebanon, Arafat had every incentive to push for the maximum — and then walk away.

Now, with the administration doing a collective head-scratch, wondering what went wrong, it might be a good time to review the events since the signing of the first Oslo Agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians. During this period, there were at least four occasions when Israel traded a real, concrete concession in exchange for a Palestinian promise to renounce violence and live peacefully with Israel. This made up the substance of the first and second Oslo Agreements, the Hebron Agreement between Benjamin Netanyahu and Arafat, and the Wye Agreement.

Not once following these agreements did the Palestinian leadership begin to prepare their people for peace. Textbooks were not altered in a way to open the possibility of accommodation with the Israelis. Political rhetoric delivered in Arabic did not become more welcoming of Israel and more positive about the prospects for lasting peace. In retrospect, the most newsworthy thing about Suha Arafat's statement that Israel poisoned the water of Palestinian children — Hillary Clinton by her side — is that it got any attention at all. A savvy administration would have asked the question, "What could have possibly prompted the wife of the Palestinian's top leader to think that uttering such an outrageous statement was the right thing to do at all?" The answer is that Suha Arafat's now infamous statement reflected the real hostility of the Arafat regime towards Israel, and a fundamental unwillingness to make real peace.

In March 1996 — peak season for bus-bombing terror in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv — the Jerusalem Post reported a statement that garnered only small attention at the time. The newspaper quoted a Palestinian Authority official and Arafat ally, Nabil Shaath, as saying, "If the negotiations reach a dead end, we shall go back to the struggle and strife as we did for 40 years. . . . As long as Israel goes forward (with the peace process), there are no problems, which is why we observe the agreements of peace and non-violence. But if and when Israel will say 'That's it, we won't talk about Jerusalem, we won't return refugees, we won't dismantle settlements, and we won't retreat from borders,' then all acts of violence will return." Shaath concluded menacingly: "Except this time we'll have 30,000 armed Palestinian soldiers who will operate in areas in which we have unprecedented elements of freedom."

Clinton and his cronies didn't want to listen to the Nabil Shaaths at the time. The president just wanted to encourage Israel to "take risks for peace." Now that Barak has conceded everything that he possibly can concede — including parts of Jerusalem and rights for the refugees — the violent plan articulated by Shaath will soon be in operation. That — more than Clinton's dalliance with an intern — may be the president's most pernicious legacy.

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