Editor's Note
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September 12, 2008
The Peace Trap
Neil Rubin
Editor
Once again the headlines from the Israeli-Arab conflict declare a hastened creep toward peace. Is it real?
There are two hot fronts:
• Syrian and Israeli representatives have spent recent months in indirect negotiations under the auspices of Turkey. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad now signals that he is ready for direct talks –– when Israel agrees they will lead to the return of the Golan Heights.
• On the other front, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is racing ahead in talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Mr. Olmert has declared that once an agreement is reached, people will wonder why it took so long to accept such logical compromises.
The efforts in both theaters, however, will fail.
On the Syrian front, Mr. Assad is brilliantly dragging Israel along, exhibiting that he is approaching his late father’s mastery of international relations.
While today praised for new openness, he is so at no cost. He still violates civilized norms while awaiting the negotiation’s likely implosion. This is still the land criticized for its secret nuclear program, allowing foreign fighters to slip into Iraq and embracing Hamas and Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, on the Palestinian side, on a good day Mr. Abbas controls 50 percent of his population. (His government, as we recall, was in June 2007 violently kicked out of the Gaza Strip by Hamas.)
Enter Israel’s pending political chaos.
Israeli police this week recommended criminal indictments against Mr. Olmert, who had already agreed to step down as prime minister after his Kadima party’s internal primary next week. His likely successor, Foreign Minister Tzippy Livni, has frosty relations with her boss. That’s to be expected since after Mr. Olmert’s poor leadership in the 2006 Second Lebanon War, she called for his resignation –– but kept working for him anyway.
So no matter how much progress is made on either front, Israel is about to enter one of its famous periods of political uncertainty. Mrs. Livni may or may not be able to form a new government. If the latter — and she could have up to a few months to do so — the country will head to new elections about three months after her efforts are exhausted. That could mean a political paralysis of up to five months.
In other words, for the moment both the Israeli and Palestinian governments have weak standing in their parliaments and certainly among their populations. (Mr. Olmert’s popularity ratings have already plunged to single digits, making for him George Bush’s 30-something level a tremendous achievement.)
Meanwhile, anything can give Syria reason to cancel talks with Israel. And a rumored pending attack on Iranian nuclear installations in the coming months is the biggest “anything” possible.
Does all this mean that there is a much greater need to prepare armies for conflict, leaving negotiations to the biggest gun barrel?
Of course not. That’s because what the political leaders refuse to embrace is how the mythical concept of peace should no longer be the goal. Rather, the target should be incremental steps that improve day-to-day living.
What would be needed for that to happen?
• For starters, Mr. Olmert should immediately hand the negotiations over to Mrs. Livni. Then she will not be surprised by the region’s famous secret deals and understandings, ones that could undermine her own directions.
• Religious leaders must informally be part of the talks. As I’ve written in the past, there must be an accom-panying treaty between Judaism and Islam negotiated and signed by leading clerics of both religions. Only this will help undermine –– but never fully defeat –– radicals.
• The U.S. should press Mr. Assad or other Arab leaders to make a dramatic gesture. (Even Ariel Sharon declared that he would in 2002 fly to Beirut to address the Arab League.)
• People-to-people contacts should be dramatically stepped up –– among teachers, children, artists, journalists and the like. They exist on the Palestinian front, but their success on the Syrian one will be a real signal that a peace constituency is being built among Israel’s neighbors.
• Finally, all must realize that peace may not be imminent, but living in a more peaceful neighborhood can be.