AJC WEEKLY MIDEAST BRIEFING July 7 2003

by Dr. Eran Lerman

Director Israel/Middle East Office

Israelis and others with a taste for déjà vu had something to celebrate in the last couple of weeks. In some ways it seemed as if the world came back to where it had been a short eternity ago—to be precise, a thousand and ten days ago. Having cost the lives of 812 Israelis and about 2,300 Palestinians since late September 2000, the conflict seemed suddenly to wilt, as relations with the Palestinians and the Arab world took a fresh new turn.

First came the World Economic Forum gathering in Amman—an important symbolic reward for Jordan’s firm stand on the issues. Then, just in time for Dr. Condoleezza Rice’s visit, a security agreement was finally negotiated between Palestinian Security Minister Muhammad Dahlan and General Amos Gilead, followed by two announcements:  one by Hamas and most of the other terrorist organizations and then another by the so-called “Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades,” belonging to Arafat’s own Fatah movement, accepting a hudna (ceasefire). An element of luck was at work: the breakthrough was kept alive only because Israeli intelligence and the IDF (including an artillery unit on border guard duty commanded by a young woman) had been successful in preventing attacks by renegade Al-Aqsa elements linked to Iran that could have taken a terrible toll in life and limb if carried through.

On July 1, this warming was taken a step further by an astoundingly easy-going and successful meeting between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and several of his key ministers, on one side, and Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, and three of his ministers on the other. Four committees on various aspects of cooperation were established; and clearly, brighter hopes were reignited by the prospects of economic cooperation (including the resumption of direct U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority, as long as it is the respected Finance Minister Salam Fayyad, not Arafat’s thugs, who disburse it).

In a truly symbolic fashion, this ride “back to the future” was reflected in Israeli politics: The evergreen Shimon Peres was once again chosen as the leader of the Labor Party. And once again, ideas for grand projects were being raised, including a joint Israeli-Jordanian initiative to run Red Sea waters in pipes and a canal to the fast-drying Dead Sea, generating electricity as they fall (the Dead Sea being well over 1,200 feet below sea level). Arab politicians, including the crown prince of Bahrain, openly met senior Israelis. There were smiles and goodwill, as had been the case not too long ago, in the years before all hell broke loose.

Are we again, as many Israelis (not only on the far right) fear, lulling ourselves to sleep with the sweet music of economic projects, regional cooperation, a smile here and there, while the hate industry rages on and the terrorists are still at work? Not necessarily. There seems to be a crucial lesson learned, and not only by  Israelis, since the good old days of the “New Middle East,” the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) economic conferences in Casablanca, Amman, Cairo, and Doha, and the hopes that attended the peace process of the 1990s, which ultimately failed so badly.

Back then, the dominant assumption of Americans and Europeans, as well as a good number of influential Israelis, was that the wish and hope for economic growth and for the spread of the benefits of prosperity could become—in themselves—powerful engines for political change: “The rising tide that lifts all boats” would also ensure safe sailing for the ship of peace. This was not what happened. In fact, the prospect of economic integration within the folds of Awalama (Arabic for “globalization”)—which requires transparency, the rule of law, and the removal of various other “structural impediments”—was increasingly seen by many in the Arab ruling elites as a threat to their thoroughly corrupt mode of governance. Nowhere was this more evident than in the manner in which Arafat’s regime did everything possible to drive away investors and destroy any prospect of normal economic interaction. Perhaps more than any other factor, it was this rot that made Hamas—a murderous but “honest” organization, with money to spend on social services for the needy—so popular.

Material temptations did little, therefore, to transform Palestinian politics or to do away with the roots of Arab hate and anger. Something much more decisive—and, in the case of Iraq, more forceful—had to be done to change the regional equations. The somewhat naïve hopes of the early 1990s, colored by events elsewhere—Eastern Europe, Latin America, Southeast Asia—proved to be a poor guide for action in the Middle East. Only after the removal of the Taliban and then of Saddam from power did the stark choice—on whose side do you want to be?—force itself upon the local players.