Global Policy Forum

By Amin Saikal

Israeli-Palestinian violence has reached a dismal point. Having backed the right-wing Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, to intensify military suppression of the Palestinians since last December, US President George Bush finds it once again necessary to send his Middle East envoy, General Anthony Zinni, back to the region to mediate a ceasefire. But Zinni will not find it easy to restore the faith of the Palestinians in the United States or to bridge the deep animosities between the protagonists. It is time for a collective international intervention under the leadership of the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, to break the cycle of violence.

The US has had numerous opportunities to act to bring the two sides to the negotiating table. But despite its good intentions, it has constantly found itself limited by its strategic partnership with Israel. It has too often overlooked the imbalance that exists between Israel as a powerful and determined occupying power and the Palestinians as a largely defenceless and occupied people. It has shown great concern for the security of Israel but paid less attention to the fact that that security can only be achieved through peace with the Palestinians, and that peace will not be achieved until such time as Israel gives back the lands which it has forcibly taken from the Palestinians and has defended ferociously against Palestinian resistance. Violence as a means to achieve political objectives must not be condoned but, equally, injustice must not be rewarded in any way whatsoever.

The strategy that Sharon has adopted to quell the Palestinian resistance has so far proved disastrous. It has involved not only targeted assassination of Palestinian figures but also collective punishment of the Palestinians in response to Palestinian acts of retaliation for targeted assassinations. It has aimed at humiliating and degrading the Palestinians as a people and bombing them into the Stone Age, so that even if they are granted independence they would remain traumatised by the scars of Israeli occupation for a long time to come. Yet all this has brought Israel neither peace nor security.

Sharon has acted in the full knowledge that the Palestinians are organically linked to the wider Arab people, who share the suffering of Palestinians and view their humiliation as their own. It is not surprising that there is so much dislike of Israel and the US in the Arab world. While most Arab governments are under US sway and are divided over what to do about the Palestinian problem, the Arab masses are cumulatively and painfully outraged at the behaviour of both Israel and the US. This has led some of them to identify silently with Osama bin Laden. Most cannot understand why the US and its allies have been more than helpful to the Afghans to liberate themselves from the savage rule of the Taliban but have remained indifferent to the plight of the Palestinian people.

The feeling of despondency over US policy behaviour runs so deep among the Arabs that unless the US restructures and refocuses its Middle East policy, no amount of campaigning against terror may be able to produce the desired results. There is a widespread view among them that the Bush Administration has badly let the Arabs down by adopting Sharon's agenda, which has never included a final settlement with the Palestinians on a mutually acceptable basis. With the US reputation as peace broker in the Middle East in tatters, it is now time for an alternative mediator.

Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah has lately aired a proposal as an Arab initiative to secure a comprehensive resolution of the Middle East conflict based on a total Israeli withdrawal from all occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, that it took over in the 1967 war in return for a total Arab recognition of Israel as a secure sovereign state in the region. While this proposal has raised some hopes, it is unlikely to succeed as long as Sharon is in power. Sharon is not committed to a final settlement with the Palestinians. Nor is he willing to consider any possible withdrawal from East Jerusalem. The only way that Abdullah's proposal could succeed is for the US, the European Union and the UN to back it collectively and to cajole Sharon in whatever way necessary to accept it. The person who could take the lead in this respect is Kofi Annan.

Annan is the only one with a global moral authority to persuade and pressure the major powers. He will not find the task easy, because Israel would be averse to it. But the mission will require him to be bold, courageous, imaginative and sustained. And it is time for the Security Council to activate the Secretary-General's good offices.

Amin Saikal is professor of political science and director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University.

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