Stop passing the buck, says Clinton

By Kesava Menon

MANAMA, OCT. 16. The emergency summit meeting called to deal with the volatile situation in West Asia got under way today at the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh with the U.S. President, Mr. Clinton, urging Israeli and Palestinian leaders to stop blaming each other and instead concentrate on how they could build a peaceful and stable future for the region.

A few excerpts from the opening remarks made by Mr. Clinton was about the only information leaking out of the plenary session that began this afternoon. The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr. Ehud Barak, and the Palestinian Authority President, Mr. Yasser Arafat, are attending the summit being hosted by the Egyptian President, Mr. Hosni Mubarak, with King Hussein of Jordan and the European Union Foreign Minister, Mr. Javier Solana, also adding their weight to the deliberations.

Mr. Clinton and Mr. Mubarak are reported to have held separate bilateral meetings with the Israeli and Palestinian leaders this morning. Later in his opening remarks, Mr. Clinton pointed out that while developments over the past two weeks had harmed the peace process, their very occurrence had shown what the alternate scenario would be if there was no peace process. It is fairly obvious, both from whatever information has leaked out so far and from the logic of circumstances, that Mr. Clinton and the others would try to persuade Mr. Barak and Mr. Arafat to issue a joint declaration calling for an end to the violence.

There are reports in the Israeli media that Mr. Clinton would also like the West Asian leaders to sign up to an agreement to hold another round of talks on the main issues in contention beyond the resolution of the conflict that has rocked the region during the past two and a half weeks.

According to these reports, Mr. Clinton would like these talks to be held and concluded between the end of the U.S. Presidential election on Nov. 7 and Nov. 15, the date that the Palestinians have tentatively set for the declaration of their statehood. Leaders of the Arab world had reportedly told Mr. Clinton that a cooling off period was necessary before substantive negotiations could resume.

A ceasefire agreement to end the latest round of confrontation will also not make much sense if the substantive negotiations are not re-started soon. If there is no hope for a resolution of the issues, and therefore a revived prospect for peace, any ceasefire would soon expire.

Before Mr. Clinton and the other leaders can get Mr. Barak and Mr. Arafat to agree to a time-table for substantive negotiations, they will have to resolve the sharp differences about the methods to deal with the persisting situation of confrontation.

Some of the mechanical problems, like the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the vicinity of Palestinian towns or the controlling of his agitated youth by Mr. Arafat, might be more easily resolved. But the major difference about the format of an investigation into the causes of the recent confrontation could prove difficult to resolve. The Palestinians want an international commission of enquiry to be constituted to look into the causes of the conflict while Israel is opposed to the proposal.

Mr. Clinton is known to prefer a U.S.-led probe team, with representatives of Israel and Palestine aboard and perhaps including others as well, that will not only probe the causes but also serve as a mechanism to ensure that those actually doing the fighting from either side disengage. The U.S. apparently also desires that such a mechanism will serve as an instrument to effect better co-ordination between the security services of Israel and the Palestinian Authority so that such conflict does not break out in the future.

One problem in this exercise is that while the U.S. and Israel appear to have one perspective on the nature of the violence inherent in West Asia, the Palestinians have another. Israel especially, and the U.S. to an extent, see recent events as the aberration that needs to be corrected if possible. The Palestinians believe, and have increasingly begun to articulate this belief, that the real violence is being perpetrated by an Israel which occupies their territory and thereby subjects them to colonial oppression. For the Palestinians, this insidious and long-term oppression is the real violence that is being perpetrated in West Asia.

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Section  : International
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