Commentary

10th May 1998

Ready for conflict resolution?

Middle-East:

By Mervyn de Silva

Is it a little light at the end of the tunnel? Or have the chances of a negotiated settlement distinctly improved? Already reporters in the field speak of a clear "lowering of tensions". Are the analysts and commentators, swept by the euphoria, tempted to hold out the promise of lasting peace? Have they read the situation correctly? One of the "wars", half a century old, has affected life in the most strategic region in the world - the oil-rich Middle-east. The other has earned the title of "the longest war"..... of its kind. Northern Ireland.

The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has publicly stated that he will continue his talks with the PLO leader, Yasser Arafat, President of the newly established Palestinian Authority (PA) which hardline Israeli opinion makers warn is a "mini-state" and anti-Arafat, Arab radicals dismiss as "nothing more than a glorified municipality".

The common factor in these serious efforts at a negotiated resolution of "undeclared wars" is the United States, the sole superpower at the end of the Cold War. (The other 'superpower' and its elected leader, President Boris Yeltsin, is confronted by internal wars too, including evidently Russia's popularly elected Parliament!) After the Cold War inter-state wars have been replaced by violent internal conflicts. "Old conflicts they may have inherited from the West but any new disorders will be their own" warned Sir Michael Ward of Oxford and more recently Yale. Both Northen Ireland and the Arab-Israeli conflicts however are often explained by the parties to the blood-letting as violence, partly at least, as a contribution of an outsider. To this day, both sides in the domestic confrontation blame the "outsider".

Recently Mr. Netanyahu gave us a near-perfect illustration of this popular approach. Sometimes it is part of the cunning of the combatants. Point an accusing finger at the meddling outsider..... an outsider with his own interests to serve. Thus Mr. Netanyahu's ill-mannered treatment ("brusque" was the word chosen by a British reporter) of UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook. "It is his own version of the politics of self-fulfilling. Netanyahu can now say to Israelis: 'You see I told you so. The whole world is against us. I am the only one who will stand up for you.

And that is precisely what the pro-Likud, anti-Labour Israeli voter likes to hear, says the same correspondent. Ehud Barak, the Opposition Leader, and Labour party stalwart, has no counter-strategy. He would like to hold the centre.... neither Left-inclined like Shimon Peres, the Labour party veteran who had his roots in the Histradut, the giant trade union federation nor do a Netanyahu himself. He certainly cannot slip into the role of Yitzhak Rabin, the last Labour prime minister, Rabin, the much-decorated war hero, had charisma.

Some commentators grant Mr. Netanyahu even greater cunning. He simply detests the idea of "third party mediation", a popular option in "conflict-resolution". He can now please the United States by pointing out that he got rid of the British, so that the stage was open and clear for the United States, and President Clinton. And so, Madeleine Albright rather than Robin Cook. And yet, the wily Netanyahu who made a quick trip to London keeps his options open". I went to London and I will go to the US or any other place in search of peace and security". The emphasis is really on security, Israel's security. The domestic situation is far from stable; the security environment far from satisfactory. Lebanon is the main cause of current anxieties.

On my second visit to Israel in 1968 I was taken to the Lebanese border. Through a powerful pair of binoculars I could see, quite clearly, "Palestinian terrorists" as my Israeli F.O. escort explained. Under pressure, (threats to Beirut, the capital) the Lebanese government, an unstable coalition, if I recall right, had permitted the PLO to open a new front against Israel.... the northern front. Already, the Syrians had heavy guns mounted on the Golan Heights. Israeli traffic (military most of all) on the winding road below was a perfect target.

And now Israel, at last, has agreed to implement Security Council Resolution 425 of 1978. It asked Israel to pull out of Lebanon..... unconditionally. And that means the Lebanese government must order its army to fill the vacuum. It was after the PLO pull-out from Beirut, that the Israel came up with the idea of a 15 kilometre "self-declared security zone". But the regime in Beirut did not support the Israeli "security scheme" or could not do so for fear of reprisals. Already Hizbullah, the Shia militants of Lebanon, has engaged the "south Lebanese army", an Israeli creature.

"As for tortured Lebanon herself, her future defies prediction. The Americans, French, Italians and British have long gone from Beirut, and so have the Israelis. The Lebanese army is fragmented, badly led and afraid to move decisively....." wrote John Laffin in "The war of desperation." Nothing much has changed fundamentally 12 years later. And yet, the spotlight is on Saddam Hussein. Nonetheless Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict (that is, the Palestinian question) cannot be forgotten as long as there is a large, influential Jewish community in the US and oil is strategic, production, distribution and price.

The Arab-Israeli may not be the longest war but it is the most important.

Hulftsdorp Hill

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