-Caveat Lector-
>From ArabicNews.CoM
Deep differences characterize 1st day of Clinton's visit
Palestine, Politics, 12/13/98
Separated by deep differences, US President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime
Minister Benyamin Netanyahu are both in waiting for the outcome of the
Monday session of the Palestine National Council in Gaza.
Israel wanted the PNC to cancel the national charter that calls for the
destruction of the Jewish state. The Palestinians insist the charter was
amended back in 1996 and therefore "there is no need to cancel what has
already been canceled." President Clinton is to attend the Gaza session and
his views of what happens in the course of the session will be crucial in
decided the next steps. If President Clinton says the hand raising voting
in the PNC was enough and if Netanyahu says he is satisfied with the
voting, a three-way summit might take place on Monday night, or Tuesday
morning at the latest between Presidents Clinton and Arafat and premier
Netanyahu.
Clinton arrived in Israel late Saturday night. Israeli president Ezer
Weizman greeted him with a warm speech, unlike the one made by Netanyahu
who, against all protocols, delivered a long speech and switched between
English and Hebrew. According to the protocol, only the two presidents were
supposed to speak: Clinton and Weizman. President Clinton stressed the
subject of security in his speech, and said that the United States would
march in the process along side of Israel. US sources said the Clinton
Administration disagrees with Netanyahu when he claims that the
Palestinians have not implemented any of the Wye Agreement clauses.
Israel, meanwhile, claims it would not be ready to carry out any of the
outstanding clauses of Wye Agreement until after the PNA meets a set of
Israeli demands, most of which were not included in Wye Agreement.
Israel wants a declaration from President Arafat that he would not declare
the establishment of an independent Palestinian state by May next year.
Israel also wants the PNC to cancel the national charter and PNA to take
more steps against opposition groups. The Palestinians want Israel to
release political and security prisoners, to carry out the further
redeployment of its troops in the West Bank, to expand the pace of the
third phase withdrawal which stands at the moment at only one percent of
the West Bank territories, to open the safe passages between the West Bank
and Gaza and to authorize the opening of work to establish the Gaza
seaport.
Approximately 15,000 police, soldiers, Israeli general security services,
American secret service, PNA police and preventative security are part of
the safety arrangements for President Clinton's visit. The unprecedented
security caused heavy traffic disruptions in West Jerusalem. Surrounded by
hundreds of police and guards, the Hilton hotel is combed daily by sappers
and explosive sniffing dogs as snipers took positions on the surrounding
buildings. Late last week, Israeli and American security officials carried
out a security check of all government offices which look out onto the
prime minister's office building, where Clinton and Netanyahu met Sunday.
Islamic Jihad leader Abdallah Shami said in Gaza that Clinton has come to
the region in order to "concoct conspiracies" against the opposition
movement. "Clinton's mission is therefore satanic." Shami said the current
wave of demonstrations in the Palestinian territories in solidarity with
the political prisoners might not be enough to secure their release.
Instead, he called for abducting Israeli soldiers in order to negotiate
their release for the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
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/ |/ / /___/ / /_ // M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S
/ /|_/ / /_/_ / /\\ Making Sense of the Middle East
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CLINTON IN ISRAEL/PALESTINE
________________________________________________________________
A "PEACE PROCESS" BUILT ON
POLITICAL QUICKSAND
By Mark Bruzonsky*
Clinton arrived to blaring trumpets very late Saturday evening. He
arrived in Israel, not Palestine, and no one should doubt that basic
significance.
One of the greatest ironies of this generation is that while the world
mobilized to bring the Apartheid of South Africa to an end, at nearly
the same historic moment it allowed the U.S and Israel to implement a
variant of Apartheid in the Middle East. Another generation of
conflict is thus ensured, no matter what the politicians of the moment
proclaim.
Whatever further symbolism takes place with Clinton's Gaza visit, it is
sure to be feverishly played up by the Arafat crowd. But the basic
reality that Gaza has been twisted into a ghetto/prison surrounded on
three sides by an Israeli-patrolled electrified fence, on the fourth by
the Israeli-guarded sea, and internally "policed" by a quisling regime,
cannot be masked indefinitely.
This "peace process" is build on political quicksand. After nine
unprecedented days together at Wye Plantation the protagonists couldn't
even agree on the relatively simple matter of who among the Palestinian
prisoners would be released.
When it comes to the "Palestinian Covenant", supposedly the reason for
Clinton's visit, Arafat hasn't even managed to gather a quorum of the
once proud Palestine National Congress, not to mention pursue a serious
formal vote on such a weighty matter.
And with Ariel Sharon in charge of the "final agreement", Israeli
settlements still expanding at feverish pace, and "by-pass" roads
increasingly criss-crossing the very areas Arafat claims for his quasi-
State, the future may not be clearly forseeable, but what is at least
clear is that what Arafat keeps proclaiming is certainly not what is
coming to pass. About the only thing the Arafat regime manages to
consistently pursue is to bribe and cajole many into parroting its own
slogans while repressing everyone else into fearful silence and
depressed acquiescence.
The fragmented and confused remains of the Palestinian nationalist
movement has been meeting in Damascus in recent days, declaring their
disgust with Arafat and all that he has wrought. But they not only
lack the requisite power and resources to pursue their goals, they lack
basic cohesion and strategy as well, thus constantly relegating
themselves to marginality on history's sidelines.
The Jordanian Hashemite regime, colluding with the Americans and
Israelis more than ever before, prevented many Palestinians from
crossing the border and even getting to the Damascus meeting. And the
300 or so Palestinians who did manage to gather there hardly even
managed to get the world's attention at a time when world attention is
focused on their very concerns.
American Presidents come and go; the U.S. has serious institutions and
long-term strategies that transcend individual administrations. Too
many among the Arabs just don't seem to understand this basic reality,
essentially mortgaging their own fate to whomever happens to be in the
White House at the moment believing that a few kind words are a
substitute for actual policies, even while history constantly proves
otherwise.
But unlike the Arabs, Western countries, and that includes the
Israelis, have serious institutions and strategies transending
individual leaders and "regimes." At the political level, the Arabs
today are little better off, as the millenium nears its turn, then they
were generations ago at the time of the Ottoman Empire's collapse. They
were as outmanuevered at the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991 as they
were at the Paris Peace Conference of 1918. Their corrupt, inept, and
infiltrated "client regimes" continue to be easily manipulated by the
tried and true "divide and conquer" approach. With such an historical
dichotomy, the West manages to get one Arab leader or another to sign
this agreement or that, constantly pushing forward their own interests
while Arab interests, not to mention rights, are constantly trampeled
under.
Until the nationalist Palestinians and their supporters seriously
organize themselves in a coherent and determined way to oppose the
Apartheid Reservations fate, their destiny will continue to be
subverted. Ongoing and sophisticated opposition using modern means of
communication, as well as the building up of sustainable institutions
that can both conceive and pursue alternative policies and principled
goals, are what today's situation urgently requires.
* Background and publication information for Mark Bruzonsky is at:
http://www.MiddleEast.Org/mab.htm
24-Hour Number for Press Calls is 202 686-2371.
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