The CQ Researcher : Middle East Conflict

From the April 06, 2001 issue of The CQ Researcher, Volume 11, No. 13.

Abstract
By David Masci

Will new flare-ups derail the peace process?

Efforts to bring about peace in the Middle East may have suffered a serious setback in February when hard-line nationalist Ariel Sharon was elected prime minister of Israel. Some analysts say Sharon is more likely to crack down on the Palestinians than come to terms with them. His election also comes at a time when the new Bush administration has indicated that it will be less involved in trying to bring the parties together. But others say Sharon's get-tough approach may ultimately lead both sides back to the bargaining table. Meanwhile, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is being pressured to control continuing Arab violence in the occupied territories. Critics contend he is allowing the bloodshed to continue to advance his political aims, while others say his hands are tied and the Israelis are provoking the violence.

Palestinian Fatah supporters march in Gaza on Dec. 9, 2000, to mark the 13th anniversary of the 1987 Intifada. In the background, marchers hold a poster with pictures of Yasser Arafat and Jerusalem and a slogan that reads: “No . . . my dream cannot be complete without Jerusalem.” (Photo Credit: (AP Photos/Adel Hana))

Overview

In March, just days after Ariel Sharon was sworn in as Israel's new prime minister, Yasser Arafat mounted the podium at the Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza and issued a challenge.

“Let the [peace] negotiations be resumed from the point they left off,” the Palestinian leader said. [1]

During U.S.-sponsored peace talks at Camp David last July, then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak had offered the Palestinians much more than his predecessors ever had, including sovereignty over most of the West Bank and even a part of East Jerusalem. But Arafat still felt that the proposal fell short.

Now Arafat has to deal with Sharon, a tough ex-general known for his no-nonsense, often heavy-handed approach toward the Arabs. Indeed, Israelis had elected him to stop a violent uprising, or intifada, which had engulfed Palestinian areas in Israel and the occupied territories since September.

Palestinian Ali Hussein Sayaalhe and his family look back at Maale Adumin, a large Jewish settlement in the West Bank, just outside Jerusalem. Israeli authorities destroyed their home in order to expand the settlement for Israeli Jews. (AP Photos/Jerome Delay)

Arafat did not need to wait long for Sharon to respond to his challenge. On the same day the Palestinian leader addressed the council, Israel's 73-year-old prime minister indicated that picking up where Barak left off was out of the question. [2] Thorny issues that Arafat and Barak had worked on at Camp David -- like the status of East Jerusalem and Jewish settlements in the West Bank -- were now off the table, Sharon said.

Moreover, the new prime minister vowed not to talk to the Palestinians about anything until their intifada stopped. “I will not negotiate under terror of violence,” he said. [3]

Some Middle East experts think Sharon will not really talk to the Palestinians under any circumstances, given his long history as a hawkish hard-liner more likely to send in soldiers than to negotiate. “I don't think there's any real hope of movement on the peace process as long as he's in power,” says Hussein Ibish, communications director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the largest Arab-American organization in the United States.

According to Ibish, the new prime minister is more interested in keeping a lid on legitimate Palestinian aspirations than trying to find acceptable ways to fulfill them. “Sharon is only really looking for a military solution to the problem, which won't solve it and will only increase the bloodshed on both sides,” he says.

But other observers argue that Sharon ultimately may be a much better interlocutor for the Palestinians than Barak.

“The Barak approach was disastrous because he bent over backwards to give everything to Arafat, who only asked for more,” says James Phillips, a research fellow specializing in Middle East issues at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Sharon envisions a slower, more gradual and ultimately more realistic approach to peace, say his supporters. In addition, whatever agreement Sharon does reach with Arafat, he'll be able to deliver on it, they add. “The peace deals that last are usually the ones negotiated by hard-liners like Sharon because these people have the credibility to sell the deal to the population,” Phillips says.

But Sharon has said that before he even considers Palestinian demands, the violence in Arab areas must end. He has blamed Arafat for the bloodshed that has killed hundreds in the last six months and called on him to make his people stop attacking Israelis.

Recently, Palestinian suicide bombers escalated the violence, killing two Israelis and injuring dozens more. On March 28, Sharon fired back directly at Arafat, using helicopter gunships to destroy a Palestinian Authority (PA) command post -- killing at least one soldier and civilian.

Some Middle East experts argue that Sharon is right to look to Arafat to cease the intifada. “He's exhorting the people to violence and trying to claim that he's not responsible,” says David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Israel-leaning Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “That's absurd.”

Indeed, Arafat's opponents say, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader is trying to divert his people's legitimate frustration with his corrupt rule and channel it toward the Israelis. “If Arafat hadn't whipped up the people against the Israelis, the intifada would have been directed at him,” Phillips says.

But many experts claim that the intifada reflects Palestinian frustration, not with Arafat but with Israel, which they see as an uncaring and even brutal occupier. “Most Palestinians are worse off today than they were before the 1993 peace deal in Oslo” gave Arabs in the occupied territories limited autonomy, says Philip Mattar, executive director of the Institute for Palestine Studies, a pro-Palestinian think tank. “They feel trapped by the Israelis -- their villages cordoned off, their economy blockaded.”

According to Mattar and other experts, Arafat cannot entirely control this rage. And even if he could, they say, he would be suppressing his own supporters to appease the very people causing them to take to the streets in the first place. “He's not going to come down hard against his own people, who are legitimately enraged,” says James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, a pro-Palestinian advocacy group. “How can the Israelis honestly expect him to do that?”

Amid the finger pointing and recrimination over the violence, several issues still must be resolved before both sides can live in peace. Perhaps the most important is the status of East Jerusalem.

Palestinians argue that under international law the Israelis have no legitimate claim to the city. They also claim that East Jerusalem must be a part of any Palestinian state because it is the urban hub of the West Bank, which along with the much smaller Gaza Strip would make up their new country. In addition, leaving the eastern part of the city in Israeli hands would largely cut the West Bank in half, they say, dividing the navigable northern and southern parts of the territory.

But many Israelis maintain that Jerusalem is too important to Jewish identity to give up even a part of the city to a potentially hostile people. Moreover, they say, the Palestinians can have a viable state on the West Bank without East Jerusalem, noting that other Arab towns like Bethlehem, Nablus and Ramallah are economic and cultural centers, too.

Meanwhile, the role of the United States has changed with the coming of a new administration in January. Throughout his two terms, President Bill Clinton played an increasingly personal role in Mideast peace talks. In the last year, Clinton was instrumental in efforts to broker a final deal between Israel and the Palestinians, a deal that collapsed over the future status of Palestinian refugees and the fate of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.

President George W. Bush also has weighed into the process, meeting face to face with Sharon and speaking with Arafat by phone. At a March 29 press conference the day after the Israeli shelling of Arafat's command post, he strongly challenged Arafat to end the intifada: “The signal I'm sending to the Palestinians is stop the violence. And I can't make it any more clear. And I hope Chairman Arafat hears it loud and clear.”

But Bush also has indicated that his administration will not take as active a role in future peace efforts, arguing that agreements cannot be forced upon the parties by outsiders. “It requires two willing parties to come to the table to enact a peace treaty that will last,” he told reporters.

In addition, Bush has shifted U.S. priorities in the region toward the Persian Gulf and efforts to thwart Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's ambitions.

As Israelis and Palestinians try once again to end more than 50 years of enmity, here are some of the questions they are asking:

Has Sharon's election stalled chances of a final settlement with the Palestinians?

Last Sept. 28, Sharon, then leader of the opposition Likud Party, led a small delegation of legislators to the Temple Mount, one of Jerusalem's holiest sites for Israelis and Palestinians alike. For most Israelis, a visit to the mount -- which contains the remains of the ancient Jewish temple as well as two of the most famous mosques in the Islamic world -- would have been routine and unnoticed. [4]

But Sharon is no ordinary Israeli. Because of his hawkish reputation, he is hated by Arabs, especially for his alleged role in the massacres of hundreds of Palestinian refugees during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. * Indeed, the Arab press often uses words such as “butcher” to refer to the former defense minister.

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* From Sept. 16-18, 1982, Lebanese militiamen killed hundreds of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in southern Lebanon. Sharon and other Israeli officers have been accused of condoning the massacres and even aiding the militiamen who carried them out.

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The visit enraged Palestinians, setting off a spasm of protest and bloodshed that has cost more than 400 mostly Arab lives and has yet to subside. Sharon was condemned not only by Palestinians but also by many Israelis for intentionally sparking the violence in an effort to ramp up tension and scuttle peace talks between his political rival, then Prime Minister Barak, and Arafat.

Still, less than five months later, on Feb. 7, the same Sharon was declared the overwhelming winner in Israel's election for prime minister, prompting many Middle East experts to conclude that chances for a substantive peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinians are dead for now.

Sharon has said that he wants to continue peace talks, but only when the violence in the occupied territories ends. “If there is desire on both sides, I believe we can veer away from this bitter path of blood on which we are marching,” he said after being sworn in as the country's 11th prime minister on March 7. “Our hand is extended in peace.” [5]

But the new Israeli leader also maintains that certain key issues -- like the status of East Jerusalem -- that his predecessor and Arafat discussed are no longer negotiable.

For many Middle East experts, Sharon's hard-line positions on East Jerusalem and other issues make him a very unlikely peacemaker. “I don't see any evidence that Sharon is serious about peace,” says Michael C. Hudson, a professor of international relations at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. “His election is bad news for the peace process.”

Many experts agree. “It's always possible that he'll be one of those people who has the credibility to make a deal, like Nixon going to China,” Mattar says. “But it's unlikely, because in his heart Sharon believes that the solution to the Palestinian problem is a military solution.”

Mattar and other Middle East analysts cite recent statements by the Israeli military warning that they might reinvade Palestinian-controlled areas in order to stop violence in the occupied territories. “The fact that we might have Israelis entering Palestinian territory is a sign that we'll see an escalation in the violence on the Israeli side,” Hudson says. “You'll also see more punitive actions on their part, like the destruction of houses.” He was referring to the Israeli practice of destroying homes as a form of collective punishment for Palestinian terrorist acts.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon speaks to reporters on March 22 after returning from the United States, where he held his first face-to-face talks with President George W. Bush. (Reuters/Natalie Behring)

Sharon's current unwillingness to even discuss vital issues -- like East Jerusalem, the fate of settlements in the occupied territories or the right of return for Palestinian refugees -- means he has effectively ended negotiations before they can even begin, say his opponents, because without at least some concessions on those points, the Arabs would balk.

“If Arafat were to strike a deal that did not give the Palestinians authority over East Jerusalem, over the Muslim holy sites there or did not at least recognize the Palestinian right of return, it would be immediately rejected by the Palestinian people and throughout the Arab world,” Mattar says.

Moreover, Hudson says, by taking these crucial issues off the table, Sharon has “ensured that the two sides will never get close again so long as he's at the helm.”

But some Middle East experts view such pessimism over Sharon as unwarranted, in part because Barak and Arafat had already reached an impasse in their efforts to broker a deal. “There really wasn't a chance for a final settlement even before the election, which is one reason why the Israelis voted for Sharon,” says Jon Alterman, a Middle East expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace, a congressionally chartered organization advocating non-violent settlement of conflicts.

Alterman argues that the leaders of both groups had moved too far ahead of their constituencies. “The political situation in both communities wasn't quite ready to allow for a final settlement,” he says.

In this light, Sharon's slower and more cautious approach might actually be a better strategy for producing long-term results, say supporters of the prime minister. “Sharon accepts the idea of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories, but he doesn't believe that it's possible to reach a settlement on all issues in a year or two,” says Saadia Touval, an Israeli who now lectures at the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS). “It's clear that he thinks that some things, like East Jerusalem, just aren't ripe yet for resolution.”

In addition, Sharon's supporters point out, he is serious about peace because he brought opposition Labor Party leader Shimon Peres into his government to serve as foreign minister. Peres is the leader of the doves in Israel and the architect of the 1993 Oslo Accords, the first major agreement between Israelis and Palestinians.

“I don't think Peres would get into this unless he believed that Sharon is serious about moving forward in some way,” says Richard Fairbanks, an expert on the Middle East and former president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “It's a sign that Sharon is ready for something more than just fighting.”

Other experts are less optimistic, but still think Sharon may be more flexible than his reputation would indicate.

“My feeling is that Sharon is not nearly as committed to Zionist expansionism as he appears to be,” says Abdul Aziz Said, director of the International Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies Program at American University in Washington, D.C. “He might be able to do a deal with Arafat, but things will have to begin slowly, with confidence-building measures, before a final permanent agreement is reached.”

Should Arafat try harder to contain Palestinian violence in the occupied territories?

Many have called it “a war,” the almost daily clashes between Palestinians and Israelis, largely in the occupied territories. Over the past six months, the Intifada II (so called, to distinguish it from an earlier, similar uprising in the late 1980s) has claimed more than 400 lives, most of them Palestinian.

Much of the fighting has been chaotic: Palestinian youths throwing bottles and rocks at Israeli soldiers and settlers armed with guns. Some of the violence is short-lived and shocking, as when suicide bombers set off explosions in populated areas. But some of the battles also have involved well-armed Palestinian and Israeli police and soldiers trading shots. [6]

The Israelis have blamed the Palestinians, and in particular Arafat, for the violence. Indeed, Prime Minister Sharon has said he will not resume peace talks with Arafat until peace is restored to the territories.

But Arafat supporters contend the trouble is caused by factors completely out of his control. “The situation is so very difficult for Arafat,” says the Arab American Institute's Zogby. “He could try to tamp it down some, but given the legitimate rage his people are feeling, he would find himself in the middle of a civil war.”

According to Zogby, the Palestinians have taken to the streets out of sheer frustration. “Seven years after the Oslo peace deal, the Palestinians are worse off than ever,” he says, citing statistics showing that the economy in the occupied territories has shrunken by 30 percent since Oslo.

Zogby blames the economic trouble on the Israelis, who have doubled the number of settlers living in the territories and built roads closed to Arab traffic linking those Jewish communities, with no thought to the effect on the Palestinian population. “Palestinian areas in the West Bank have been isolated into little islands, where economic opportunity is very limited,” Zogby says.

In addition, Israeli checkpoints throughout the territories make it difficult and often impossible for Palestinians to drive from one town to another, he says. “The combination of being poorer and less free to move around has produced an explosion of anger and rage.”

A Palestinian throws a Molotov cocktail at Israeli soldiers in the town of Nablus in the West Bank. The incident occurred late last year, at the beginning of the most recent Palestinian intifada, or uprising. (AP Photos/Jerome Delay)

Moreover, Palestinian supporters say, Israel has further compounded the problem by not handing over tax money collected for Arafat to use in administering the area and by not allowing Palestinians who work in Israel to commute there -- all in an effort to punish them for the violence. “They have made all of their problems worse by keeping 120,000 Palestinians from going to work and bankrupting the government,” Mattar says. “No wonder everyone is frustrated.”

Palestinian frustration also is tied to the perceived failure of the peace process to produce a viable Palestinian state. “The Israelis need to give them a feeling of hope or else they will continue to think they have nothing to lose,” Zogby says.

Amid this despair, Arafat's supporters say he has few real options. “How can [the Israelis] expect him to try to stop all of this when they are causing it,” says Salim Tamari, a professor of sociology at Bir Zeit University in the West Bank. “They are asking him to go against his own people.”

Mattar agrees that it is not in Arafat's interest to even try to suppress the intifada. “They are so angry right now that if he tried to stop the violence they would probably turn against him,” he says. “Why should he risk that just to help the Israelis?”

But some analysts see the Palestinian leader as the mastermind behind the intifada, promoting the violence to pressure the Israelis into more concessions. “This whole thing began at the same time the Israelis were offering more at the bargaining table than they'd ever offered before,” says David Wurmser, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

Moreover, Arafat's claim that he can't end the violence is viewed as specious by some analysts. “You know, if he actually tried and failed, I would give him some credit,” says Morton Klein, national president of the pro-Israel Zionist Organization of America. “But he hasn't given a single speech calling on his people to stop or cut funding from the organizations carrying this out or used his security forces to control the people.”

Far from preventing bloodshed, Arafat is doing everything he can to encourage it, Klein contends. “The speeches he makes, the literature put out by the Palestinian Authority, ∧ the text books they use in schools [all] call for violent uprising,” he says. “Arafat recently admitted in a Saudi Arabian newspaper that the intifada would continue until East Jerusalem was given over to the Palestinians.”

In addition to exhorting people to violence, Arafat is personally directing it, Klein says. “Much of this is coming from Fatah, a group that he's the president of, a group that he funds.”

Indeed, the PLO leader “is regularly letting terrorists and other violent people out of prison,” says Makovsky of the Institute for Near East Policy. Plus, schools in the territories are routinely closed so that children can attend riots, he says. “These are not the actions of someone who's trying to stop the violence.”

Finally, Arafat's opponents argue that much of the frustration of the Palestinian people is due to his own mismanagement -- economically and otherwise -- of the occupied territories. “He's completely failed there because the Palestinian Authority is totally corrupt,” Wurmser says.

The PA is little better than a mafia, violating their people's human rights and treating the local economy as a source of personal enrichment, says Wurmser. “Arafat has abused his people and destroyed the economy by undermining the old Palestinian business elite in order to give things to his cronies in the PA.”

Should the Israelis be willing to cede sovereignty over most or all of East Jerusalem?

Few cities can generate as much passion as Jerusalem, a place of immense import for the world's three great monotheistic faiths -- Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

For Christians and Jews, it is the locus of their founding stories: the place where Jesus Christ was tried, executed and rose from the dead and the location of Judaism's holiest site, the Temple Mount, which contains the remains of the ancient Hebrew temples of Solomon and Herod. For Muslims, Jerusalem is the holiest city in the world after Mecca and Medina and the location of the al-Aqsa mosque, with its famous golden Dome of the Rock, built atop the ruins of the Jewish temples.

But it is also the political and cultural hub of the Israelis and Palestinians, both of whom call Jerusalem their capital. Can one city be the capital of two countries? For many Palestinians and even some Israelis the answer is “yes.”

When Palestine was first partitioned by the United Nations (U.N.) in 1947, Jerusalem was to be an international city controlled by neither Israelis nor Palestinians. That changed the following year, when the Arabs and Jews went to war, which resulted in the creation of the modern state of Israel and the partition of Jerusalem. The Israelis controlled the western half of the city and Jordan administered the eastern district. In the 1967 war, the Israelis captured the eastern part of the city, including the Temple Mount.

During the last round of peace negotiations in December, then Prime Minister Barak purportedly offered the Palestinians control over Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, as well as sovereignty over the al-Aqsa mosque. Barak's gesture was a first for an Israeli prime minister, all of whom had previously maintained that all of East Jerusalem would remain in Israeli hands. [7]

Arafat also made concessions, agreeing that 11 Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem could remain under Israeli control. [8] Arafat had previously maintained that he could accept nothing less than total control over the entire eastern half of the city.

Now Sharon has stated publicly that he will not negotiate on the status of East Jerusalem. For Palestinians and many Israelis, his position is both unreasonable and untenable.

And yet, some Middle East experts maintain that the new prime minister is right to refuse to negotiate. For one thing, they say, the eastern part of the city -- and Jerusalem as a whole -- are too important to Israel and to Jews around the world to give up.

“Jerusalem is so tied to Judaism and what it means to be Jewish that to give up even part of it would be traumatic,” says AEI's Wurmser. “This cuts to the core of Jewish identity.”

In addition, such a move could put some Jewish holy sites in danger, say those who worry about ceding control of the eastern half of the city to Arafat. Of particular concern is the safety of the only visible part of ancient Hebrew temples that remains -- the “Wailing Wall” -- which, under Barak's final offer, would have remained under Israeli administration, but in an area largely controlled by the Palestinians.

As if to prove their point, in October a Palestinian mob in the West Bank town of Nablus destroyed the supposed tomb of Joseph, the Jewish patriarch. According to Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, the destruction of the tomb “shredded” any foreseeable hope that the Israelis could trust the Palestinians to respect Jewish religious sites if they were to administer most or all of East Jerusalem. “If [Yasser Arafat] cannot or will not control a mob in Nablus, what reason is there to believe that Jerusalem will be any different?” he wrote, late last year. [9]

But others maintain that the Palestinians have a much stronger legal claim to East Jerusalem than do the Israelis, citing U.N. Resolution 242, which called for the Israelis to withdraw from lands it conquered following the 1967 war. “According to 242, East Jerusalem is occupied territory and the Israelis should leave,” Hudson says, pointing out that, even the United States, Israel's staunchest ally, has signed the resolution.

Also, keeping East Jerusalem under Israeli control would destroy all hope of creating a real Palestinian state in the rest of the occupied territories. “A Palestinian state without East Jerusalem as its capital would be cut in half,” says Tamari at Bir Zeit University. He points out that East Jerusalem and the Jewish settlements that surround it break the continuity between the northern and southern halves of the West Bank.

In addition, Hudson argues, “Jerusalem is the soul of Arab Palestine and its cultural center. If you deny the Palestinians sovereignty over at least part of the city, you'll be cutting off their heart and their head at the same time.”

Moreover, Tamari says, the city is vital for the economic, social and cultural development of the territory. “This is the main urban area, where the banking and commerce and culture [are],” he says. Without it, the West Bank is a “provincial rump state, with very little.”

But opponents of giving up East Jerusalem counter that the city is not a necessary component for a Palestinian state, economically or otherwise. “East Jerusalem is extremely tiny,” Klein says. “There are areas of culture and commerce in [the West Bank towns of] Bethlehem, Nablus and Ramallah that are just as significant as East Jerusalem and they should focus on developing these.”

Klein also disputes the notion that the Palestinians have a greater legal claim to East Jerusalem than do the Israelis. “Resolution 242 only calls on the Israelis to negotiate on giving away territory, not necessarily all territory they occupied in 1967,” he says. “Also, Jordan seized East Jerusalem in 1948, so it's not automatically Palestinian land and is still very much disputed.”

[1] Quoted in Mary Curtius, “Sharon Rejects Arafat's Call to Restart Mideast Talks,” Los Angeles Times, March 11, 2001. For background, see David Masci, “Israel at 50,” The CQ Researcher, March 6, 1998, pp. 193-216.

[2] Lally Weymouth, “A New Leader Makes New Distinctions,” The Washington Post, March 11, 2001.

[3] Quoted in Ibid.

[4] Lee Hockstader, “Israeli's Tour of Holy Site Ignites Riot,” The Washington Post, Sept. 29, 2000.

[5] Quoted in Deborah Sontag, “Sharon Takes Reins in Israel,” The New York Times, March 8, 2001.

[6] Deborah Sontag, “Flare-Up of Middle East Violence Continues,” The New York Times, Feb. 12, 2001.

[7] Keith B. Richburg, “Jerusalem Protesters Decry U.S. Proposals; Crowd Insists City Remain Undivided As Israeli Capital,” The Washington Post, Jan. 9, 2001.

[8] “Jerusalem's Split Sovereignty: Time is Running Out for a Definitive Israeli-Palestinian Deal,” The Economist, Sept. 16, 2000.

[9] Quoted in Richard Cohen, “Israel's Answer to Arafat,” The Washington Post, Feb. 8, 2001.

Background

Blood Feud

Ethnic conflicts are often the worst kind. As recent massacres in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia demonstrate, loyalty to one's tribe or “people” can make combatants vicious and peace agreements elusive and hard to enforce.

Arabs and Jews have been caught in an ethnic conflict for more than a half-century. Even before that, Jewish emigration to Palestine in the first half of the 20th century caused tension among the local Arabs that occasionally erupted into violence.

But today's conflict did not begin in earnest until after World War II. The British, who had administered the territory for nearly 30 years in the wake of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, had expressed an interest in creating one multiethnic state in what is now Israel. But in 1947, a special U.N. commission recommended partitioning the territory into Jewish and Palestinian sections with Jerusalem as “an international city” under U.N. administration. [10]

However, the partition was not realized. Both sides began a low-level guerrilla war, which quickly escalated into a full-scale conflict. The better-trained and organized Israeli forces routed their Arab opponents, conquering most of the territory set aside for a Palestinian state and expelling much of the Palestinian population.

In May 1948, the victorious Jews proclaimed the State of Israel. Although the United States and Soviet Union quickly recognized the new country, the entire Arab world rejected the new state. In fact, the day after the proclamation, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan invaded Israel in an effort to destroy it. But the invasion was a disaster for the Arabs, who were defeated on every front. The Israelis emerged as a powerful force in the region with more territory than they had before.

Palestinians destroy the alleged site of the tomb of the Jewish patriarch Joseph. The Oct. 7, 2000, incident was seen by many Israelis as proof that Palestinians would not respect Jewish holy sites if they were given control over them. (AFP Photos/Jamal Aruri)

The biggest losers were the 1.3 million Palestinians, who now controlled no part of the territory granted them in the partition agreement. As a result, about half became refugees -- either in Egyptian-controlled Gaza, the Jordanian-controlled West Bank or in camps in surrounding Arab countries. The Israelis rebuffed efforts to repatriate some of them; temporary refugee camps soon became permanent settlements.

For the next 20 years, the region existed in a state of perpetual tension, with occasional flareups -- like a 1956 crisis over the Suez Canal -- but no prolonged conflicts. Meanwhile, Israel -- with the help of Western aid, the ingenuity of its people and huge waves of immigration -- grew much stronger, both economically and militarily.

Then, in 1967, the tension erupted into a full-scale war, when Israel launched a surprise offensive against the Egyptians, Syrians and Jordanians. The attacks -- a response to signs that Arab countries were preparing to invade -- were spectacularly successful. Israel conquered the Golan Heights from Syria, the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt and the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan. [11]

Israel was now in control of more than 1 million additional Palestinians living in the captured West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. The population was more hostile to the Israelis than those who had remained in Israel proper in 1948.

Israel's conquests also brought it significant international opprobrium. The United States and Soviet Union pushed Resolution 242 through the U.N. Security Council, calling for Israel to withdraw from “territories occupied in the recent conflict.” [12]

Finally, in the aftermath of the 1967 war, exiled Palestinians began organizing into resistance groups, led by Arafat and the PLO. Long considered non-activist Arabs who lived in Palestine, the political thinkers and guerrilla fighters who formed these groups realized that Palestinians had to forge their own independent identity and take control over the fight to re-conquer their territory.

Despair and Hope

The years following the 1967 war were tense. International efforts to bring about a regional peace failed. Israel worked to consolidate its hold on the newly conquered territories by building Jewish settlements, while Egypt periodically shelled Israeli military positions in the Sinai Peninsula, located on Israel's southwest border.

On Oct. 6, 1973 -- the Jewish high holiday of Yom Kippur -- Egypt and Syria launched a massive surprise attack against Israel. After initial setbacks, especially in the Sinai, the Israelis successfully counterattacked, forcing the two invaders to accept a cease-fire.

Meanwhile, the PLO was consolidating its position as a liberation movement. Palestinian guerrillas launched a steady stream of terrorist acts directed at the Israelis, gaining it a measure of respect in the Arab world, especially after the defeat of Egypt and Syria in the Yom Kipper War. And under Arafat's leadership the PLO began receiving financial and other assistance from other Arab nations.

But a richer and stronger PLO wasn't just fighting Israel. In the early 1970s, the organization tried unsuccessfully to use its base of support among Palestinian refugees in Jordan to overthrow King Hussein ibn Talal and take control of Jordan. It also sided with Arab nationalists in Lebanon when a civil war broke out there in 1975.

Despite all the fighting, the 1970s ended on a more hopeful note. In 1977, Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat made a historic trip to Israel, where he called for the Jewish state to return the Sinai in exchange for peaceful relations between the two nations. The following year, Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin met in the United States under President Jimmy Carter's sponsorship -- at the presidential retreat at Camp David -- where they agreed to full diplomatic relations in exchange for Israel's return of the Sinai to Egypt. In addition, both countries, along with Jordan, were to begin talks on resolving “the Palestinian question.” [13]

The euphoria over the peace agreement was soon overtaken by events. The talks concerning the Palestinians quickly stalled, and Arab militants assassinated Sadat in 1981. The situation worsened the following year, when Israel invaded Lebanon in an effort to destroy the PLO, which was based there. Eight days after the invasion began, Arafat and his fighters were surrounded in the Lebanese capital of Beirut. The PLO survived only after the United States pressured the Israelis to let Arafat and his forces withdraw to Tunis in North Africa.

By 1985, Israel had withdrawn from all but the southernmost sliver of Lebanon -- a 10-mile “security zone” along its own border. But the 1982 invasion of Lebanon had cast Israel as an aggressor, tarnishing its image as a small nation valiantly fighting for its survival. This belief was strengthened after pro-Israel Lebanese soldiers murdered hundreds of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Israel -- and in particular the invasion's architect, Sharon -- were widely denounced for not having prevented the massacres.

In 1987 Israel's image suffered another blow, when a grass-roots rebellion began among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. What became known as the intifada grew out of the Palestinians' anger at what they regarded as unfair Israeli policies in the occupied territories. In particular, they complained of harsh treatment by Israeli soldiers and the expropriation of their land and water for a growing number of Jewish settlements.

The revolt was organized and carried out by young adults and children, who harassed the Israeli army and police mostly by throwing rocks at them. The Israelis found it impossible to contain the unrest and began resorting to more violent methods to put down the revolt. Soon, images of well-armed Israeli soldiers firing on Palestinian children were being beamed around the world, garnering sympathy for the Palestinians and renewed interest in their cause.

In 1988, the U.S. -- over Israeli objections -- opened talks with the PLO in an effort to create the right conditions for a peace process to begin. These efforts were aided by two subsequent events. In 1991, the United States drove Iraq from Kuwait, making the U.S. an indispensable ally for most of the region's Arab states, as well as Israel. And in 1992, Israeli elections brought Yitzhak Rabin and the more dovish Labor Party to power. Rabin and his foreign minister, former Prime Minister Peres, signaled a greater willingness to negotiate with the Palestinians.

Oslo and Beyond

At the behest of the United States, Israelis and Palestinians had been negotiating without much success in Madrid since 1991. Real progress was not made until both sides began meeting secretly in February 1993 in Oslo, Norway. Outside the media spotlight, the two delegations agreed to an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and from the city of Jericho in the West Bank, giving control of these areas to Arafat and the PLO. The final status of the remaining occupied territories was to be decided in talks over the next five years. In September 1993, Arafat and Rabin signed the deal in Washington, and for the first time, an Israeli leader and his Palestinian counterpart shook hands in public in the White House Rose Garden.

The following year, Arafat returned to the occupied territories after 27 years in exile and established the PA. Arafat and his followers were given administrative powers -- from taxation to security -- in areas under their control. By the end of 1994, Rabin and Arafat had agreed to further Israeli pullbacks from Arab population centers in the West Bank, giving the PA at least partial control over most of their own people in the territories.

At about the same time, Israel, building on the momentum of Oslo, established diplomatic relations with Jordan. But as with the 1978 Camp David accords, violence and other factors soon jeopardized progress. On Nov. 4, 1995, an Orthodox Jew who opposed the Oslo agreement assassinated Rabin. Soon after, Palestinians, unhappy with an accommodationist Arafat, set off three powerful bombs in Israel -- two in Jerusalem and one in Tel Aviv -- killing 54 Jews.

The bombings infused the Israeli public with a sense of insecurity, undermining the credibility of Peres, Rabin's successor as prime minister and a key architect of Oslo. In May of 1996, he lost an election to the more conservative Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who promised to end the violence and be tougher with the Palestinians.

Netanyahu's election produced a stalemate in Israeli-Palestinian relations. Although he did not directly repudiate the Oslo Accord, Netanyahu did not regard Arafat as a “strategic partner,” as had his predecessors. In addition, he often closed off access to Israel for Palestinians living in the territories, exacerbating an already difficult economic situation for Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza. [14]

President Bill Clinton presides over the historic handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at the White House on Sept. 13, 1993. The two had just signed the Oslo Accords, giving the Palestinians limited autonomy in certain parts of the occupied territories. (AP Photos/Ron Edmonds)

In an effort to jump-start the peace process, President Clinton in 1998 invited Netanyahu and Arafat to meet at the Wye River Plantation on Maryland's Chesapeake Bay. The talks produced a new agreement, known as the Wye River Memorandum, which required Israel to withdraw from an additional 13 percent of the West Bank in exchange for new security guarantees from the Palestinians. [15]

But, under pressure from religious and settler groups in Israel, Netanyahu delayed implementation of the Wye agreement. Ironically, these same groups deserted his governing coalition, forcing him to call new elections in May 1999 that ultimately brought the Labor Party back to power under Barak, former chief of Israel's armed forces.

Barak quickly moved to reinvigorate the peace process, pushing for talks on the final status of the occupied territories. By the middle of 2000, he was meeting with Arafat at Camp David and hoping for the same kind of breakthrough that Begin and Sadat had had there more than 20 years before.

With President Clinton's direct help, the two sides spent weeks trying to narrow their differences, coming closer to a deal than ever before. But both Barak and Arafat ended up walking away empty-handed. Their differences were just too great to bridge at that time. A subsequent effort near the end of the year also failed to produce an agreement.

As 2000 wound down, Barak found himself in a difficult position. His hopes for a peace deal had evaporated and the intifada had been revived, creating anxiety among war-weary Israelis. Fifteen months after becoming prime minister he lost his job in a snap election to Sharon, who rode to power promising to control Palestinian violence.

[10] Robin Surratt, The Middle East (2000), pp. 25-27.

[11] Martin Gilbert, Israel: A History (1998), pp. 384-395.

[12] Surratt, op. cit., pp. 38-39.

[13] Gilbert, op. cit., p. 492.

[14] Surratt, op. cit., pp. 72-73.

[15] Ibid., pp. 73-74.

Chronology

1940-1950
The founding of the State of Israel sparks ethnic conflict in the region.

1947
The United Nations proposes partitioning Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab sections.

May 14, 1948
The State of Israel is proclaimed by David Ben-Gurion.

May 15, 1948
Arab armies - led by Egypt, Syria and Jordan - invade Israel. By the end of the year, all are defeated.

1957
Yasser Arafat founds al-Fatah, a political and military group devoted to restoring Palestine to Arab rule.

1960-1970
Israel strengthens its position in the region. The Palestinians begin to organize resistance to Israel.

1967
Israel launches a surprise offensive against the Egyptians, Syrians and Jordanians. The “Six Day War” ends with the Israelis in control of the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights.

1969
Arafat takes control of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

1973
The Israelis repulse a surprise attack by Egypt and Syria.

1978
Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin meet at Camp David and agree on the return of the Sinai to Egypt in exchange for normalized relations between Israel and Egypt.

1980-1990
The invasion of Lebanon and the Palestinian uprising soften resistance to negotiating on both sides.

1982
Israel invades Lebanon in an effort to destroy the PLO.

1985
Israel withdraws from all of Lebanon except a 10-mile “security zone” along its border.

1987
The Palestinian intifada, or uprising, begins in the occupied territories.

1990-Present
Israel and the Palestinians make progress in peace efforts but fail to reach a final agreement.

1992
Israeli elections bring Yitzhak Rabin and the more dovish Labor Party to power.

February 1993
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators begin meeting secretly in Oslo, Norway.

September 1993
Arafat and Rabin sign the Oslo Accords in Washington, giving the Palestinians autonomy over much of Gaza and Jericho in the West Bank. The two leaders shake hands publicly for the first time.

November 1995
Rabin is assassinated by an Orthodox Jew. The following May, hard-liner Benjamin Netanyahu is elected prime minister.

1998
Netanyahu and Arafat meet at Wye River Plantation in Maryland and agree to further Israeli withdrawals from the territories. The deal is not implemented.

1999
Labor Party leader Ehud Barak defeats Netanyahu, becoming prime minister.

May 2000
Israel withdraws from its 10-mile “security zone” in Lebanon.

July 2000
Barak and Arafat meet at Camp David to work out a final agreement, but are unsuccessful.

December 2000
Further efforts by Barak and Arafat to secure a peace agreement, encouraged by the departing Clinton administration, end without progress.

February 2001
Hard-liner Ariel Sharon defeats Barak in the race for prime minister.

March, 20, 2001
Sharon meets President George W. Bush in Washington for the first time. Violence on both sides escalates soon after.

Current Situation

Bush's Policy

The United States has long been the most influential player in the Middle East. As a staunch ally of Israel, protector of moderate Arab states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and a restraining force against Iraq and other hard-line regimes, the U.S. is generally regarded as something akin to a local peace officer in the region.

Since World War II, every American administration has played a key role in shaping the course of events in the area. Some presidents, like Jimmy Carter and Richard M. Nixon, have devoted tremendous energy and personal prestige to trying to fix some of the region's difficult problems.

Most recently, then-President Clinton spent weeks at Camp David in July, and again in Washington in December, urging Arafat and Barak to hammer out a final peace agreement. His efforts ultimately failed. But his deep and continuous personal involvement is credited with bringing the parties much closer to a deal than they'd ever been before.

The new Bush administration also has signaled its intention to keep the region a priority. Indeed, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's first foray abroad was to the Middle East, a trip that took him on Feb. 25 to Jerusalem and the West Bank town of Nablus for separate meetings with Sharon and Arafat, respectively. [16]

But President Bush also has indicated that he is not going to be as active a participant in the peace process as Clinton was. For one thing, Powell and Bush have both said that they are not going to try to keep alive the ambitious proposals put forth by Clinton last year.

Bush has said that he believes Clinton was too personally involved in the negotiations. He and his aides have implicitly criticized the former president for trying to impose his own conditions and deadlines on parties that have generations of mistrust and hatred to overcome. [17]

For instance, in a Feb. 8 interview, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said that the administration “shouldn't think of American involvement for the sake of American involvement.” She went on to say that the president or secretary of State should only be involved in the peace process when they can “advance the ball.” [18]

Instead, Rice, Powell and others argue, for now it is better to focus on bringing the violence between the two sides down to more manageable levels. “The best we can hope for in the short term is a reduction in the level of violence,” the secretary said during his trip to the region. [19]

Moreover, Bush and his foreign policy aides have indicated that their top priority in the region, for now anyway, is the Persian Gulf, where Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, still threatens the oil-producing nations on the Arabian Peninsula. A decade earlier the president's father, then-President George Bush, led a U.N. coalition that pushed the Iraqis out of Kuwait. The current President Bush made his intention clear on Feb. 16, when he authorized American and British planes to bomb radar sites in Iraq, a move aimed at sending a new, tougher signal to Hussein.

Many analysts contend that it is too early to say whether the administration's new policy toward Israel and the Palestinians will prove more or less successful than Clinton's. “This administration is still feeling its way in the Middle East, and I don't think we can say at this time that they're on the right or wrong track,” says Touval of SAIS. “It's just too early to tell.”

But some analysts argue that Bush is on the right track. “I think that, so far, his instincts are correct,” Georgetown University's Hudson says. “He's not like Clinton, who focused so much on the peace process and failed. Bush isn't trying to lead the process, but he will be there to follow the parties and step in when he's needed.”

Alterman, of the Institute for Peace, calls Bush much more “realistic” than Clinton. “He realizes that the U.S. can't make the parties do what they don't want to do,” he says. Instead, he says, the American role is to aid the parties in “nailing down the final details” once they've settled most of the big questions. “We can only really help close a deal that the parties want to make.”

The Settlements Question

For many Israeli settlers in the West Bank and Gaza, Sharon's recent election was a godsend. Unlike Barak, who was prepared to cede control over many Jewish enclaves in the occupied territories to the Palestinians, Sharon is seen as unlikely to dismantle any in the near future. Indeed, in a recent position paper, Sharon promised that no settlements would be closed. [20]

“We're very relieved,” said Benny Kashriel, mayor of Maale Adumin, a West Bank settlement near Jerusalem and the largest of its kind in the occupied territories. “We know that Sharon will fight for most of the settlements.” [21]

But for Palestinians, Sharon's settlement policy is a setback. “Even with Barak we didn't have a good offer,” says Bir Zeit University's Tamari, referring to the former prime minister's proposal to remove only smaller settlements in the territories. “And now we have Sharon.”

Sharon has a special tie to the settlement movement, which began when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza after the 1967 war. As Housing minister in the 1980s, he helped build many of the Jewish communities that now dot the occupied territories. And although as Defense minister in 1982 he dismantled a settlement -- Yamit in the Sinai as part of the peace deal with Egypt -- he now claims to regret having done so. [22]

More than 375,000 Israelis now live in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. The vast majority live in East Jerusalem (about 180,000) and in 150 settlements in the West Bank (about 175,000). [23] Most of the West Bank settlers live in large housing complexes near East Jerusalem.

Jewish settlers are a powerful and vocal interest group in Israel, and Israeli prime ministers, regardless of political stripe, ignore them at their own peril. All of Israel's prime ministers, even Barak, have allowed the settlements to expand.

After recapturing East Jerusalem from Jordan during the “Six Day War” in 1967, Israeli soldiers visit the “Wailing Wall,” Judaism's holiest shrine and all that remains of Solomon's temple. The wall is located in the Old City section of East Jerusalem. (AP Photos/Israeli Army)

But the settlements are an obstacle to a final peace deal, according to many Middle East watchers -- Jewish, Arab and otherwise. “Especially in the West Bank, [the Israelis] have put them in very strategic places, making things untenable for the Palestinians living around them,” Zogby says. “The West Bank is all hills, and they have put them atop these hills at chokepoints, where the roads connecting Palestinian towns and villages come together.”

Zogby and others argue that these strategic Jewish communities cannot possibly remain if the Palestinians are to have anything resembling a state. “These smaller settlements in the interior have to go or else Palestinian areas would have no continuity at all,” Mattar says.

SAIS's Touval believes even Sharon understands this. “In his heart, he knows that Israel will have to give up the most exposed settlements in the territories,” he says.

But experts disagree about the fate of the larger Israeli communities in and near East Jerusalem. “If the Israelis are allowed to keep and control all of the settlements in and around municipal East Jerusalem, the city would be cut off from the West Bank,” says Ibish of American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. “And without East Jerusalem, the territorial continuity of the West Bank would be severely compromised.”

In addition, the settlements near and in Jerusalem are built on prime real estate that was unlawfully confiscated from the Palestinians, Ibish says. And although former Prime Minister Barak offered to compensate the Palestinians for the land by giving up some territory in Israel proper, his proposal was not an equitable solution, they say. “He wanted to give the Palestinians some desert in the Negev that the Israelis are currently using as a toxic-waste dump,” Ibish says. “If they want to do some sort of trade, it has to be for comparable land.”

Ibish contends that another possible solution would be for some of the Israeli settlements to remain, but under Palestinian control. “Just as there are many Palestinian Arabs living as permanent residents in Israel, there could be Israelis who live as permanent residents in Palestine.”

But Michael Shapiro, a spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), says that the Israelis will not require their settlers to reside in a Palestinian state. “Every Israeli government has made it clear that these areas would remain under Israeli control,” Shapiro says. “I don't see that position changing because there is agreement on this across the entire political spectrum in Israel.”

[16] Jane Perlez, “Powell, Meeting Both Sides in Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Makes Little Headway,” The New York Times, Feb. 26, 2001.

[17] “Changing Camels in Mid-Dune: Colin Powell Goes to the Middle East,” The Economist, Feb. 24, 2001.

[18] Quoted in Jane Perlez, “Bush Officials Pronounce Clinton Mideast Plan Dead,” The New York Times, Feb. 9, 2001.

[19] Quoted in Jane Perlez, “Powell, Meeting Both Sides in Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” The New York Times, Feb. 26, 2001.

[20] Herb Keinon, “Sharon to Outline Policy to Bush,” The Jerusalem Post, March 9, 2001.

[21] Quoted in Keith Richburg, “Settlers See Sharon as Their Protector,” The Washington Post, Feb. 8, 2001.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Surratt, op. cit., p. 282.

Pro-Con

Should Israel offer a substantial number of Palestinian refugees a 'right of return' to Israel?

JAMES ZOGBY President, Arab American Institute WRITTEN FOR THE CQ RESEARCHER, MARCH 2001 In 1971, I spent several weeks in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon collecting stories of the 1948 exodus. Despite the passage of time, the memories of these refugees remained both vivid and painful. They told of their forced expulsion and their harsh existence in exile. Most retained mementos of their lives in Palestine -- photographs of their families and the deeds and keys to their homes. In every case, there was the intense desire to return -- if only to be able to recall and possibly recapture their lost life, for themselves and their descendents. The United States and the international community have enshrined the rights of refugees in law and covenants. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims the right of every individual to leave and return to his country. Palestinian rights are specifically recognized in United Nations Resolution 194, which affirms the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes or receive compensation if they choose not to return. In his official 1948 report, Swedish Count Bernadotte, the U.N. representative charged with implementing Resolution 194, wrote, “it would be an offense against the principles of elemental justice if these innocent victims . . . were denied the right to return to their homes.” Israeli extremists assassinated Bernadotte. His report went unimplemented, and 50 years later the 850,000 Palestinian refugees of 1948 have grown to more than 5 million. Many have immigrated and assimilated into other countries, but millions remain in camps, insisting on their right to return. They are not, as some apologists for Israel claim, mere pawns in an Arab war. They are real people who have refused to be resettled and have their rights negated. There is no just and lasting solution to the Middle East conflict that fails to recognize this fundamental right. Because reality requires a formula acceptable to both sides, the implementation of the right of return may be negotiated, but the existence of the right itself is non-negotiable. In the end, it is not only a matter of justice and law, it is also an issue of real people and their deepest needs. As a grandmother told me in 1971, “I want to see my home, where my parents and grandparents are buried. The Jews came from Europe saying that for 2000 years they remembered. How then can I forget? For me it has only been 23 years.”

MORTON A. KLEIN National President, Zionist Organization of America WRITTEN FOR THE CQ RESEARCHER, MARCH 2001 If six Arab countries had not invaded Israel in 1948 in an attempt to destroy the newborn state and murder its Jewish citizens, there wouldn't be a single Arab refugee. The Arabs bear all responsibility for causing approximately 600,000 Palestinian Arabs to emigrate; the Arabs must solve the problem. The one Jewish country, Israel, absorbed the 800,000 Jews who were brutally expelled from Arab countries after the 1948 war and stripped of billions of dollars' worth of property; yet the 22 Arab states refused to absorb the 600,000 Arabs who left Israel. They left voluntarily, to get out of the way of the fighting, and most settled a few miles from the towns they left, crossing by foot into Jordan or Gaza. Yet for 53 years, those Arab governments have refused to offer the refugees citizenship. They even blocked United Nations plans to build permanent housing, preferring instead to keep them in refugee camps as a propaganda weapon against Israel. Yasser Arafat's demand that these Arabs be permitted to settle in Israel says a great deal about his real intentions vis-a-vis Israel. For decades, Arafat has loudly protested the idea of Arabs in the territories being “under Israeli rule,” yet he now demands that these Arab “refugees” from around the world be permitted to settle in Israel, “under Israeli rule.” The refugee issue is not a matter of human rights; it is a way to flood Israel with millions of Arabs in order to undermine Israel's survival as a Jewish state. Arafat claims to seek “two states for two peoples” (one Arab state and one Jewish), but what he really wants is two Arab states -- a new Arab state of “Palestine” and an Israel that would soon have an Arab majority. There are 22 Arab countries, with a population of over 200 million, surrounding one Jewish state, with 5 million Jews. The Arab nations together comprise an area almost twice the size of the United States; there is enough room for the Palestinian Arab refugees to settle in any one of them. If there were 22 Jewish countries, one Arab country, and several million Jews living around the world claiming to be refugees, it would be ludicrous for the world to demand that these Jews be settled in the one, tiny Arab country; it is just as ludicrous for the world to demand that the Arab refugees be settled in the one, tiny Jewish state.

Outlook

Prospects for Peace

Decades of often-futile peacemaking efforts in the Middle East have tested the truth of a time-worn maxim: Diplomacy is the art of the possible. The issues are very complex and the parties involved have long histories of mutual hatred to overcome.

And yet, progress has been made, as evidenced by the peace treaties between Israel and her former enemies Egypt and Jordan and the partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from the occupied territories.

Still, for now, the peace process is stalled -- by violence and mutual mistrust. Not surprisingly, both Israelis and Palestinians are declaring that the other side is responsible for the logjam. “The Israelis think that the Palestinians don't want peace and the whole thing was a trick, and the Palestinians think the Israelis don't want peace and that the whole thing was a trick,” says Thomas Smerling of the Israel Policy Forum, a pro-Israel think tank.

In both camps, moderates who drove the peace process forward in the past are in retreat, replaced by hawks who argue that force will accomplish what negotiation failed to bring. “I'm afraid we're going into a bleak and bloody period,” says Georgetown University's Hudson. “I wish I could say otherwise, but I don't see a light at the end of the tunnel, at least [not in the] short term.”

CSIS's Fairbanks also is pessimistic about immediate progress. “Given all of the blood that's been spilled on both sides and the feeling of frustration by the moderates on both sides, I don't think we'll be able to undo the damage that's been done and start again overnight,” he says.

In the long term, however, many observers are optimistic about the ultimate prospects for peace. For one thing, the trend over the years has been toward more diplomacy and less conflict, they say. “When you go back and look at the long-term direction of this whole process, say in the last 25 years, you see a gradual Arab acceptance of Israel,” Smerling says. “Israel has also come a long way, accepting the PLO and the need for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.”

Fairbanks agrees, arguing that everyone involved will eventually cool off and sit back down. “I think both sides have made a strategic judgment that peace is inevitable.”

According to Smerling, the final peace deal will probably redraw the map to look much as it did before Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza 40 years ago.

“The logic of partition will reassert itself, and in the end Israel will return to its borders before the 1967 war, and the Palestinians will make a state from what remains,” he says. “The driving force will be the realization that there are no viable alternatives.”

Regardless of what trouble and violence may come next month or even next year, events will ultimately bring the two sides to a satisfactory solution, Alterman of the Institute of Peace says. “I can see this whole thing being solvable in the next 10 years or so,” he predicts.

But the Heritage Foundation's Phillips is less sanguine. “Ten years is much too optimistic,” he says. “This problem was created over generations, and the peace will be forged over generations.”

Footnotes

[1] Quoted in Mary Curtius, “Sharon Rejects Arafat's Call to Restart Mideast Talks,” Los Angeles Times, March 11, 2001. For background, see David Masci, “Israel at 50,” The CQ Researcher, March 6, 1998, pp. 193-216.

[2] Lally Weymouth, “A New Leader Makes New Distinctions,” The Washington Post, March 11, 2001.

[3] Quoted in Ibid.

[4] Lee Hockstader, “Israeli's Tour of Holy Site Ignites Riot,” The Washington Post, Sept. 29, 2000.

[5] Quoted in Deborah Sontag, “Sharon Takes Reins in Israel,” The New York Times, March 8, 2001.

[6] Deborah Sontag, “Flare-Up of Middle East Violence Continues,” The New York Times, Feb. 12, 2001.

[7] Keith B. Richburg, “Jerusalem Protesters Decry U.S. Proposals; Crowd Insists City Remain Undivided As Israeli Capital,” The Washington Post, Jan. 9, 2001.

[8] “Jerusalem's Split Sovereignty: Time is Running Out for a Definitive Israeli-Palestinian Deal,” The Economist, Sept. 16, 2000.

[9] Quoted in Richard Cohen, “Israel's Answer to Arafat,” The Washington Post, Feb. 8, 2001.

[10] Robin Surratt, The Middle East (2000), pp. 25-27.

[11] Martin Gilbert, Israel: A History (1998), pp. 384-395.

[12] Surratt, op. cit., pp. 38-39.

[13] Gilbert, op. cit., p. 492.

[14] Surratt, op. cit., pp. 72-73.

[15] Ibid., pp. 73-74.

[16] Jane Perlez, “Powell, Meeting Both Sides in Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Makes Little Headway,” The New York Times, Feb. 26, 2001.

[17] “Changing Camels in Mid-Dune: Colin Powell Goes to the Middle East,” The Economist, Feb. 24, 2001.

[18] Quoted in Jane Perlez, “Bush Officials Pronounce Clinton Mideast Plan Dead,” The New York Times, Feb. 9, 2001.

[19] Quoted in Jane Perlez, “Powell, Meeting Both Sides in Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” The New York Times, Feb. 26, 2001.

[20] Herb Keinon, “Sharon to Outline Policy to Bush,” The Jerusalem Post, March 9, 2001.

[21] Quoted in Keith Richburg, “Settlers See Sharon as Their Protector,” The Washington Post, Feb. 8, 2001.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Surratt, op. cit., p. 282.

Bibliography

Books

Gilbert, Martin, Israel: A History, William Morrow and Company, (1998).
Gilbert, one of Britain's most eminent historians, has done a masterful job chronicling the turbulent history of Israel and by extension the Palestinians who live in and around the country. Gilbert is particularly adept at describing the political maneuvering that went into Israel's decisions to make both war and peace at various times during its short history.

Surratt, Robin, The Middle East (Ninth Edition), CQ Press, (2000).
Surratt, formerly with the Middle East Institute, has compiled a thorough reference work on the region's countries as well as an overview of various important factors, such as oil and U.S. policy. The book contains a large, detailed chapter on the Arab-Israeli conflict, from the settlement of Palestine by the early Zionists to the impact of Prime Minister Ehud Barak's election in1999.

Articles

Friedman, Thomas L., “The New Middle East Paradigm,” The New York Times, March 6, 2001.
Friedman, author of the best-selling book about the Middle East, From Beirut to Jerusalem, contends that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's recent offers to the Palestinians shift the responsibility for peace in the region to the Arab world. He argues that in rejecting an offer that met all of their basic demands, the Palestinians chose old hatreds and scapegoating over modernity.

Hockstader, Lee, “To Israelis, Violence Becoming Untenable,” The Washington Post, March 1, 2001.
The article details the Israeli military's thinking on the recent Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in the occupied territories. Some officers are suggesting that Israeli defense forces might have to reoccupy certain areas currently under Palestinian control.

“Jerusalem's Split Sovereignty: Time is Running Out for a Definitive Israel-Palestinian Deal,” The Economist, Sept. 16, 2000.
The article explores the negotiations over Jerusalem, a city sacred to both sides and a major obstacle in Israeli-Palestinian talks.

Masci, David, “Israel at Fifty,” The CQ Researcher, March 6, 1998.
The article explores a number of issues related to the peace process, including the viability of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories.

Perlez, Jane, “Powell Meeting Both Sides in Israel-Palestinian Conflict,” The New York Times, Feb. 26, 2001.
Perlez details U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's first foray into the Middle East and the challenges that await him in the coming months.

Richburg, Keith B., “Settlers See Sharon as Their Protector,” The Washington Post, Feb. 8, 2001.
Richburg explains the debate over Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza in light of Ariel Sharon's election as prime minister.

Lee Hockstader, “Arafat's Challenges from Within,” The Washington Post, Feb. 23, 2001.
The reporters detail how the uprising in the occupied territories is not just directed against the Israelis but also at Palestinian authorities. “Longstanding discontent with Arafat's rule, in a hostile atmosphere encouraged by the clashes with Israel, may be taking a toll on his ability to administer the Gaza and West Bank territory that has been transferred to Palestinian control,” they write.

Sennott, Charles M., “Survivor, Legend, Enigma, Arafat at the Center,” The Boston Globe, Oct. 22, 2000.
Sennott profiles Yasser Arafat, a man capable of magnanimous gestures who is also responsible for authorizing terrorist acts.

Sontag, Deborah, “Old Soldier, New Battle,” The New York Times, Feb. 8, 2001.
The article lays out the challenges facing Ariel Sharon, a man few expected would ever become prime minister of Israel. “Mr. Sharon faces a mined path ahead that requires nimble political, diplomatic and military skills as well as feats of self-control,” Sontag writes.

Weymouth, Lally, “A New Leader Makes New Distinctions,” The Washington Post, March 11, 2001.
Weymouth interviews new Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on his plans for the future of the peace process and other issues.

Next Step

Gaza Strip

Dellios, Hugh, “Israelis See Bin Laden's Hand Creeping Into Gaza Strip,” Chicago Tribune, Sept. 4, 2000, p. N1.
Dedicated to prayer since he was a boy, Nabil Oukal used to drop everything when he heard the daily call to the mosque. Known as a loner, Oukal, now 27, left the Gaza Strip for the first time in1997,setting out for Pakistan, accompanied by other members of a devout Muslim group known for its white turbans and galabiya robes.

Shahin, Mariam, “A Time-Honoured Custom of Arrogance, Theft and Misappropriation,” The Middle East, Jan. 1, 2001, p. 9.
When the infamous Oslo Accords were signed seven years ago, there were 110,000 Jewish settlers living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, excluding East Jerusalem. By December 2000 that number had nearly doubled to 200,000.

Wilkinson, Tracy, “New Route Across Israel Links Major Palestinian Areas; Mideast: Road between Gaza Strip and West Bank is key step in peace process. Hundreds make trip. For many, it is long-sought chance to reunite with family, seek work,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 26, 1999, p. A1.
Israel opened a safe-passage corridor that links the Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip and the West Bank, allowing hundreds of Palestinians for the first time to traverse the Jewish state. Most of the early travelers along the 34-mile route were young men armed with new permits and delighted to abandon the Gaza Strip.

Hamas

“Chronology: Jordan,” Middle East Journal, April 1, 2000, p. 287.
Back in October 1999,in Amman, the lawyer for imprisoned leaders of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) Khalid Mish'al and Ibrahim Gosheh announced that the two had begun a hunger strike for their release.

“Hamas Claims Responsibility for Weekend Suicide Bombing,” Chicago Tribune, March 7, 2001, p. N15.
A Hamas suicide bomber set off an explosion that killed three Israelis, according to an official of the militant organization. The spokesman said the Izzedin al-Kassam group, Hamas' military operations unit, was behind the blast, which also injured dozens of people in the Israeli coastal town of Netanya.

Kelley, Jack, “Hamas Leader Refuses to Accept Cease-Fire Agreement,” USA Today, Oct. 18, 2000, p. 14A.
The founder and spiritual leader of the militant Muslim group Hamas rejected the cease-fire negotiated between Israeli and Palestinian leaders and warned that his militants would use “stones, guns and explosions” to drive Israelis out of the Middle East.

O'Connor, Matt, “Parents of boy Slain in Israel File Suit; Bridgeview man's Alleged Terrorist ties Cited,” Chicago Tribune, May 15, 2000, p. N1.
The parents of a 17-year-old boy who was killed in 1996 in Israel in an alleged attack by Hamas terrorists have filed a $201 million federal lawsuit in Chicago against what they label Hamas-front organizations in the United States that allegedly financed the attack.

Richburg, Keith B., “Arafat Turns to Militants in Uprising; Freed Extremists Become Part of Palestinian 'Resistance,'”, The Washington Post, Oct. 25, 2000, p. A1.
Many radical members of the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, and Islamic Jihad had been imprisoned -- some for months, others on-and-off for years -- by Arafat's Palestinian Authority. But dozens of the militants have been allowed out of their cells within the last three and a half weeks to help Palestinians' “resistance” to Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Intifada

Dellios, Hugh, “Intifada Leaders Await Sharon Crackdown: Many Israelis Also Expect new Chief to use an Iron Fist,” Chicago Tribune, March 11, 2001, p. C4.
Unable to attend his mother's funeral, Kamal Hemeid wondered if he was among the first targets of Ariel Sharon's tougher strategy against the Palestinian intifada. Hemeid's mother was buried the day Sharon took office as Israel's prime minister. But, as leader of the Fatah faction that oversees paramilitary gunmen in the Bethlehem area, Hemeid did not dare drive out to the village where she died.

Colin McMahon, “Intifada's Chaos Tearing at Palestinians; Fury Sows Mistrust, Growing Crime Wave,” Chicago Tribune, Feb. 11, 2001, p. C1.
The growing lawlessness and disintegration of authority plaguing Palestinians on the West Bank came calling on Kamal Hassan Marayta during dinner. As Marayta sat on his patio, his wife by his side, a masked man armed with a pistol approached from behind a palm bush. The man said nothing. He merely pumped seven bullets into Marayta and then fled.

Grossman, Ron, “Angry Youths Embody Peril to Mideast Peace,” Chicago Tribune, Sept. 25, 1998, p. N1.
Neither side wants another intifada, yet the stalemate in peace negotiations persists. A few days ago on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, Arafat phoned several Israeli notables to extend greetings for the Jewish New Year. According to reports in the Israeli press, when he talked with Netanyahu, the two agreed that U.S. help was critical in breaking their impasse.

Nelson, Soraya Sarhaddi, “Intifada Drowns Out Calls to Resume Negotiations Mideast: Uprising forces Arab leaders to choose between advocating peace or heeding popular anger,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 30, 2000, p. A1.
To most Arab leaders, Israel is a state they must make peace with. To most ordinary Arabs, Israel is an occupier and must be forced out of their lands. Three months into the current Palestinian uprising, these divided viewpoints remain a constant in the Arab world, much as they have for the past three decades.

Taheri, Amir, “The new Intifada Unblocks a Dead end,” Middle East Newsfile, Oct. 11, 2000.
The new Intifada pursues a number of important objectives. The first is to inject “people's power” into the Israeli-Palestinian political relationship.

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)

Hoagland, Jim, “The PLO at Home,” The Washington Post, June 18, 2000, p. B7.
Coming home has transformed the Palestine Liberation Organization. Once an inept, faction-ridden exile guerrilla group fighting Israel with terror, the PLO is today an inept, faction-ridden local administration fighting Israel with guile.

Kalman, Matthew, “New PLO Archives Branch in Jerusalem Upsets Israel; Officials Interpret Move as Challenge to Sovereignty,” USA Today, June 16, 2000, p. 26A.
Israeli officials are seething at a decision by Yasser Arafat to establish in East Jerusalem a branch of the Palestinian research center that controls the PLO's most important documents and historical files. Israeli security chiefs say the previously unreported opening of a branch of the PLO Research Center near the Old City is the latest Palestinian attempt to challenge Israel's claim to sovereignty in the city.

Rowley, Storer H., “U.N. Assembly Upgrades PLO's Diplomatic Status: Vote Sends Message to Israel on Peace Talks,” Chicago Tribune, July 8, 1998, p. N3.
As Israelis bickered internally over how much to compromise for peace, a United Nations vote upgrading the PLO's diplomatic status signaled the world's growing impatience with Israel's delays. The U.N. General Assembly brushed aside U.S. and Israeli objections by voting overwhelmingly to grant the Palestine Liberation Organization rights closer to those of a member state, but not the right to vote.

Ariel Sharon

Darwish, Adel, “Who is the Right Wing now?” The Middle East, Nov. 1, 1998, p. 7.
The controversial Gen. Ariel Sharon has been appointed to the post of foreign minister. Coming on the eve of the Washington peace meeting between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, the appointment had different interpretations inside and outside Israel.

Orme, William A., Jr., “The Sharon Victory: Man in the News,” The New York Times, Feb. 7, 2001, p. 1.
When Ariel Sharon was appointed foreign minister by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu two and a half years ago, the promotion was viewed as a last hurrah for a military and political veteran whose career had been declared dead. Now the question is whether Mr. Sharon will confound the critics who say he will only provoke the Arabs to new heights of violence.

Ptaff, William, “Israel's Nihilistic Leadership Choice,” Chicago Tribune, Feb. 13, 2001, p. N15.
No one seems to have noticed that the Palestinians dominate Israel. That may seem a strange judgment, given the disproportion of power between the two, and in view of the quasi-war they are waging. But it is confirmed by the defeat of Ehud Barak and the election of Ariel Sharon as Israel's prime minister.

Shahin, Mariam, “The Coming of the Hawk,” The Middle East, March 1, 2001, p. 4.
Last month, Israel elected 72-year-old Ariel Sharon to power with the biggest landslide in the Jewish state's history. Their choice could not have been less popular among the Palestinians and Israel's Arab neighbours, and with good reason.

Wilkinson, Tracy, “Sharon Swamps Barak in Israeli Vote for Premier Election: The right-wing former general's victory may further roil the peace process. The defeated prime minister resigns as head of the Labor Party and quits parliament,” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 7, 2001, p. A1.
Ariel Sharon, the ironfisted warrior-turned-politician whose name is associated with some of the bloodiest chapters of Israeli history, was elected prime minister in a crushing landslide with a promise to drastically change the way Israel pursues peace.

Wilkinson, Tracy, “To Israelis, Sharon Bears Weight of Past Politics: Some view the ex-general vying to be prime minister as a hero. Others recall bloodshed,” Los Angeles Times, Feb. 3, 2001, p. A1.
The man who seems poised to win election as Israel's prime minister has amassed one of the most controversial records of any figure in the Jewish state today. Ariel Sharon's personal history is intertwined with that of his nation.

Contacts

American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
1150 17th St., N.W., Suite 1100, Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 862-7177
www.aei.org
A research and educational organization that conducts conferences and debates and sponsors research on international affairs.

American Israel Public Affairs Committee
440 1st St., N.W., Suite 660, Washington, D.C. 20001
(202) 639-5200
www.aipac.org
AIPAC is considered the most influential pro-Israel lobbying group in the United States.

Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee
4201 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Suite 300, Washington, D.C. 20008
(202) 244-2990
www.adc.org
The largest Arab-American organization in the United States, ADC works to promote the interests of Arab-Americans, including the resolution of the conflict in the Middle East.

Arab American Institute
1600 K St., N.W., Suite 601, Washington, D.C. 20006,
(202) 429-9210
www.arab-aai.org
The institute works on behalf of Arab-American interests in the United States.

Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
Georgetown University, 241 Intercultural Center, Washington, D.C. 20057
(202) 687-5793
www.georgetown.edu/sfs/programs/ccas
The center sponsors lecture series, seminars and conferences on issues related to the Middle East.

The Heritage Foundation
214 Massachusetts Ave., N.E., Washington, D.C. 20002-4999
(202) 546-4400
www.heritage.org
A public policy research organization that advocates individual freedom, limited government and a strong national defense.

Institute for Palestine Studies
3501 M St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20007
(202) 342-3990
www.ipsjps.org
The institute studies issues affecting Palestinian Arabs.

U.S. Institute of Peace
1200 17th St., N.W., Suite 200, Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 457-1700
www.usip.org
An independent organization created and funded by Congress to promote the peaceful resolution of international conflict through negotiation and mediation.

Washington Institute for Near East Policy
1828 L St., N.W., Suite 1050, Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 452-0650
www.washingtoninstitute.com
The institute conducts research on the Middle East with the aim of promoting debate and improving the effectiveness of U.S. policy in the region.

Zionist Organization of America
4 East 34th St., New York, N.Y. 10016
(212) 481-1500
www.zoa.org
The oldest pro-Israel organization in America, founded in 1897, supports Israel's interests in the United States.

Special Focus

The Enigmatic Yasser Arafat . . . Tyrant or Savior?

In 1974, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat shocked the world when he addressed the U.N. General Assembly sporting a holstered revolver. But that day, the pistol-packing revolutionary had a second surprise for his audience: A speech that called on all sides to search for a peaceful solution to the Palestinian problem.

According to many Middle East analysts, the U.N. speech was quintessential Arafat. He is a paradox, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize who is also responsible for ordering unspeakable terrorist acts.

“He's definitely an enigma,” says Michael Shapiro, a spokesman for the influential America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israel lobbying group. “People never know what he's going to do next.”

But others say that Arafat's unpredictability is one of the reasons he's able to stay a step ahead of the competition in the rough-and-tumble world of Palestinian politics. “He's very good at keeping all of the balls in the air within the Palestinian community and at keeping all of them off balance,” says James Phillips, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

“Ultimately Arafat is a survivor,” says Danny Rubenstein, author of The Mystery of Yasser Arafat. [1]

Arafat's skill as a political tactician may be due at least in part to the fact that his education in the shadowy world of Palestinian revolutionary politics began when he was still a teenager. The Palestinian struggle against Israel came of age around the same time he did, and the two have been constant companions ever since.

Arafat was probably born in Cairo, Egypt, on Aug. 24, 1929. * Abdel Rahman Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al Husseini was the sixth of seven children born to a successful Palestinian merchant and his wife.

Arafat's mother died when he was only 4, and his father sent him to live with an uncle in Jerusalem. It was there, as a teenager, that Arafat first became involved with the Palestinian cause, running guns to Arab fighters before and during the 1948 war that gave birth to Israel.

After the war, Arafat returned to Egypt, where he studied engineering at the University of Cairo. In 1957, after a stint in the Egyptian army, he helped found al Fatah, a guerrilla group dedicated to “liberating” Palestine from the Jews.

At first Arafat's group remained on the sidelines as major states like Egypt and Syria took the lead in efforts to return Palestine to Arab rule. But their defeat during the 1967 “Six Day War” left Fatah and other home-grown Palestinian groups in control of the cause.

In 1969, Arafat took over the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), comprised of Fatah and other pro-Palestinian groups. In the ensuing years, Arafat -- wearing his signature Arab scarf wrapped around his head in such a way as to resemble the shape of Palestine -- became world famous. He also made the PLO a household name by authorizing a series of headline-grabbing terrorist raids, including the famous killing of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.

Arafat is viewed as a paradoxical leader, capable of both generosity and brutality. (Reuters)

During this time, Arafat -- called Abu Amar or “The Father of the Struggle” by his followers -- also changed the ideological tenor of the fight against Israel, from a pan-Arab struggle to one of Palestinian nationalism. “He gave a voice to Palestinian aspirations,” says Jon Alterman, a Middle East expert at the U.S. Institute for Peace, a think tank that promotes conflict resolution.

In 1982, Arafat suffered a setback when Israel invaded Lebanon. The Israelis crossed into Lebanon hoping to destroy the PLO, which was based there at the time. Arafat and his organization barely escaped (to Tunis), but only after U.S. pressure forced the Israelis to let them go.

Lebanon changed Arafat and the PLO. Abu Amar began to seriously consider other ways to carry on the struggle. By the early 1990s, Arafat was no longer fighting the Israelis, but was talking to them.

In 1993, Arafat made history by shaking Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin's hand during a White House Rose Garden ceremony at which he and the Israeli leader signed a peace deal giving the Palestinians autonomy over some parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The following year, Arafat won the Nobel Prize.

Many began to see him in a different, softer light -- a transformation aided by his marriage (for the first time) to a well-to-do Palestinian Christian-turned-Muslim named Suha, a woman half his age. They have a daughter, Zahwa, born in 1995.

But the peace prize and new family haven't convinced everyone that the same Arafat, who spent years promising to destroy Israel, is now a kinder, gentler leader. “I don't think Arafat has changed his spots. He's still a terrorist and is using terrorism to advance his political ends,” Phillips says, referring to recent Palestinian violence.

More important, Phillips contends, Arafat cannot adequately represent his people's needs. “He's very good at maintaining his position, but he has no real vision for the future,” he says. “I don't think he really wants to cut a [peace] deal because his whole reason for being is to continue the struggle against the Israelis. If that were gone his future would be in grave doubt.”

But others argue that Arafat can come to terms with the Israelis. “He's the only one capable of cutting a deal and then leading Palestinian opinion to that deal,” says Alterman. “He may be frustrating at times, but he's the only person who can effectively represent Palestinian aspirations both inside the territories and elsewhere.”

* Arafat's official biography claims he was born in Jerusalem, but his birth certificate lists his birthplace as Cairo.

1 Quoted in Charles M. Sennott, “Survivor, Legend, Enigma: Arafat at the Center,” The Boston Globe, Oct. 22, 2000.

Syria: The Holdout

Of the three major Arab nations that border Israel, only Syria has not come to terms with the 53-year-old Jewish state. Indeed, unlike Jordan and Egypt -- which have diplomatic relations with Israel -- Syria is still formally at war with her southern neighbor.

Syria's complaints against Israel are legion, ranging from Israel's treatment of fellow Arab Palestinians to its surprise attack against the Syrian Air Force in the 1967 “Six Day War.” But Israel's occupation of the Golan Heights -- more than any other action -- prevents the two countries from burying the hatchet.

The Israelis captured Golan during the 1967 war. The small strip of high ground on Syria's southwestern border with Israel has tremendous strategic value for Syria, because it could be used to shell northern Israel. Now the Israelis have officially annexed it and built several Jewish settlements there in an effort to make it a permanent part of Israel.

But in recent years Israel also has shown a willingness to return the territory to Syria. In 1994, then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin proposed a phased withdrawal from Golan in exchange for diplomatic relations and internationally guaranteed demilitarization of the heights. The negotiations went slowly, in part because both Rabin and Syrian President Hafiz al-Assad were very cautious. Rabin's assassination the following year and the election of the more hard-line Benjamin Netanyahu as Israeli prime minister ended chances for a deal.

Today the Syrians say they will not make a separate deal with the Israelis while the Palestinian question remains unresolved. “The Syrians are not going to walk over the Palestinians and sign a deal before they do,” says James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, a pro-Arab advocacy group. “The best we can hope for with Syria and Israel is that they would work on a final agreement simultaneously with Palestinian talks.”

In addition, Syria is not in a position right now to make groundbreaking agreements. The country is still in transition following the death last year of Assad -- who ruled the country with an iron fist for 37 years -- and the ascendancy of his young son and political heir, Bashar.

The new president, a 35-year-old opthalmologist with a more modern outlook than his father, is trying to confront some of Syria's entrenched interests in order to reform the economy and, to a lesser degree, the political system.

“Right now, the younger Assad can't risk making a deal with the Israelis,” says James Phillips, a research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “He's already trying to do difficult things and can't tackle something this big at the same time.”

The Israelis also have a new leader who has shown no real desire to negotiate with Syria. “It's very hard for a small nation to negotiate on two fronts,” said recently elected Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, referring to Israel's preference in dealing with the Palestinians first. [1]

Most analysts expect Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to focus on his country's internal problems -- and not on relations with Israel -- at least for the time being. (Agence France Presse)

In addition, the Israelis blame Syria for violence committed against it by Hezbollah, a group of Shiite guerrillas in the southern part of Lebanon who routinely attack Israeli soldiers and civilians. The Israelis hold the Assad government largely responsible for Hezbollah's actions, because Syria is the dominant power in Lebanon, maintaining 40,000 troops in the country and dominating its government.

Last year, the Israelis withdrew from a 10-mile “security zone” in southern Lebanon, a move that many analysts feel emboldened Hezbollah. Now, Sharon has promised to take a tough stand against the group and its Syrian patrons until the violence stops.

“Sharon might have to send soldiers back into Lebanon if things don't improve,” says Phillips, adding that such a move would almost certainly further increase tensions between the Jewish state and Syria.

Bashar also shows little sign of trying to reduce tensions between the two countries, at least for now. At the recent Arab summit in Amman, Jordan, Syria's new leader characterized Israeli society as “even more racist than the Nazis.” [2]

1 Quoted in Lally Weymouth, “A New Leader Makes New Distinctions,” The Washington Post, March 11, 2001.

2 Quoted in “Arab League Belligerence,” The New York Times, March 29, 2001.

About the Author

David Masci specializes in science, religion and foreign-policy issues. Before joining The CQ Researcher as a staff writer in 1996, he worked as a reporter at Congressional Quarterly's Daily Monitor and CQ Weekly. He holds a law degree from The George Washington University and a BA in medieval history from Syracuse University.