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Peace with obstaclesLivio Caputo |
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The death of Arafat on the one hand and the decision of Sharon
to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza on the other have re-kindled
hopes that 2005 may be the year of peace in the Middle East. All
the world’s governors have promised their commitment to
finally solving this problem which has been dragging on for almost
sixty years and has caused thousands of deaths on both sides.
Although the first few weeks of the year have been riddled with
a mixture of high and low points, promising moments and much less
promising moments, there has been confirmation that negotiations
have started up again and that a return to the so-called road
map may actually lead to the birth of the State of Palestine by
the end of 2006. However, before getting too optimistic, we should
remember that just four years ago, at the end of the year 2000,
the Palestinians refused conditions which, after the second bloody
Intifada, Israel is no longer willing to offer. In reality, we
have gone back to before the Oslo Agreements, which we shown to
be fruitless even though they won the Nobel peace Prize for Rabin,
Peres and Arafat, and the matters that have been nonnegotiable
until now have basically remained such. To understand what the
real possibilities of an agreement are, they should be examined
one by one. Livio Caputo |
Solidity of the two governments. The Palestinian Abu Mazen was
elected with 67% of the votes, but against the will of the extremist
groups of Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine, who called him a traitor. Until he gets
the support of the Fatah, the most important party in Palestine,
he does not run the risk of being democratically deposed not even
in July when the legislative elections will follow the presidential
ones. In exchange, he risks being assassinated at any moment,
above all if he should make concessions which the “hard
core” resistance does not approve of once negotiations start
up with Israel. In the Middle East there are people who rate the
probability of Abu Mazen surviving until the end of the peace
process at no more than 50%. 
The
struggle against terrorism. The essential condition posed by Israel
for a return to the road map is the end of terrorist attacks against
its people. For this reason it asks Abu Mazen not only for a negotiated
truce with the extremist organisations who intend continuing the
struggle, but that they be completely dismantled: in other words
he should disarm them, confiscate their weapon deposits, destroy
the Qassam missile factories, arrest whoever continues the attacks.
However, for now, at least, the new President does not have the
strength to disarm the terrorists, above all those based in Gaza
and in the refugee camps; and if he tried to do so, he would firstly
risk losing his credibility with the people and then even triggering
a civil war. 
The problem is that amongst Palestinians and above all amongst
young people, a good twenty percent refuse negotiations with Israel.
They are still convinced that the struggle must continue until
the “Zionist entity” has been destroyed and they are
breeding new shahids, new martyrs, to be used as human bombs against
the Jews. These unshakable fanatics have lost the support of Saddam
Hussein, who offered 10,000 dollars to each kamikaze family, but
continue to have that of Iran, Syria and even unofficially that
of Al Qaeda. Moreover, at the northern border with Lebanon there
remains the threat of the Hezbollah, the Shiite organisation financed
by Teheran who not only periodically showers Galilee with grenades,
but also provides Palestinian terrorists with weapons and explosives.
For now he is only committed to evacuating Gaza and some illegal
settlements in Cisjordan and is probably ready to leave others,
but has no intention to retreat to within the borders of 1967
as Arafat wanted and as Abu Mazen still wants. In the 38 years
which have passed since it took Judea and Samaria from Jordan,
Israel has built cities and villages which now house more than
200,000 inhabitants, above all around Jerusalem, many of whom
have immigrated recently, and who have invested their future there.
Nobody, neither right-wingers or left-wingers, is willing to abandon
these large settlements, such that a defensive barrier enclosing
them has recently been built to defend themselves from suicide
attacks. In exchange, the Jewish state could at best offer them
a piece of Negev or a slice of its territory adjacent to the old
“green line” where there is a large majority of Arabs
(but rather paradoxically, they do not want to relinquish their
Israeli citizenship or the many advantages connected to it). In
order to carry out this operation, there needs to be a great deal
of good will from the Palestinians which cannot even be perceived
in the most conciliating speeches of the new President. The famous
resolution 242 of the Security Council, which the Palestinians
are clinging to, with the backing of the whole Arab world, in
order to request a return to the status quo ante, is not of much
help: According to the language of the report, it actually establishes
the Israeli withdrawal “from the territories” or “from
territories” occupied in the six days’ war. Two obviously
very different things. Status of Jerusalem. This ancient city
has the unfortunate characteristic of being sacred to three religions,
Hebrew, Christian and Islam. If, after the end of the Crusades,
Christians no longer claimed possession (although they actually
maintained it between 1918, the end of the Ottoman Empire, and
1947, the end of the British mandate over Palestine), Jews and
Muslims do not intend relinquishing it at any cost. Between 1947
and 1967, the city was divided into two: The western part belonged
to Israel, the eastern one (including the Wailing Wall, the most
venerated place by the Jews) to Jordan. With the six days’
war it became entirely under control of Israel, which made it
the capital and established its Parliament and government there.
The rest of the world has never formally recognised this state
of affairs, such that the great majority of foreign embassies
(including that of the United States) are still located in Tel
Aviv. But if, for the international community, the problem is
of relative importance, Palestinians and Arabs make it a question
of life or death. They want east Jerusalem to become the capital
of the new State at any cost and even the moderate Abu Mazen talked
of “re-occupying” the city, which houses two of the
most important Islamic mosques and has a very high symbolic value,
during the course of his electoral campaign. It is impossible
for the Palestinians to give it up and it is extremely improbable
that the Israelis will accept a new division of the City, like
a return to the pre-1989 Berlin. There are various forms of internationalisation
or shared sovereignty under discussion, but none seem to be acceptable
to both parties. 
The right of the return of the 1948 refugees. This is what caused
the Camp David agreements to run aground, or – according
to others – the pretext which Arafat clung to when he decided
to turn his back on peace, to launch the second Intifada and attempt
to wear down Israel with a series of terrorist attacks. Amongst
the main claims of the Palestinians there has always been that
of giving those who abandoned the State of Israel 57 years ago
– either of their own free will or by force – or their
descendants the possibility of returning to their own houses.
To prevent this weapon from fading as the years went by, the other
Arab States have always refused to take these refugees, who actually
continue to live – maintained by the UNO at a significant
cost – in camps spread out over Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and
Cisjordan, which is now under Israeli control. In Fiamma Nirenstein’s
latest book, “Progressive anti-Semites”, there is
a very good description of how the camp of Deheisheh has become
a sort of terrorist incubator, a fortress of people who would
never move, even if they had the chance, because they hope to
return one day to cities and villages that the great majority
has never actually seen. Nobody knows very well how many refugees
there are, that is children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren
of refugees, but the Palestine Liberation Organisation speaks
(presumably also counting those who have made a new life in other
parts of the world) of six million people. 
The principle itself of the right to return is thus unacceptable
to all the Israeli parties, without exception, because it is a
question of survival. But even without this condition, the return
of six million or even only six hundred thousand refugees would
be materially impossible. First of all Israel, which now has 7
million inhabitants in a partially desert territory which is smaller
than Lombardy, is neither physically nor economically capable
of absorbing so many new immigrants (who would arrive, above all,
without anything and with hostile feelings). Secondly, in most
cases the houses and the villages where the refugees would like
to return no longer exist, as they have been replaced by new settlements,
factories and modern cultivations.