A time for sober reflection

Date: 24/10/1996

I BELIEVE it is timely to offer a few thoughts on basics which are so often forgotten or consciously ignored.

Of the 48 years of Israeli independence, more than one-third (1948-1967) were spent living within its 1967 borders. Not one Arab state agreed to negotiate a peace with Israel within those borders.

During that period, what are commonly known in Europe as 'the territories' or the 'occupied territories' were under Arab rule. At any time, the Arab world could have given birth to a Palestinian state in the areas under its control.

Two main factors precluded it from doing so: the Arab world did not consider it in its interest for such a state to come into being and the Palestinians did not wish to declare a state in a part of “Palestine”, thus signalling the renunciation of their claim to the whole.

After the six-day war in 1967, Arab leaders met in Khartoum, Sudan, and rejected any idea of negotiating with Israel.

It took another 20 years for the Palestinians to initiate, in 1988, a slow and painful process of recognition. This was at first halting and somewhat vague - and punctuated by events (such as the open joy and identification with the fall of some 40 Scud missiles on Israel during the Gulf War of 1991) that periodically called into question the sincerity of their change of heart.

However, since 1991, the path Israel and its adversaries have been treading has been marked by high hopes and gnawing doubts.

Over the years, the outside world has been faced with two major options in its approach to the Middle East conflict. It could either attempt to absorb the detailed substance of the conflict and dictate its outcome, or it could try to set the stage, leaving the parties themselves to grapple with the issues and hammer out solutions.

For many years, states and super-powers tried the first option. History will recall the Rogers plan of 1969 and the Reagan plan of 1982 as two such American attempts.

Only after the Gulf War, coinciding with the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, were the circumstances created for the Madrid conference in 1991 which set a framework for the parties, but did not pretend to - or aspire to - construct external machinery to adjudicate in disputes and pronounce judgement upon them.

This new approach has so far produced two agreements between Israel and the Palestinians and a peace treaty with Jordan.

The European Union has hitherto sought to complement the process rather than duplicate it. It has found two forms for this support: one a major and invaluable economic underpinning of the Palestinian Authority (an area in which the Union excels as a pioneer in the forefront of international economic cooperation); the other the launch of a Euro-Mediterranean dialogue, an ambitious multilateral exercise which has, up until now, been an unqualified success.

This latter programme, running in parallel to the peace process, is open solely to Euro-Mediterranean countries to the exclusion of all others, including the United States.

Only a couple of weeks ago, the senior forums of this dialogue met with all participants present and conducted two full days of fruitful discussion, almost at the height of the current tensions.

Just as the Barcelona proceedings cannot and should not be duplicated, so the parallel 'peace process' should be left on its own.

The United States has so far resisted attempts to change the 'rules of the game' and it has not encouraged new players to enter the field. Why so, and why this special status for the United States?

Recent experience has shown that none other than Europe itself believes an American role in certain disputes has intrinsic and unique value. American political and military involvement in Bosnia is one such case in point. American presence on the Northern Ireland peace scene is another.

Given the United States' relative success in such troubled areas, one might assume that Europe would support the continued American role in the Middle East peace process, without wishing to duplicate it.

It is understandable from Israel's vantage point that expression be given to European concerns.

However, past experience has shown that detailing positions on substance would not serve a useful purpose because it would create parallel negotiations to those already going on between the parties. It would push the parties further apart rather than bring them together. Israel would have to spend time and energy negotiating and dealing with European claims and counter-claims on matters of dispute between the parties.

Israel would rather suggest that Europe contribute by supporting the application of its own time-tested principles to the Middle East conflict.

Several such principles come to mind: a) Strong support for complete free trade and economic development, and world-wide application of Europe's rejection of third-country restrictive legislation. The Arab economic boycott, still applied by certain countries, could thus be rigorously condemned and practically ignored. b) Universal condemnation of the use of force to achieve political ends. c) Total and unfettered respect for human rights, freedom of religion and free access to all religious shrines, the world over.

An example of what could happen, should the Union leave the main path of declared principles and enter the thick woods of detailed positions, was provided by the EU foreign ministers' Middle East declaration of 2 October.

This declaration deals with the positions of the parties in two distinctly different modes. When referring to Israel's position, it advocates understanding for the country's security needs, without obviously detailing what they might be; when referring to the Palestinians, it lists a host of specific measures which the EU believes should be taken.

Be this obvious difference as it may, the nub of the declaration in my eyes is the section which relates to Jerusalem.

“The EU reaffirms its policy on the status of Jerusalem. East Jerusalem is subject to the principles set out in Resolution 242, notably the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force, and is therefore not under Israeli sovereignty. The Union asserts that the fourth Geneva convention is fully applicable to East Jerusalem, as it is to the other territories under occupation.”

A simple reading of this paragraph must produce the unavoidable conclusion that the EU supports the previous status quo in Jerusalem - in other words, the repartitioning of the Holy City.

Israel has always maintained that in bringing down the walls of separation in 1967, it was ensuring that the city would never again be divided.The assumption in Israel has always been that Europe - which has justifiably and proudly witnessed the collapse of walls of separation and enmity at its very heart - would never support physical repartitioning.

The extreme seriousness of this proposed policy is further aggravated by the preceding sentence, in which the EU calls for “the cessation and reversal of all acts that may affect the status of the holy places in Jerusalem”.

Taken literally, this would entail the rebuilding of walls around the wailing wall and the prohibition of all visits by Jews to their holy shrines in Jerusalem. I assume that this is not what was meant - but this is exactly what was stated.

There is no time frame designated in this section except reference to UN Resolution 242 of 1967. Hence one must assume that the resolution advocates the reversal of every single act since that time.

Taken literally, the Jewish quarter of the old city, razed to the ground in 1948 and maintained as wasteland for close to 20 years, should be evacuated once again and restored to its previous state. Synagogues and religious schools of learning should be demolished and their inhabitants sent into renewed exile. All the many physical changes made by the Muslim religious authorities on the Temple Mount and its immediate vicinity must be undone. Or does the declaration on reversal apply to one side only?

I do not believe that the EU intended its resolutions to be thus interpreted. In order to avoid the danger of such misinterpretation, a declaration of general principles, carefully balancing the legitimate interests of the disputing parties, would be more appreciated.

Indeed, it is a time for sober reflection.

Efraim Halevy has been Israel's ambassador to the European Union since January 1996.