Special Briefing The American Jewish Committee

American Jewish Committee
Wednesday, 29 January 1997

After Hebron: The State of Israeli-Arab Relations

The successful conclusion in mid-January of the Israeli-PLO agreement regarding both Hebron and a timetable for further redeployment appears to have cleared the way for a number of Arab countries to resume the development of peaceful relations with Israel. It has also positioned Israel to attempt to renew its peace process with Syria. But ties with Egypt remain problematic. This briefing looks at the current prospects for advancing Israel's relations with the Arab world.

Positive Gestures

A number of Arab countries that had established relations on a limited basis with Israel before the election of Prime Minister Netanyahu last May effectively froze those relations during the difficult months that preceded the Hebron agreement. They did so as an expression of Arab solidarity with the Palestinians, in view of the lack of progress toward an agreement. Most prominent among these was Oman, whose foreign minister, Yusuf Bin Alawi, officially declared relations to be suspended in December, and whose trade representative in Israel was ordered home to Muscat.

Now, in view of the successful conclusion of the Hebron negotiations, the Omanis have announced a resumption of relations. Morocco's King Hassan sent Netanyahu a congratulatory note -- their first official contact. Tunisia and Qatar also indicated their satisfaction. Preliminary contacts with Yemen were resumed with the visit of an Israeli emissary to Sanaa. (Indeed, relations with non-Arab countries also improved almost overnight: an invitation to Netanyahu to visit Russia was included in a message from Foreign Minister Primakov in praise of the Hebron agreement.)

There can be little doubt that the North African and Gulf states that are situated far from the Israeli-Palestinian hub of the conflict would like to normalize relations with Israel with as few constraints as possible. Just as they feel obliged to freeze or slow down progress when the Arab-Israel peace process gets into trouble, so they hasten to restore the momentum the moment the process registers a new achievement. Jordan, for its part, had never really slowed normalization in a systematic way, but had signaled its distress to Israel by permitting a massive anti-Israeli protest (on the occasion of the opening of an Israeli trade fair in Amman), and through the extraordinary intervention of King Hussein that generated the breakthrough to a successful Hebron agreement. On the other hand, it was precisely that intervention that sent an important message throughout the Arab world: Only an Arab country that maintains open lines of communication with Israel at the highest level can have positive influence on the peace process.

Yet, however important these renewed and restored relationships may be, they are almost certain to be downgraded again, albeit temporarily, as the process moves into the inevitable crises that will emerge in the negotiations yet to come. On a more substantive basis, it is to the two key Arab state participants in the peace process -- Egypt and Syria - that we must look for an indication of prospects for the near future. And here the outlook is far more complex.

Egypt

Egypt's relationship with Israel has been problematic for years. But it reached a new low in recent months when, in the Israeli and American perception, Cairo appeared to be pressuring PLO leader Yasir Arafat to harden his negotiating line with Israel. Indeed the Egyptians, who used to take pride in the mediatory role they played between Israelis and Palestinians, lined up behind -- some in Jerusalem and Washington would say in front of -- the PLO toward the end of the Hebron negotiations. In this context King Hussein's intervention -- encompassed in unprecedented public visits to Gaza and Tel Aviv -- was particularly noteworthy for the contrast it provided to Cairo's diplomatic style.

Egypt was the first Arab country to make peace with Israel. During the years between 1979, when Cairo and Jerusalem signed their peace treaty, and 1991, when the Madrid process began, relations were distinctly lacking in warmth. But it was generally assumed that Egypt would actively promote and welcome additional peace treaties, if only to end its own inter-Arab isolation, and that these would enable Egypt, too, to improve its relationship with Israel. In at least one case, that of Israel and the PLO, Cairo indeed played a critical role in encouraging contacts and negotiations. Yet, by and large, during the past few years relations have not warmed up, and Egypt has appeared to be acting to slow down the progress of reconciliation and peacemaking between Israel and additional Arab actors.

Israeli observers cite a number of reasons for Egypt's aggressive behavior. The most commonly mentioned explanation is the fear, attributed to Cairo, that expansion of Israel's economic and political ties in the region will somehow weaken the hegemonic status that Egypt seeks for itself. For example, Egyptians, and other Arabs, cite Shimon Peres' vision of a New Middle East replete with a regional common market as masking an Israeli drive for Middle East economic dominance.

There are two components to this argument. The first is the assumption that Israel is really capable of achieving regional economic dominance; this appears to be based on a gross exaggeration of Israeli economic capabilities as well as a misunderstanding of its motives which, admittedly, it often fails to explain adequately). The second component is the assumption that Cairo seeks regional hegemony. This is based not only on accounts of heavy-handed Egyptian contacts with other Arab and African countries, but also on statements of Foreign Minister Amr Moussa and the prominent presence in the Egyptian intellectual and foreign policy establishment of neo-Nasserist forces. Egyptian officials deny this allegation. Israelis ask how else they can explain why officials in the Gulf principalities, North Africa and elsewhere have confided to Israeli counterparts that Egypt has pressured them at the highest level to go slow, or that Moussa has admonished them, "Why establish relations with Israel? We Egyptians have had relations for 15 years, and not a single benefit has accrued from them!"

One clearly enunciated Egyptian complaint against Israel concern the latter's nuclear capability, which the Egyptians view as a regionally destabilizing threat that must be brought under supervision within the framework of the peace process. Another consideration, which is generally not acknowledged, is the need apparently felt by the Mubarak regime to find issues that can serve as common denominators with the Islamic opposition and other critics of the regime, thereby enabling it to coopt them. This may also partially explain the regime's tolerance of the widespread reliance in the Egyptian opposition press on anti-Semitic cartoons and motifs in portraying Israel -- a phenomenon that influences non-Egyptian Arab media as well.

In 1995 relations were negatively influenced by revelations - this time in the Israeli media -- that prominent Israeli retired senior officers, some of whom are now active in politics, like Rafael Eitan, were involved in highly questionable incidents during the 1956 and 1967 wars in which Egyptian POWs were killed by Israeli troops. At the time many senior Egyptians were shocked; whatever negative images they had of Israel, and despite the fact that such incidents have been a common feature of Arab treatment of Israeli POWs in war, they testified that they had "never believed the Israeli army could do such things." The late Prime Minister Rabin, under heavy pressure from President Mubarak, agreed to investigate the incidents and report back to the Egyptians. The report has still not been issued; there can be little doubt that, when it is relations will again be negatively affected.

In the sphere of Egyptian-American relations, after 1979 Egypt established a unique position for itself as the one Arab country that had made peace with Israel. This produced huge benefits in terms of in Cairo's aggressive political behavior. Recently, however, members of the U.S. Congress have suggested to Egypt that its increasingly problematic relationship with Israel may begin to affect its status as a recipient of a major portion of America's foreign aid.

One of the most prominent features of the cold peace between Israel and Egypt of the past 15 years or so has been the boycott imposed by Egyptian labor syndicates and intellectual circles on contacts with their Israeli counterparts. Throughout this period people-to-people contacts have been very limited. Since the elections in Israel of late May 1996, a number of prominent Egyptian intellectuals have spearheaded a debate in the media regarding the wisdom of boycotting Israel and its institutions. They argue that the boycott has worked to Egypt's detriment, insofar as it has prevented Egyptians from gaining a basic understanding of Israel, its people and the dynamic of their society. Hence, they note, Egyptians were so surprised by the election results in Israel.

The upshot of this debate thus far has been the emergence of initial, cautious attempts by prominent Egyptians to dialogue with Israelis but by and large only Israelis identified (in Egyptian eyes) with the "peace camp" on the Israeli left and center. To its credit, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry -- seen by many in Israel as the main protagonist of Cairo's anti-Israeli policies -- has encouraged these contacts. It now behooves Israeli leftists to explain to their Egyptian counterparts the necessity of expanding this nascent dialogue to include the "other fifty percent" of Israelis, who elected the current government.

Syria

Damascus presents a radically different case. It and Lebanon, whose relationship with Israel it effectively controls, are the last of Israel's neighbors to remain outside the dynamic of the peace process. Now that a breakthrough has been accomplished between the Netanyahu government and the PLO, and in view of the deterioration that has taken place on the Israeli-Syrian-Lebanese front over the past half year, the attention of all the regional actors, especially the United States and Egypt, is once again focused on the Syrian-Israeli conundrum. And while the fortunes of the Israeli-Palestinian track are now seen by the Arab actors in the Gulf and Maghreb as the principal key to their own progress toward normalization with Israel, any further deterioration with Syria is equally likely to cause them once again to reconsider peace with Israel. And further deterioration is seen by many as a near certainly, unless somehow the Israeli-Syrian process is jump-started.

Here the focus is on the United States, which has been the main mediator between Damascus and Jerusalem for the past three years. Washington clearly wishes to get Israeli-Syrian talks going again. But its task is far more difficult than the recent mediation between Netanyahu and Arafat. Syria points to a series of unofficial understandings that it reached with prime ministers Rabin and Peres prior to March 1996, and insists that negotiations with Netanyahu pick up where his predecessors left off; in particular it wants the new Israeli government to reaffirm Rabin's alleged readiness to withdraw from the entire Golan (in return for peace and security arrangements), all the way to the June 4, 1967, border, along with the principles of a security agreement enshrined in a May 1995 "non-paper."

Netanyahu refuses, citing both an ideological and a procedural reason. From an ideological standpoint, the Likud and most of its coalition allies were elected on the basis of platforms that rejected territorial compromise on the Golan; while some of the coalition partners would probably acquiesce in a partial withdrawal, none will agree to a withdrawal that takes Israel back to the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Procedurally, Netanyahu argues that, because the previous government's understandings with Damascus were unofficial and verbal (or enshrined in a "non-paper"), they are not legally binding upon Israel in the manner of the Oslo agreements, which are legal treaties with third party guarantors and international standing. Recently the Israeli press published the leaked contents of a letter sent to Netanyahu on September 18, 1996, by Secretary of State Christopher, confirming that in Washington's eyes, too, these understandings are not binding.

The "non-paper" in question is the only document written by the two sides in the course of nearly five years of negotiations. It was completed by Israeli and Syrian negotiators, with U.S. mediation, in May 1995, and deals with security issues. It reportedly lists three mutually agreed objectives: to reduce the danger of surprise attack; to reduce or prevent daily frictions along the border; and to reduce the risk of invasion or all-out war. It then follows with four agreed principles for delineating security arrangements. First, the security demands or guarantees of one side must not come at the expense of the other. Secondly, security arrangements will be equal and mutual. If this is impossible from a geographic standpoint, adjustments or trade-offs can be made. Thirdly, security arrangements must correspond with the sovereignty and territorial integrity of each side. And finally, security arrangements will be restricted to relevant areas on both sides of the border.

Limited (and non-binding) as this document is, it is highly controversial in Israeli eyes, and was criticized by some experts who were close to Prime Minister Rabin when he approved it. While the document does appear to contain a Syrian concession, in that it allows for some sort of asymmetrical security arrangements whereby more Syrian than Israeli territory would be demilitarized (negotiators were reportedly discussing a 10 to 6 ratio when negotiations ceased in the spring of 1996), it constrains the geographic extent of security arrangements to such a degree that it does not appear to many Israelis to provide a minimal basis for guaranteeing Israel's security -- for example, through extensive demilitarization and thinning of forces on the Syrian side - in the event of a withdrawal from all or even most of the Golan.

Rabin reportedly dismissed his critics by noting that the chances of a peace breakthrough with the Syrians were in any event negligible; he agreed to the "non-paper" to please Washington and maintain a minimal momentum with the Syrians so they would not interfere with the Oslo process. By the same token, he allegedly acknowledged, in discussions with Christopher in 1994, that a return to the June 4, 1967, border with Syria (meaning Israeli withdrawal even west of the international border, and return of pockets of mandatory Palestinian territory that Syria occupied from 1948 to 1967) could be contemplated. Considerable controversy surrounds the circumstances of this commitment by Rabin, but the most persuasive version indicates that here, too, he sought to satisfy the Americans but did not intend that the commitment be delivered to President Assad; it subsequently was, by Christopher, thereby provoking Rabin's anger.

Whatever the circumstances originally involved, it is the substance of the previous Israeli government's positions regarding borders and security that now constitute Damascus' declared condition for renewing negotiations. The Netanyahu government, as noted, insists - with U.S. backing -- that it is not bound by these positions, and seeks negotiations without preconditions. However, the government's guidelines speak of the Golan Height's as "essential to the security" of Israel, and note that "retaining Israeli sovereignty over the Golan will be the basis of any arrangements with Syria." Syria (and the Israeli opposition) argue that this is, in fact, an Israeli precondition.

In the event, a number of indirect contacts between Syria and Israel have been initiated in recent months with a view to bridging these gaps. One likely formula could be the medium of UN Security Council Resolution 242, with its "territories for peace" formula, along with some indication by Israel that it would agree to at least take into account previous informal agreements.

Israel has also been weighing ways to simplify its negotiating situation with Syria by withdrawing from southern Lebanon -- even without a peace treaty with Lebanon. But it is unlikely that Syria will acquiesce in an Israeli attempt to neutralize the southern Lebanese front, since it is there that Damascus can apply military pressure upon Israel, by means of Hizballah, in a relatively cost-free manner. Beyond these attempts to find a bridging formula or a cosmetic solution to the problem of renewing Israeli-Syrian talks lies the stark reality of Damascus' apparent difficulty in committing to a peace with Israel that involves any sort of far-reaching security and normalization arrangements. If Assad did not accept Rabin's offer of all of the Golan if he refused to meet with Peres, thereby triggering the latter's decision to hold early elections, based on the assumption that a framework peace agreement with Syria was not in the cards -- he will hardly acquiesce in the more limited territorial compromise that Netanyahu is likely to offer.

Conclusion

Thus we come full circle to the Syrian dilemma that Rabin, and will undoubtedly confront Netanyahu: how to maintain a peace process with Syria even if the chances of success are minimal -- if only to ensure regional stability and progress on the Palestinian and other fronts. Until the Madrid process commenced in late 1991, the common wisdom in Israel and most of the Arab Middle East held that, without peace with Syria, no progress with Jordan or the Palestinians would be possible. Events have since proven that thesis to be faulty. Nonetheless, the prospect of stalemate with Syria, coupled with Israel's difficulties with Egypt, would place a heavy burden on an already problematic peace agenda for Israel during the next year or two.

For more information, or to contact American Jewish Committee, see their website at: www.ajc.org