US ROADMAP FOR WEST ASIA

The Same Old Game For Hegemony

  Harkishan Singh Surjeet

EVOLVED in fact by the Bush administration for Israelis and Palestinians, the “UN roadmap” to establish a durable peace in West Asia looks well intentioned at the first glance. Yet it ignores many vital aspects of the problem.

Let us look at the contours of this roadmap that aims at creating a Palestinian state by 2005 end. It is divided into three phases, with a timeframe for each phase. The first phase, supposed to last till the end of May 2003, will be based on an end to violence by Palestinian groups, political reforms in Palestine, withdrawal of Israeli troops from Palestinian areas, freeze on settlement expansion and elections in Palestine. The second phase will continue from June to December 2003 and is supposed to see the creation of a Palestinian state “with provisional borders,” an international conference on the issue and international monitoring of the roadmap’s implementation. From 2004 will start the third phase --- a second international conference, a permanent status agreement, an end to conflict, and agreements on the issues of final borders, Jerusalem, return of refugees and Jewish settlements. In this period, Arab states too will be asked to sign peace deals with Israel. The two international conferences will see the participation of what has been called “the quartet” (the UN, US, European Union and Russia), plus the Israelis and Palestinians.

But despite all the details about the three phases, the fact remains that the plan is characterised by a number of ambiguities and (probably deliberate) omissions. This thing creates doubts about the real US intention as well as the prospect of a satisfactory implementation of the plan itself.

DISCOMFITING FOR PALESTINIANS

THE first thing to note in this regard is that as the Israeli cabinet endorsed the plan only on Sunday, May 25, there remained only six days for putting its first phase into practice. But one will agree that this is too little a time to effect political reforms, create an election commission and hold “free, open and fair” elections in Palestinian areas.

But still more discomfiting is the stipulation that the Palestinian Authority (PA) will have to curb the “terror” on part of Palestinian groups. This is the basic condition on which depends the fate of the rest of the plan. According to Jeremy Cooke of the BBC, Israelis “are still insisting that without an end to the terror attacks, they will offer the Palestinians precisely nothing.” They have also threatened the Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, that “he is failing to deliver on his promise to crack down on militant groups, such as Hamas or Islamic Jihad” and that unless he “moves too soon, his position and political future would be under serious threat.”

However, apart from the morality of the Palestinian Authority cracking down on its own freedom fighters, the fact also remains that it was given only six days to meet this condition --- a tall order by any means. It simply means that if the Palestinian Authority is unable to curb what the US roadmap dubs as “terror,” the US and Israel will have a chance to blame the Palestinian regime itself for the plan’s failure, and would be able to save their own faces.     

And no less significant is the fact that US leaders like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, 87 per cent of US senators and two third of representatives have jointly asked Bush to bring no pressure on Sharon till the “Palestinian violence” stops.

Next, according to the details given in the roadmap document, the Israelis will be asked the freeze the Jewish settlements in Palestinian areas. But, curiously enough, the government of Israel has been asked to dismantle only those of the settlements that have come up since March 2001. It plainly means that a number of Jewish settlements will still remain in Palestinian areas. The US roadmap thus appears to be a crafty device to legalise the settlements that had illegitimately come up in Palestinian areas before that date --- even if they serve as a cause for conflict in future.  

AMERICAN DUPLICITY

NOR is the roadmap sincere about the issue of Palestinian refugees who are at present leading a sub-human life in foreign territories. The document mentions the term “refugees” at only one place: “permanent status resolution in 2005, including on borders, Jerusalem, refugees, settlements” etc. This means the issue has been left for the “second international conference” envisaged for two years hence. On the other hand, Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon said while addressing his cabinet on May 25 that his government would not allow the Palestinian refugees to return!   

At the same time, as the BBC has reported, “before voting, the cabinet also passed a motion rejecting the Palestinian demand of the right of refugees to return to their former homes in Israel.” So the refugees cannot return to their homes either in Israel or in Palestinian territories!

All this means only one thing. What to talk of getting a chance to play their due role in any future set-up in Palestine, these more than one and a quarter million Palestinians would be condemned to their present miserable life for ever. One must also not forget that a big chunk of these refugees consists of freedom fighters who had to leave their motherland in order to carry out their struggle from abroad. Thus while the roadmap deliberately desists from making any commitment on the refugee issue, Sharon’s May 25 statement appears to be a move to demoralise the freedom fighters and thus cause a setback to the Palestinian aspirations.

Also, the Bush administration has made no unequivocal commitment about the future status of Jerusalem and has left it to the second international conference envisaged in the roadmap.

The roadmap displays a similar duplicity in regard to Arab states. It says the “Arab states (will have to) restore pre-intifada links to Israel (trade offices, etc)” and accept “Israel as a neighbour living in peace and security.” But the document desists from making any firm commitment that the US would ask Israel to return to the Arab states the lands it has captured by force. Instead, it only makes a vague statement about promoting “a comprehensive peace on all tracks, including the Syrian-Israeli and Lebanese-Israeli tracks.”

HARDLINERS ON THE PROWL

YET, as was to be expected, Zionist hardliners are not very happy about this plan even though it is heavily tilted in favour of Israel, to the detriment of the Palestinians and Arabs. Media reports said Sharon faced a tough time from his cabinet colleagues about the plan and could carry the day by a narrow margin. On Monday, May 26, he also faced a tough time in his own Likud Party, when 11 ministers and deputies made blistering attacks on him and the plan. According to the BBC, to have his way he had to tell his critics that “failure to approve the plan…. would lead to a crisis with Washington.”  

But the matter does not end here. The hardliners are still on a prowl, seeking to get a chance to torpedo the process. Settlers in Palestinian areas are holding violent demonstrations and campaigning against the plan. According to The Statesman (May 27), hardliners have planned to hold a big meeting in Jerusalem next week to mobilise opinion against the plan.

These critics include the defence minister Shaul Mofaz who reluctantly voted for Sharon’s motion. Mofaz later termed the plan as “bad for Israel” and told the Army Radio: “We did not vote on an international agreement. In fact, this is not a legal document; there is no sort of commitment here, rather this is a declaration of diplomatic intentions” (The Hindu, May 27). But if the motion voted for by the Israeli cabinet is only a declaration of intentions, it simply means that it is still under a threat from the hardliners.

Sharon too seems to be playing a no less devious game. On May 28, Palestine prime minister Mahmoud Abbas was to meet Sharon in the run-up to their next week’s summit with Bush. But when Abbas asked that the meeting be postponed by a day as he was to meet the Spanish foreign minister, Sharon refused to comply. By the time we go to press, it was not clear if Sharon had relented or not. This is certainly not expected from a head of government!   

ONE MORE PLAN FOR HEGEMONY

THUS, the Middle East is witnessing yet another game plan in pursuance of the US design for world hegemony. During the Iraq war and later, the US adopted threatening postures towards Syria and Jordan, and also towards Iran. These were aimed at making these countries fall in line and stop opposing Israel, the main US crony in the region. And now the US “roadmap for peace in the region” aims not only to make Israel secure but also to force the radical Arab regimes to come under the US tutelage. 

There are enough indications about the real US design in the region. One is that the US proposes to position its “coordinators” in Palestinian territories, and one view is that these “coordinators” are “likely to discreetly position themselves as part of the Palestinian decision making loop, behind the scenes” (The Hindu, May 28).

But a still more sordid fact is that both Americans and Israelis are dead against having any truck with PLO chairman and PA president Yasser Arafat. The reason is simple. Arafat represents the Palestinian people’s genuine aspirations for a homeland and, whatever his vacillations in the past, he is not likely to sacrifice the Palestinian interests at the altar of imperialist designs. It was not without reason that last year the Israeli forces surrounded the PA headquarters in Ramallah and did not allow Arafat to move out for more than five weeks. It was then clear to the whole world that Israelis wanted to kill Arafat somehow and put in his place someone more pliable.

This intense hatred for Arafat still pervades the US-Israeli circles. Now, in his stead, Americans and Israelis want to have Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian negotiator, as he is to them a “moderate face” in Palestinian leadership.

Now that Abbas and Sharon are to meet George Bush next week, it seems that Bush may be able to railroad his hegemonistic design in the region. Yet there is no doubt that whatever agreement they reach, it will be to the detriment of wider Palestinian and Arab interests, just as Egypt and Jordan gave more than they received from their US-brokered Camp David accords with Israel.

There is also no doubt that whatever stand the Arab regimes may take, the Arab people will not take any such American design lightly. Resistance is already growing in the Arab world, particularly after the occupation of Iraq. Several Palestinian groups have announced their intention to intensify the struggle. One may well recall here that, after his accord with Israel, the then Egyptian president Anwar Saadat had to pay for it with his life.

CONCERN ABOUT UNIPOLARITY

NEEDLESS to say, this latest American move is a concern not only for Arabs and Palestinians but for the freedom-loving, peace-loving people the world over. Already there is anxiety in the world about the present-day unipolarity when the USSR is no more and the US imperialists are on a rampage. Russia and China have already come closer to demand a multipolar world. On May 27, when Chinese president Hu Jintao was on a visit to Moscow, he and Russian president Vladimir Putin issued a joint statement expressing concern over the present situation and urged the world peoples to move towards shaping a more secure world. According to The Hindu, May 28, they said the “UN must be given a central role in the post-war reconstruction of Iraq. Proper settlement of the Iraqi problem, which is one of the most complicated problems in the world today, is only possible within the framework of the UN, on the basis of the relevant Security Council resolutions.”

Behind such concerns lies the bitter reality that the US is increasingly marginalising the UN system in world affairs. In the latest roadmap also, even though the US talks of involving the UN in the West Asian peace process and respecting the Security Council resolutions 242, 338 and 1397, the fact is that the basic tenets of the UN mandate of 1948 have been given a short shrift. The 1948 mandate talked of the creation of two states in the Jordan river basin: one Jewish and one Palestinian. But this was not to be, and imperialist conspiracies have kept the Palestinians deprived of a homeland for 55 long years. Even today, the US has not committed anything concrete on issues like refugees, return of occupied lands to the Arabs, and making East Jerusalem the capital of a Palestinian state. Whatever it has said is, as we saw above, excessively vague. Also, most of the Jewish settlements in Palestinian lands will remain as they are. This shows how the US is still trying to sideline the UN system while swearing by its mandate.

But, given the glaring lacunae and deliberate omissions in the latest US peace plan, one thing is almost certain. Even if the US has its way in West Asia, its roadmap is not likely to evolve a democratic solution to the Palestinian problem. This is what would worry the world people who have to raise their voice for a just and durable peace in West Asia.