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After the Summit, What?
It's Time for Washington to Help get Arafat Cracking and Syria Aboard
By Christopher Ogden
(TIME, March 25) -- For political symbolism, last week's Sinai summit of solidarity against terrorism was about as good as it gets. That it took
place at all on a week's notice was remarkable. Before the 1993
Oslo accord that opened relations between Israel and the
Palestine Liberation Organization, such a meeting would have
been inconceivable. The marquee collection of Kings, Princes,
Presidents and Prime Ministers gathered at Sharm el-Sheikh was a
worthy global endorsement of a peace process blasted off track
by suicide bombers from Hamas, the radical Palestinian group.
The leaders said all the right things about combatting terrorism
and making moves toward peace irreversible. They were
predictably short on specifics, but to have expected more would
have been unrealistic. O.K., so now what?
So now forget the summit. However admirable it may be
symbolically, its substantive impact will be marginal in a
Middle East where the real story is the unraveling of Israeli
politics by Hamas. A radical minority, Hamas did not take part
in the January elections in which Yasser Arafat won the
presidency of the Palestinian Authority. By opting out, though,
Hamas became politically inconsequential. When, also in January,
Israeli agents assassinated Yehia Ayyash, the group's master
bombmaker, the group was weakened militarily. Israel's decision
to move forward the national elections, originally scheduled for
November, to May 29 added a strain of desperation to Hamas'
strategy. "[Its] goal," says Peter Rodman, director of national
security programs at the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom in
Washington, "is to topple [Shimon] Peres and stop the peace
process, thereby humiliating the P.L.O. and reradicalizing
Palestinians."
Prime Minister Peres is vulnerable. His almost 30-point lead
over hawkish Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu has vanished since
the first bombing, on Feb. 25. Never a soldier, Peres has been
criticized throughout his long political career for being too
eager to compromise on security issues. He did little to counter
that impression in November when he succeeded the assassinated
Yitzhak Rabin as Prime Minister and kept the Defense Ministry
portfolio for himself, instead of giving it to respected former
General Ehud Barak, who was named Foreign Minister. He erred
again by failing initially to include military experts in the
Israeli delegation negotiating with Syria in the U.S. in
December and January. Back-channel communications by Peres
subordinates undercut the Prime Minister's stronger public words
about relinquishing the Golan Heights. Then came the suicide
attacks.
After the four bombings, any Israeli leader would have had to
crack down on the Palestinians. Peres did, but he must now stay
tough, speak clearly to Israelis while convincing Palestinians
that they have a stake in the process and thus must put their
own pressure on extremists.
Palestinians will not decide anything unless and until Arafat
determines whether the Palestinian Authority represents
moderates or radicals. Significantly, Israel in its
nation-building days faced a similar dilemma. In 1948 Prime
Minister David Ben-Gurion ordered the Israeli army to prevent
the landing in Israel of the Altalena, an aging freighter from
Europe carrying 6,000 rifles and machine guns, millions of
rounds of ammunition and 750 supporters of the Jewish radical
group Irgun. Scores were killed in a shoot-out that led to a
short, sharp civil war: Ben-Gurion's Labor government versus
zealots opposed to a Jewish state that did not encompass all of
Palestine and Trans-Jordan. Irgun's leader, of course, was
Menachem Begin, who 29 years later became Israeli Prime
Minister. Arafat might well heed the precedent.
The U.S., the other principal player, has so far reacted to the
recent turmoil with skill. Bill Clinton rightly expedited the
shipment of sophisticated bomb-detection equipment to Israel. By
standing alongside Peres in the desert and in an emotional
visit to Jerusalem, the U.S. President stepped right into the
Israeli political race, and helped his case at home, but no
matter. It was the right moment to back a friend. No country,
after all, is immune. The killing of 62 Israelis is the per
capita equivalent of the U.S.'s losing more than 3,000 Americans
or suffering 18 Oklahoma City bombings in a three-week period.
But the U.S. must press harder: on Syria to stop stalling, on
Arafat to get off the fence. Syria's absence from the summit was
inexcusable. U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher has met
17 times with President Hafez Assad. No more. Assad runs an 18th
century nation. Until he takes a stronger stand against
terrorism, cracks down on Hizballah extremists in southern
Lebanon and stops backing Hamas, he can stew in his backwater.
"It's time to put Assad on ice," says Geoffrey Kemp, former
Middle East specialist on the U.S. National Security Council
staff. The real key is Arafat. Having won his presidency with
88% of the vote, he has a popular mandate. But standing last
week with Peres and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, both of
whose predecessors were assassinated for making peace, may not
have made his decision easier.
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