Arabs (97 page)

The fighting finally at an end, Lebanon faced the nearly insurmountable task of reconstruction after fifteen years of civil war. Between 1975 and 1990 an estimated 100,000–200,000 people died, many more were wounded and disabled, and hundreds of thousands were driven to exile. No city had been spared, as whole quarters were reduced to silent streets of shattered buildings. Squatters—refugees from later battles—had taken over habitable buildings abandoned in earlier battles. Utilities had completely broken down in many parts of the country. Private generators provided electricity, running water was sporadic and unhealthy, and raw sewage flowed through the streets, encouraging luxuriant plant growth among the ruins of the war.

The social fabric of Lebanon was no less damaged. Memories of atrocities and of injustices that would never be redressed divided Lebanon’s many communities long after peace had been declared. A combination of reconciliation, amnesia, and a fierce drive to get on with life enabled the Lebanese to act like a nation again. Some have argued that the Lebanese have emerged stronger in their commitment to their nation as a consequence.
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Yet Lebanon remains a volatile country in which the threat of renewed conflict is never far from consciousness.

Saddam Hussein’s invasion, and the American-led war to liberate Kuwait, had the unintended consequence of forcing America to address the long-simmering Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The American government recognized that the Kuwait crisis had placed its Arab allies under tremendous pressure. However cynical, Saddam Hussein’s frequent references to liberating Palestine had earned him widespread popular support across the Arab world and exposed other Arab governments to public condemnation. Arab citizens believed their governments had lost the plot: they should be fighting Israel to liberate Palestine, not fighting Iraq on America’s behalf to liberate Kuwaiti wealth and oil.

America too came under widespread condemnation in the Arab press and public opinion. For years the Americans had supported Israel while it flaunted U.N. resolutions calling for the restoration of occupied Arab lands. In 1990, Israel remained in occupation of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and parts of southern Lebanon. Yet when Iraq invaded Kuwait, America invoked UN Security Council resolutions as though they were sacrosanct. Occupation was either right or wrong, and UN resolutions either were binding or they weren’t. The double standard in treatment of Iraq and Israel as occupiers was self-evident.

President George H. W. Bush rejected Saddam Hussein’s attempts to link an Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait to an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories. But he could not escape the logic of the Iraqi demand. No sooner had the Iraq conflict ended than the Bush administration announced a new Arab-Israeli peace initiative, in March 1991. It was a transparent bid to regain the initiative and demonstrate that, in the New World Order, America could use its power as effectively in peace as in war.

Palestinians greeted the news of the American initiative to restart the peace process with some relief. Their support for Saddam Hussein and his occupation of Kuwait had cost the Palestinians dearly. The international community shunned the PLO, and the Arab Gulf states cut all funding to the Palestinians. Though the Bush administration made clear they had no intention of rewarding the PLO for its stance in the recent conflict, the new peace initiative could only serve to break the Palestinians out of their isolation.

Palestinian activist Sari Nusseibeh celebrated the Bush initiative in his cell in Ramle Prison. Nusseibeh was coming to the end of his three-month sentence, ostensibly for guiding Iraqi Scuds against Israeli targets, when Bush made his announcement in March 1991. The American initiative came as a total surprise to Nusseibeh. “Out of the blue George Bush, Sr., made a stunning policy statement: ‘A comprehensive peace must be grounded in resolution 242 and 338 and the principle of territory for peace.’” Bush went on to link Israeli security to Palestinian rights. And his secretary of state, James Baker, declared Israeli settlements in the West Bank the greatest
obstacle to peace. “I was dancing in my tiny cage after hearing this,” Nusseibeh recalled in his memoirs.
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Some Palestinians were more skeptical of American intentions. Hanan Ashrawi, one of Nusseibeh’s colleagues at Bir Zeit University and a leading Palestinian political activist, dissected the language of Bush’s statement. “The claim was that [Bush] would ‘invest the credibility that the United States had gained in the war in order to bring peace to the region.’ We read that as claiming the spoils of war.” Ashrawi saw the whole peace initiative as an American effort to subordinate the Middle East to its rules. “The claim was that a ‘New World Order’ was emerging with the end of the Cold War and that we were part of it. We read that as a reorganization of our world according to the American blueprint. The claim was that a window of opportunity was opening up for a Middle East reconciliation. We read that as a peephole, a long tunnel, or a trap.”
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The first thing the Americans made clear to the Palestinians was that they would not allow the PLO to play any role in the negotiations. The Israeli government categorically refused to attend any meeting with the PLO, and the Americans were intent on sidelining Yasser Arafat in retribution for his support of Saddam Hussein.

U.S. secretary of state James Baker went to Jerusalem in March 1991 to invite Palestinian leaders from the West Bank and Gaza Strip to take part in a peace conference and negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. The Palestinians saw the Baker initiative as a blatant attempt to create an alternate Palestinian leadership. They wanted no part in undermining the PLO’s internationally recognized position as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. The “insider” political activists wrote to Tunis for official approval from Arafat before agreeing to meet with Baker on March 13.

Eleven Palestinians attended the first meeting, chaired by the Jerusalemite Faisal al-Husseini. The son of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni, whose death in the 1948 battle of al-Qastal marked the defeat of Palestinian resistance to Zionism, Faisal al-Husseini was the scion of one of Jerusalem’s oldest and most respected families. He was also a loyal Fatah member with close ties to Yasser Arafat.

“We are here at the behest of the PLO, our sole legitimate leadership,” al-Husseini began.

“Whom you choose as your leadership is your own business,” Baker responded. “I am looking for Palestinians from the Occupied Territories who are not PLO members and who are willing to enter into direct bilateral two-phased negotiations on the basis of UNSC resolutions 242 and 338 and the principle of land for peace, and who are willing to live in peace with Israel. Are there any in this room?” Baker looked the eleven Palestinians in the face, but they were not to be rushed.

“We must remind you, Mr. Secretary, that we are a people with dignity and pride. We are not defeated, and this is not Safwan Tent,” said Saeb Erakat, referring to the
tent set up by the Americans to negotiate the terms of Iraq’s surrender at the end of the Gulf War. The burly Erakat was an English-trained professor of political science at al-Najah University in Nablus.

“It’s not my fault you backed the losing side,” Baker retorted. “You should tell your leadership not to back the wrong horse; that was absolutely stupid. There’s a big price to be paid.”

“I’ve agreed to come to this meeting to talk about one thing only,” said Haidar Abdel Shafi. A physician and president of the Gaza Medical Association, Abdel Shafi was the senior statesman in the Occupied Territories and had served as speaker of the Palestinian parliament while Gaza was under Egyptian rule, from 1948 to 1967. “Israeli settlement activities in the Occupied Territories must stop. There will be no peace process while the settlements continue. You can count on hearing this from me all the time.”

“Begin negotiations, and the settlements will stop,” Baker responded.

“They must stop before, or we can’t enter the process,” the Palestinian activists replied in chorus.

Secretary Baker recognized that the conversation was turning to negotiation, and that he had found a credible group to represent Palestine at the peace conference. “Now you’re talking business,” he said with some satisfaction.
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That first exchange initiated six months of negotiations between the Americans and the Palestinians that ultimately framed the agenda for the peace conference held in Madrid in October 1992. The Americans moved between the Israelis and Palestinians, trying to bridge nearly irreconcilable positions to ensure a successful conference.

The Israeli government proved a far greater impediment to American peace plans than the Palestinians. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir headed a right-wing Likud coalition that was committed to retaining all of the Occupied Territories, especially East Jerusalem. With the end of the Cold War, Soviet Jews enjoyed the liberty to emigrate to Israel, and the Israeli government was determined to reserve its options on all the land under its control to accommodate the new wave of immigrants. Israel was stepping up its settlement activity both to extend its claim to West Bank territory and to provide new housing for Russian immigrants.

For the Palestinian negotiators, East Jerusalem and the settlements were red line issues: If the Israelis retained all of Jerusalem and allowed continued construction on occupied land in the West Bank, there would be nothing left to discuss. The Palestinians saw the two issues as inextricably linked. “It couldn’t have been an accident that the Israelis wanted to bracket out the settlements and East Jerusalem,” Sari Nusseibeh reflected. “Of the two, the issue of East Jerusalem bothered me most. The fight over Jerusalem was existential, not because it is a magical city but because
it was, and is, the center of our culture, national identity, and memory—things the Israelis had to extirpate if they were to have their way throughout what they called Judea and Samaria [i.e., the West Bank]. As long as we held on to Jerusalem,” Nusseibeh concluded, “I was certain we could resist them everywhere else.”
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The Bush administration showed sympathy for the Palestinian position, and was clearly irritated by the intransigence of Shamir and his Likud government in the lead-up to the Madrid Conference. Nevertheless, in many ways, the United States continued to privilege Israeli demands over Palestinian arguments. The Israelis insisted on the total exclusion of the PLO from the process, that the Palestinians only be allowed to attend the conference as junior partners in a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation, and that no resident of East Jerusalem be accredited to the negotiations. This meant that some of the most influential Palestinians, like Faisal al-Husseini, Hanan Ashrawi, and Sari Nusseibeh, were barred from an official role in the Madrid negotiations. Instead, on Arafat’s suggestion, Husseini and Ashrawi accompanied the official Palestinian delegation, headed by Dr Abdul Shafi, as an unofficial “Guidance Committee.”

In spite of the restrictions, the Palestinian delegation that accompanied the Jordanians to Madrid were the most eloquent and persuasive spokespeople ever to represent their national aspirations on the international stage. Hanan Ashrawi was designated the official spokesperson for the Palestinian delegation. Ashrawi had studied at the American University of Beirut and took her doctorate in English literature from the University of Virginia before returning to teach at Bir Zeit University in the West Bank. A brilliant woman of great eloquence from a Christian family, Ashrawi was the antithesis of the stereotype of a terrorist that many in the West associated with the Palestinian cause.

Once in Madrid, Ashrawi devoted herself to wooing the media, so as to swing coverage in the Palestinians’ favor. Strategically, she knew how important it was for the Palestinian delegation to win over the international press to compensate for their weak position at the negotiating table. Ashrawi showed great ingenuity at putting the Palestinians’ message across in Madrid. When denied access to the official press center, Ashrawi created chaos by convening impromptu press conferences in public spaces that attracted more journalists than any other delegation at Madrid. When Spanish security measure proved too stringent, she took over a municipal park where camera crews could set up beyond the restrictions of the security forces. In one day alone she gave twenty-seven extensive interviews to international television networks. The Israeli delegation’s spokesman, Benjamin Netanyahu, struggled to keep up with the charismatic Palestinian woman who consistently stole the show.

Ashrawi’s most enduring contribution to the Madrid conference was the speech she drafted for Haidar Abdul Shafi to deliver on behalf of the Palestinian delegation
on October 31, 1991. With his grave demeanor and deep, rich voice, Abdul Shafi matched in dignity what Ashrawi’s text conveyed in eloquence. He began with greetings to the assembled dignitaries before launching into the heart of his text, fixing the global audience with his penetrating gaze. “We meet in Madrid, a city with the rich texture of history, to weave together the fabric which joins our past with the future,” he intoned before the assembled Israelis, Arabs, and members of the international community. “Once again, Christian, Moslem, and Jew face the challenge of heralding a new era enshrined in global values of democracy, human rights, freedom, justice, and security. From Madrid we launch this quest for peace, a quest to place the sanctity of human life at the center of our world and to redirect our energies and resources from the pursuit of mutual destruction to the pursuit of joint prosperity, progress, and happiness.”
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Abdul Shafi took care to speak on behalf of all Palestinians, in exile as well as under occupation. “We are here together seeking a just and lasting peace whose cornerstone is freedom for Palestine, justice for the Palestinians, and an end to the occupation of all Palestinian and Arab lands. Only then can we really enjoy together the fruits of peace: prosperity, security and human dignity and freedom.” It was a brilliant debut performance for the Palestinian delegation, making their first appearance on the stage of world diplomacy.