Hope from the Middle East
Hehir, J. Bryan
WORLD WATCH J. Bryan Hehir HOPE FROM THE MIDDLE EAST TWO PROMISING PACTS T he pattern of world politics in 1993 illustrated just how violent and chaotic the postcold war era could be....
...The Vatican case was always open to reasonable dispute, but it did include issues about the fate of the 9 Palestinians, the criteria for a just settlement of conflicting political claims, and the significance of Jerusalem...
...The effect of the interpenetration of superpower and regional politics was to preclude major initiatives by local actors...
...On December 30, 1993, Israel and the Vatican signed a Fundamental Agreement which opened a new and potentially expansive agenda between two central players in the religiouspolitical dynamic of the Middle East...
...did not claim credit for the decisive shift in the Middle East, and Mr...
...Some of the commentary from Jewish and Catholic sources about the Fundamental Agreement has given scant recognition to the issues which blocked any accord...
...This is not surprising, and it is quite relevant to a broader theme...
...During the cold war it was virtually impossible to separate the politics of the region from the superpower competition...
...The exception to this depressing pattern has been the Middle East...
...The fact that at least some of these issues are precisely the topics addressed in the Declaration of Principles seems not irrelevant to the new turn in Jewish-Catholic relations...
...The broader issue at stake here is whether this limited conception of U.S...
...Even these bold moves, however, were designed to catalyze action by others...
...The PLO had lost its superpower patron with the demise of the cold war and had lost regional support by its policy in the Gulf War...
...There were exceptions: Sadat consciously initiated war with Israel in 1973 in order to bring the United States more directly into the Middle East conflict...
...Israeli and Palestinian families continue to bury their casualties in spite of diplomatic breakthroughs and declarations of principles...
...The Israeli-PLO negotiations were the product of choices made by parties of the Middle East...
...leadership could be effective in other regional conflicts...
...The Israelis had reason to be concerned that, after the Gulf War, the United States seemed principally focused on domestic issues, determined to trim foreign commitments, even foreign assistance to Israel...
...On September 13, 1993, Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization signed the Declaration of Principles which established the framework for addressing the issues that have been at the heart of five wars in the region...
...The product of this rethinking was the Declaration of Principles in which each party made fundamental choices to reverse the pattern of five decades of conflict...
...Regional choices were clearly seen as subordinate to the policies of external actors...
...In a year where Bosnia exploded, Somalia collapsed into chaos, and Haiti deteriorated to the point of civil dissolution, the Middle East produced two major events of hope...
...The result was an intricate pattern of competition and restraint...
...Both found themselves in a new situation...
...Expecting less from external sources, both Israel and the PLO had reason to review their status and interests in the region...
...each superpower had allies in the region, but each had interests that were broader and different from those of its local partner...
...Since the council, the religious dialogue between Catholics and Jews has progressed substantially...
...Neither superpower would allow the other to become the sole arbiter of power and politics in the region...
...Both dimensions deserve attention for they not only reveal the meaning of the new situation in the Middle East, they also reflect larger truths about world politics in the post-cold war age...
...If the political map of the Middle East was changed by the Declaration of Principles, religious relationships were reshaped in equally profound terms by the Fundamental Agreement between Israel and the Vatican...
...In spite of these human tragedies, it is crucial to recognize that the region, which pro8 duced seven wars in the last fifty years and posed a persistent threat of catalyzing a superpower conflict, now stands on the threshold of a new era politically and religiously...
...Freed of the specter of global cataclysm, nations and states, as well as tribes and clans, demonstrated that peace is not the inevitable product of the new order of world affairs...
...The Israeli-PLO agreement is a product of the changing structure of Middle East politics...
...The Israeli political leadership, in the face of significant opposition, struck a new balance in the traditional Israeli calculus of how much territory is needed for Israeli security...
...The significance of the Fundamental Agreement, and the way it complements the Declaration of Principles, is that it may provide a successful model for the future of the new order of states and nations...
...Stransky's article, written before the Fundamental Agreement was signed, identifies the primary motive of the Holy See's policy as the religious relationship to Judaism, "not pragmatic adjustment to a world of religious pluralism or a realpolitik in the community of nations...
...In his very useful summary of Vatican-Israeli relations (America, November 6,1993), the Reverend Thomas Stransky reminds us that Pius XI's refusal to support the Zionist movement was expressed in terms of theological ideas...
...Neither event ended killing or conflict in the region...
...Much of the theology invoked by Pius XI was fundamentally recast in Vatican II's Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions...
...The United States, recognized by all as the dominant external force in the region, played the modest role of legitimizing what the regional actors had initiated...
...The complexity of Bosnia and the dangers of nuclear proliferation on the Korean peninsula seem to require more...
...The relationship of the Catholic church to Judaism, and to its contemporary expression in the secular state of Israel, has been a mix of substantive religious principles and diplomatic (or political) reality...
...The ability to address existing conflicts, and others likely to arise, will require a mix of religious and political diplomacy that is at present in short supply...
...At the same time, both of them recognized that a direct confrontation could escalate beyond their control...
...The collapse of the cold war fundamentally altered this pattern of regional-global relations...
...he then made his dramatic journey to Jerusalem, initiating the process that led to the Camp David accords...
...I believe it is correct to ground Vatican policy in religious themes, but I would give a larger role to diplomatic concerns...
...In a multiplicity of post-cold war conflicts, religion is intrinsically tied to politics...
...Both the Soviet Union and the United States regarded the Middle East as strategically central to their roles in the international system...
...Arafat, long dependent on key Arab states, moved without consulting them, established diplomatic ties with Israel, and sought to recapture political momentum from the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank...
...Religion cannot be considered an external matter to much of contemporary diplomacy...
...The effect of the declaration was to recast Middle East politics...
...The U.S...
...Clinton seemed quite content to preside over the work of others...
...To be sure, the superpowers could be correctly indicted for fueling the regional conflict through arms transfers, but they also contained the aspirations of key states, and, at times, sought (less successfully) to push local parties toward some resolution of fundamental differences...
...The significance of the agreement goes well beyond the juridical language of its fifteen articles...
...The diplomatic dimension was virtually frozen...
...Conflicts that are local in scope, ancient in lineage, and brutal in character defied both the plans of diplomats and minimal standards of humanity...
...the media report incidents of violence and death weekly...
...The Holy See's long interest in the Middle East and its concern to be an actor in the future dialogue about the region is a real moving force in present policy...
Vol. 121 • February 1994 • No. 4
