An Unsteady Mideast 'Framework'
MORGENTHAU, HANS J.
AFTER THE SUMMIT-1 An Unsteady Mideast *Fr3iifrcvvfOFk* by hans 1 morgenthau One of the first things a person trying to orient himself in the world must learn is to distinguish between...
...Peace in the Middle East is a case in point...
...When we focus our attention upon Egypt and Israel as the main actors on the Middle East stage, without regard for the other Arab states and the PLO and the Soviet Union, we are not far removed from considering Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark...
...This is the case, first, because it used its enormous influence and power to pressure Egypt and Israel, and especially the latter, into making concessions they otherwise would not have made...
...However fragile and inconclusive this may turn out to be, the paper it is written on allows Sadat to speak for all Arab states and negotiate a separate peace with Israel...
...He recognized, too, that the Arab states would not be able in the foreseeable future to recover the lost territories, let alone eliminate Israel by war...
...And to perform this dual function, Sadat needed a lever that would enable him to install himself as the spokesman for the Arab cause...
...On the other hand, Israel has declared repeatedly that it will not accept a sovereign Palestinian state...
...If that peace is stable, it will free Israel of its most potent opponent and give it a political and military security no victorious war could provide...
...Those who share neither the conciliatory ends nor the peaceful means of this settlement have it in their power to create conditions of violence uncontrolled by the parties to the accord, and thereby frustrate the hoped-for peace...
...These conflicting claims are what gives the dispute about the Jewish settlements on the West Bank its symbolic and legal significance...
...So would an American military or naval base established somewhere in Israel, tying Israel's military security to that of the U.S...
...Among those nations, the United States today occupies an outstanding position...
...The American promise to build two airfields in the Negev for Israel, in compensation for those in the Sinai surrendered to Egypt at Camp David, falls in this category...
...In other words, the harvest from the summit will depend not only upon the commitments of Egypt and Israel, but also upon the reaction of the other nations directly or indirectly affected by this agreement...
...Anwar Sadat's visit to Jerusalem in November 1977 was hailed not only as the courageous, imaginative, creative act of statesmanship it indeed was, but also as the harbinger of peace—in spite of the fact that Sadat, in his speech to the Knesset, reiterated all the Arab demands Israel had categorically rejected...
...The territorial core of the Palestinian entity is to be the West Bank of the Jordan River, an area both Israel and the Arab states claim sovereignty over...
...drawn up at Camp David entitled "Framework of Peace in the Middle East...
...On the one hand, it recognizes the right of the Palestinians to participate in the determination of their political future...
...One wonders, therefore, how the contradictions are going to be resolved when the parties confront each other alone, feeling embarrassed, if not threatened, by a chorus of complaints from all sides...
...The agreement further promises the Palestinians "full autonomy," and in practice this would hardly be distinguishable from sovereignty...
...And if this is so in general, it is particularly so in politics...
...But should they prove to be effective in their protective function, they would be a provocation to the Arab authorities, who would seek to eliminate them by military means...
...Egypt is currently isolated within the circle of Arab states, but it has gained cooperation with Israel and support from the United States...
...That lever he found in the document Hans J. Morgenthau, a frequent NL contributor, is University Professor of Political Science at the New School for Social Research...
...The military enclaves that the "framework" permits Israel on the West Bank will probably be so circumscribed in their military functions as to be an irritant and source of conflict, rather than a protective device...
...Truth is the first victim of the popular diplomacy whose most spectacular achievement is a multiple embrace on TV...
...The "framework" has not answered clearly, either, the question of who is a Palestinian promised the enjoyment of autonomy...
...The summit could not reconcile these contradictions, even though the influence and power of the United States were present and active in the person of President Carter...
...If one looks at the Middle East without passion, religious or political, one realizes that Sadat's initiative ran up against four fundamental obstacles: a separate peace between Egypt and Israel, the Palestinians, the West Bank, and Jerusalem...
...AFTER THE SUMMIT-1 An Unsteady Mideast *Fr3iifrcvvfOFk* by hans 1 morgenthau One of the first things a person trying to orient himself in the world must learn is to distinguish between appearances and reality, between what seems to be and what is...
...Obviously the inhabitants of the new Palestinian entity will be included, but what about the millions of refugees native to Palestine now living elsewhere...
...Israel, for the very same reason, at the very least will not admit them in toto...
...Conversely, the existence of those settlements and, more particularly, Israel's right to establish new ones, is for the Arab states an impairment, if not a denial, of Arab sovereignty...
...The "framework" concerning the Palestinians suffers from two basic contradictions...
...and second, because it can compensate both sides, again especially Israel, for such concessions...
...Thus Egypt could achieve its goals vis-a-vis Israel solely through negotiations, which—out of respect for the principle of Arab unity—it had to conduct not only in its own name but also in the name of all Arab states present or absent...
...It must be added that the three stars of the Maryland meeting, for political reasons of their own, have promoted this tendency...
...Yet it is precisely the document's vagueness, ambiguity, and in the case of Jerusalem, total absence of solution to the issues outstanding between Israel and the Arabs, that threatens to put in jeopardy the whole settlement, including a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt...
...The Camp David summit has left the issue of Jerusalem as it found it, while evading the issue of the Palestinians by vagueness and the issue of the West Bank by ambiguity...
...In trying to assess the prospects and potentialities of the settlement negotiated at Camp David, moreover, one cannot forget that only two of the immediately concerned parties have commited themselves to it...
...The rapprochement between Egypt and Israel and the predominant position of the United States have changed the whole structure of power alignments in the Middle East...
...The pivotal position of the United States, though, is not likely to go unchallenged...
...Sadat recognized that seeking an overall Middle Eastern settlement acceptable to the Arab states is incompatible with the position most of them have taken: that Israel ought not to exist at all...
...Similarly, the summit at Camp David has been greeted with an enthusiasm that owes more to emotions and wishful thinking than to a rational assessment of what has been achieved and what remains to be done...
...Very soon, an intractable reality deflated the euphoria engendered by the Egyptian President's trip...
...In doing this, it has created the appearance of a design for an overall settlement, which in turn has facilitated the conclusion of an Egyptian-Israeli treaty...
...Thus whatever may ensue from Camp David, it is almost certain to produce new alignments and new problems in the Middle East...
...The Arabs who planned the Palestinian entity as an instrument for Israel's destruction would like to include them...
...Israel no longer faces the ostracism of a united Arab front, but has more interests in common with Egypt than that country has with some Arab states...
...The Soviet Union or China might well be willing to fill the need for outside support that has been forcefully brought to the attention of the Arab states opposed to both Egypt and Israel...
...For Israel, the existence of those settlements and their continuous development is a manifestation of its sovereignty over the territory where they are located...
...For the inevitable distortions of reality issuing from the fallibility of human nature are in the political realm reinforced by the conscious design of the actor or the bystander, as the case may be, to make situations look different—better or worse—than they actually are...
Vol. 61 • October 1978 • No. 20
