The U.S. has run out of tricks

MAKING MIDEAST PEACE

The U.S. has run out of tricks

By Rami G. Khouri

Published: October 18, 2007

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/17/opinion/edkhouri.php



BEIRUT:



What does it mean when U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says it is time to establish a Palestinian state within a year, for the sake of Palestinian, Israeli and U.S. national interests, and that, "We are not going to tire until I have given my last ounce of energy and my last moment in office [to working for a two-state solution]"?

There is an unreal yet intriguing quality to America's newfound enthusiasm for an instant Palestinian state. It is a welcomed goal - if it were sincere.

Rice's first big problem is that few people in the Middle East believe the United States is sincere because every aspect of Washington's policy during the past seven years flatly contradicts everything President George W. Bush and Rice have stated in recent months about their commitment to creating a Palestinian state.

They seem not to realize that they are now finally paying the price for years of policies of disdain and neglect of Palestinian and Arab rights in favor of broadly supporting Israeli positions.

The United States haughtily gambled on getting away with pursuing a policy of nice words that gravely contradicts its actual destructive policies on the ground. Consequently, most people in the Middle East no longer believe the United States, respect its policies, or fear its power. Anyone who cares to live in the real world can observe this in the defiant behavior of Iran, Syria, Turkey, Hezbollah, Hamas and many other states and popular mass movements that probably comprise 75 percent of the people of this region.

This is not the first time that American presidents and Israeli prime ministers have tried to salvage their damaged reputations by pulling an Arab-Israeli peace rabbit out of the hat at the last minute. It will not work, just as it did not work in the past.

Negotiated, durable peace accords and Palestinian states cannot be ordered like a late night pizza to meet an urgent physical or emotional craving by disoriented fraternity boys.

If the United States suddenly decides it needs Arab partners to help it get out of its messes throughout the Middle East, it will not get them by a change of rhetoric without a change in policy that sheds its years of contempt and disregard for Palestinian and Arab rights.

Washington would be more convincing if it were to commit to the known elements of a negotiated peace that are firmly grounded in UN resolutions and international law. A consistent American affirmation of the illegal and destructive nature of Israeli colonies, settlements and land expropriations, for example, would be a much more effective way to secure Arab respect and diplomatic cooperation than the Bush-Rice policy of supporting in writing Ariel Sharon's colonial policies on settlements and refugees, and then standing by Ehud Olmert's perpetuation of those positions.

The Arab people, and perhaps even a few of their leaders, are totally fed up with being asked to play the role of the rabbit that is pulled out of the hat by American illusionists.

Remarkably, Washington and others still have not grasped perhaps the single most important strategic change that has occurred in the Arab world in the past generation: Many - perhaps most - ordinary Arabs and their political movements have crossed the threshold of fear and passive acquiescence to the power of the United States, Israel and entrenched Arab regimes.

The United States is happy to recognize, laud and ride this phenomenon when, say, Lebanese citizens rally against Syria; but it refuses to see the same defiant, fearless spirit among many more Arabs who rally against the U.S. itself.

Through a combination of strains of resistance - Islamist, nationalist, tribal, sectarian, ethnic, revivalist, democratic and other indigenous movements - most ordinary Arab men and women now behave in a totally different manner than the previous three generations, since the birth of the modern Arab world around 1920: They refuse to bow to foreign ultimatums and threats; refuse to cringe in fear of American, Israeli or British military attacks; refuse to waste time sending petitions to Western leaders asking them to adhere to global rights norms; and they refuse to play smoke-and-mirror deception games designed in Washington and Tel Aviv - or in Tony Blair's wandering mind.

The Arabs will no longer be treated like rabbits to be pulled out of American hats on demand. Grasping this fact, and designing a peace process that is equitable and anchored in law, rather than illusionary and driven by colonial mind-sets and power imbalances, is the right way to get to both a Palestinian state and Israel's secure acceptance in the Middle East.

Rami G. Khouri is director of the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut and editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star. This article was distributed by Agence Global.