Policy Analysis:
Clinton and the Middle East Peace Process
Introduction
The problem of the Middle East has existed since Biblical times. Palestinians and Jews lived peacefully until the twentieth century, when the British took over the land from the Ottoman Turks, as part of the Balfour Declaration. Since then, conflict has been the constant, peace the exception. After World War II, the State of Israel was created, and the fighting reached a new level. The State of Israel had to fight a war one day after its independence, and it has fought multiple wars against its neighbors since that time. American engagement in the region has been a reality since the creation of Israel, often with the United States echoing the policies of Israel. President Jimmy Carter oversaw the first peace agreement with Israel and an Arab nation, Egypt, at the Camp David summit. Involvement in the Middle East by American Presidents steadily increased, leading into the Presidency of Bill Clinton.
President Clinton was the most engaged American president in the history of the Middle East. He held multiple summits, attempting to have Israel sign peace agreements with each of its Arab neighbors. However, engagement does not necessarily mean creative policy or activity. Israel and the Palestinians signed an agreement, known as the Oslo Accords, but it was a largely ineffectual document; neither side held to the agreement. Clinton kept the talks going, but nothing substantial ever materialized. Clinton tried his hardest, but did not impose his presidential power upon any party, and thus Clinton’s Middle East policy can be characterized as largely a failure.
The Problem
Before Foreign Intervention, and its Beginnings
Both the Israelis and the Palestinians claim the same tract of land as their own. Both civilizations lived in relative peace until the early twentieth century. However, neither party recognizes the legitimacy of the other in negotiating a peaceful resolution to the dispute over the land of Palestine today. Both sides “insist on…demonizing their adversary, as if the rightness of their cause were justified primarily by the villainy of the opposing party and only secondarily by their own ideals and achievements” (Tessler xi). Neither side, Israeli nor Palestinian, can be recognized today as Jew or Arab merely by religious affiliation or race, but rather as political communities believing in their “chosenness” (Tessler 13) for ownership and control of the land. The Palestinians and the Israelis both have a history of owning land in the region, and both factions were dead set on asserting control over the land in the region when Clinton took office. This issue is still a contentious one, as neither side has yet to take the initiative and negotiate with the other.
The Palestinians are the first true inhabitants of the land of Palestine. “[They] are descendants of two ancient peoples, the Canaanites and the Philistines. The former are the earliest known inhabitants of Palestine…they entered the country about 3000 BCE [Before the Christian Era]” (Tessler 69). The land of Palestine derives its name from the Philistines, who entered the land around 1200 BCE. The Palestinian people “traced its evolution” (Tessler 69) along with the cultural history of the Arab nations; this history has created a centuries-long strategic alliance between the Palestinians and the Arab nations.
The original assimilation of the Palestinians into the Arab coalition did not involve Islamic fundamentalism, or the religion of Islam itself. Islam is not on the scene until 600 CE (Christian Era). “The primary motive which inspired the Arab conquest was economic” (Parkes 62). The Arab invasion, like any other major imperial empire of the time, concentrated more on collecting taxes than on colonial assimilation. In fact, during the sixth century CE, the Arab system of taxation of its subjects had to be revised due to an acceptance of the Islamic faith by a large portion of the population. The religion of Islam, at the beginning of its expansion, was renowned for its tolerance, in contrast to the dominant characteristics of Orthodox Christianity and Judaism. (Parkes 63)
The Jews, or modern-day Israelis, have inhabited the region since the thirteenth century BCE. They, according to biblical accounts, conquered the area surrounding the Jordan River and the Dead Sea. “David, who ruled until 960 BCE, greatly expanded…the Israelite Kingdom” (Tessler 8). After his death, the large kingdom of David fell apart. The Kingdom eventually split in two, with the Kingdom of Judea in the south and the Kingdom of Israel in the north. Outsiders invaded both kingdoms; “the northern half fell…to Assyria in 721 BCE and the southern to Babylon in 586” (Parkes 23). The Jewish people largely spread throughout the world after the Babylonian invasion, but Jewish life “slowly revived in Palestine, particularly after Cyrus conquered Babylon in 538 BCE” (Tessler 11). However, the destruction of the Second Temple by the Roman invasion in 63 BCE saw the end of strong Israeli influence over the region until the advent of the political Zionists of the modern era.
The Jewish people have a strong sense of identity and believe themselves to be “the people chosen to receive the Holy Testament” (Tessler 7). This Holy Testament unites the people insomuch as their religiosity is intertwined with their sense of community. Without one, there cannot be the other. Further, “Jewish doctrine asserts that God has granted His chosen people dominion over the land of Israel, Eretz Yisrael, in order they possess a country in which to construct a commonwealth based on His law” (Tessler 7). This argument had not caused a problem with the Palestinians until the twentieth century.
The Modern Era
The current crisis between the Jewish and Palestinian people largely began after the First World War. Prior to the war, the region was a protectorate of the Ottoman Empire, which was seen as “corrupt and indifferent” (Tessler 123). After the war, with the Allied victory, the Balfour Declaration “established a unit called Palestine on the political map” (Parkes 256). However, the Declaration did not establish a Jewish state, to the dismay of the Zionists. It created a state for both Arabs and Jews, under the name Palestine, in which Jews were a tiny minority of the population. Balfour, of Great Britain, according to Tessler, had the intention of “[rallying] the United States to the Allied war effort. Jews were believed to be influential in the US…” (149). The British were creating their own sphere of influence in the region, trying to rival the French presence in Syria (Tessler 150). After the establishment of the League of Nations, Palestine became a Mandate of Britain under the League of Nations.
The Mandate was a problem from the beginning. After seeing a large Arab opposition to the Declaration, before the mandate, then Colonial Secretary William Churchill issued a White Paper, representing the opinion of the British government, which stated:
Phrases have been used such as that Palestine is to become ‘as Jewish as England is English.’ His Majesty’s Government regard any such expectation as impracticable and have no such aim in their view…The terms of the Declaration referred to do not contemplate that that Palestine as a whole should be converted into a Jewish National Home, but that such a Home should be founded in Palestine. (Qtd in Parkes 262)
The Mandate called for the creation of a governmental agency for Jews, and not one for Arabs. Immediately, resentment for the British by the Arabs began. However, Zionists, in the form of violent and provocative propaganda, called for the reestablishment of a two-thousand year old claim for the land. The Zionists left themselves open to the criticism by anti-Zionists to portray them to the rest of the world as trying to turn what was an ‘Arab’ territory for centuries into a ‘Jewish’ one. (Parkes 266) In 1929, full-scale riots began due to the Arab leaders’ use of religious fanaticism to sway public opinion. According to Tessler, “Violent incidents between Jews and Arabs by this time had become common…Jews [were] being attacked in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Safad, Hebron and elsewhere.” (234) Thus began the unraveling of British control of the region.
The British ended their commitment to the Jews of the region in 1939. The new white paper, published in 1939, called for the “establishment of a Palestinian (Arab) state within ten years and the appointment of Palestinian ministers to begin taking over the government…” (Cohen 93). The Yishuv, the Jewish community in Palestine, openly rebelled against the British government. At the same time, the Palestinian Arabs did not approve of the white paper either. They complained about the ability for Jews to continue immigrating into the region. There were quotas—and the outright ban of Jewish immigration five years after the white paper was issued—but that did not satisfy the Arab street, in addition to the already angry Palestinian Arabs.
The years of the Second World War were no better for the relations between the Arabs and the Jews. The Zionists, led by David Ben-Gurion, decided to start abandoning the hope of gaining their own homeland from the British, and concentrated on the United States (Cohen 98). At a 1942 conference known as the Biltmore Program in New York, Ben-Gurion and the radical wing of the Zionist movement took control over the ideology of the Zionists. In 1944, Ben-Gurion sent a memo to the British government “declaring it was opposed to establishing a Jewish state over only part of Palestine” (Tessler 252). The Arabs fared better than the Jews did during the war. The Arabs were largely disorganized and leaderless, and their revolution against the British Mandate had ended, yet their campaign against “Zionist aspirations” (Tessler 253) continued as vigorously as ever. The Arab mufti of Jerusalem, al-Husayni, was overtly anti-Semitic (anti-Jew) in his rhetoric. He met Hitler and “agreed that Germans and Arabs had the same enemies” (Tessler 253). With the end of the War, Britain relinquished its mandate over the region, which left a major power vacuum in the area in 1945. (Cohen 106)
The next big event in the evolution of the situation involving the land occurs in 1948. “By March 1948 the whole country was in disorder, and little ‘law and order’ was maintained anywhere” (Parkes 300). There was total anarchy in the region, but the atmosphere of change was obvious. On 14 May 1948, the whole dynamic of the region changed. The declaration of independence by Israel and the “de facto recognition” (Cohen 131) by President Truman led to Israel’s recognition by the United Nations in May 1949, when “the State of Israel became the fifty-ninth member of the United Nations” (Tessler 269). The next day, 15 May 1948, “five Arab regular armies—those of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon” (Rubinstein 42) invaded the new State of Israel. After initial struggles, the Israeli army defeated the armies of the Arab nations, and they signed armistice agreements in January 1949.
The next major conflict of the area involved Israel and Egypt. Throughout the 1950s, the Egyptians slowly were ratcheting up the conflict by blocking the Gulf of Tiran and the Suez Canal, creating a calamitous situation for the Israeli shipping and trade industries. This, and other problems with Egypt, led Israel in October 1956, “in collusion with Britain and France, [to attack] Egypt” (Rubinstein 46). The Israelis saw this as a defensive war, not a preemptive one, as the rest of the world believed. Egypt counterattacked using guerilla tactics. They sought to “organize and equip squads of Palestinian commandos, known as fedayeen, and to send these units across the Gaza border into Israel” (Tessler 346). These guerilla attacks often involved the targeting of civilians. After a four-day military campaign, the war ended in a total victory for the Israelis—Egypt had to “accept a ceasefire with foreign troops occupying large portions of its territory” (Tessler 349). Slowly, incrementally, the Israelis gave up the occupied land for assurances of peace from Cairo.
Conflict was chronic in the region during the twentieth century, and the next major clash occurred in 1967. The diplomatic relations between Israel and Egypt again became increasingly strained. Other Arab officials, including the President of Iraq, used inflammatory rhetoric often to rally its people against the “error” (Tessler 393) of creating the State of Israel. Egypt demanded that the UN Forces pull out of its territory. The United Nations Secretary-General complied without objection from the United States and the Soviet Union, which were the two superpowers at the time. In addition, Egypt mobilized its military in the Sinai, attempting to mount an attack on Israel. The Israeli government, the Knesset, noticed the anxiety in the people of Israel, but tied in a vote of whether or not to go to war on 27 May, resulting in continued diplomacy.
The next convening of the Israeli cabinet, on 2 June, led to a new vote, and a new decision. By 5 June, Israel “carried out a devastating attack against its Arab neighbors” (Tessler 397). Within hours, the certainty of Israeli victory was apparent. The Israelis attacked the airfields of Egypt and seized the entire Sinai Peninsula, took over the West Bank from Jordan, and captured the Golan Heights from Syria. This all occurred within the period of 144 hours, or six days; thus the war of 1967 is universally known as the Six-Day War. The War was a resounding victory by the Israelis, and changed the dynamic of the region forever.
Skirmishes continued between Israel and Egypt, but they paled compared to the next major war. Commonly called the Yom Kippur War by the Israelis, or the Ramadan War by the Egyptians, a surprise attack by Egypt and Syria occurred “in the early afternoon of [5 October 1973] (that year it was the Jewish Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur)” (Rubinstein 57). The Israeli military that the Arab nations encountered was largely unprepared and out of equipment. Egypt’s new President, Anwar al-Sadat, used deception and surprise to launch the attack, and initially, it worked. After three days, the attack launched by Egypt and Syria resulted in the nations reclaiming most of the land they had lost six years earlier. Israel regrouped and counterattacked by concentrating on the Golan front. According to Rabinovitch, Syria assumed that Egypt would demand a cease-fire immediately after seizing the territory, and thus had only prepared for three or four days of warfare. Israel pushed Syria back beyond the 1967 border into a region known as “the salient.” In regards to Egypt, Prime Minister Golda Meir decided, along with Washington, that the route to victory was an attack on the Egyptian mainland (Rubinstein 58). The result was an inconclusive one for Israel, filled with both positives and negatives. They maintained their stake in the Golan Heights, but lost most of the Suez Canal. Israel had also sustained many casualties, and the Arabs, specifically the plight of Palestinians, gained international influence.
A new direction began in the region during the late 1970s. Newly sworn-in President Jimmy Carter started this by meeting with President Anwar al-Sadat in the days following his inauguration. Al-Sadat, like all the other Arab leaders of the time, said that peace with Israel was contingent on a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem (Tessler 510). Jimmy Carter had taken a pro-Israel position during the presidential campaign, yet after meeting with Al-Sadat, he was more even-handed in his policy position. Meetings between Carter and Begin went nowhere, due to Begin’s unwillingness to acknowledge the Palestinians as a people (Tessler 510). Carter had felt that Al-Sadat was making a major overture of peace, but Begin was not budging. President Carter invited both leaders to Camp David in Washington to work out a peaceful agreement.
In 1978, the activity began. “The Camp David summit convened on [5 September] and lasted until the 17th of the month.” However, negotiations were not going well; it deteriorated to the point that by the tenth day, Begin and Sadat were not even speaking to each other (Tessler 511). Despite this, the negotiations resulted in the first formal peace between Israel and an Arab nation, but the agreement was superficial at best. The leaders agreed on a few minor points, but two major issues were not settled. Begin refused to withdraw from the West Bank or Gaza. In addition, Begin refused to withdraw completely from the Sinai Peninsula; he did not want to give up the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) airfields or the Jewish settlements on the land. On the 15th, Sadat gave up and was about to go back to Egypt, but Carter convinced him to stay. It turned out that Begin gave up the Sinai settlements and the airfields as a price to pay for peace, but only if the US paid to replace them (Tessler 511). A formal peace agreement between the two nations, witnessed by President Carter, was signed on 26 March 1979.
The 1980s were a poor time for the Arab-Israeli peace process. After the high of the signing of the Camp David Accords, their application was rocky at best. After the Accords were signed, there were at least five more summits, in which “nothing of real substance was accomplished” (Tessler 531). According to Tessler, Cairo accused Begin of unilaterally taking the teeth out of the Accords when he, and the Israeli Knesset, passed “a motion to legalize further annexation of East Jerusalem” (Tessler 531). Sadat, after the motion, suspended talks on 8 May 1980. Egypt realized that they could not change Israel’s policy towards Gaza and the West Bank through its own diplomacy, and thus ended the talks, resulting in a “cold” peace.
President Ronald Reagan proposed a plan, but the Israelis rebuked it. President Reagan’s Secretary of State Alexander Haig advanced an archaic policy based on Cold War premises from the 1950s. According to Ann Lesch, “Reagan assumed the Presidency in 1981 with a clear, overriding preoccupation with the Soviet Union” (Lesch 177). Haig and Reagan believed that the Israelis and Arabs had a common enemy in the Soviet Union, and that they should join together in defense of the “Evil Empire.” Reagan formally announced a plan on 1 September 1982. He called for a five-year transitional period for the West Bank and Gaza—based on the Camp David Accords— but did not call for an independent Palestinian state. Reagan also called for a settlement freeze, and stated that the US would not support an annexation of land by Israel (Lesch 179). The Israeli government immediately rejected it, justifying their rejection by claiming that UNSCR (United Nations Security Council Resolution) 242 does not have jurisdiction over Gaza and the West Bank.
Violence spiraled out of control. The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), based in Lebanon, led by Yasser Arafat, began killing Israeli civilians via acts of terrorism. The PLO was sending mortar shells across the Lebanese border, killing large numbers of civilians. This was in the middle of a Lebanese civil war, and the Israelis were seeing an increasing justification for intervention. The Israelis shot back, but did not initially call for an all-out invasion. A full-scale invasion of Lebanon began on 6 June 1982. The direct cause for the war, according to Tessler, was the attack on the Israeli ambassador to Great Britain, Shlomo Argov. “A Palestinian gunman fired at Argov from close range and gravely wounded the Israeli diplomat as he emerged from a banquet…” (Tessler 570). At the same time, Tessler sees the attack on Argov as an aberration, claiming that the Palestinians were showing restraint during the previous eleven months, and the Israelis were determined to “clean out PLO strongholds in southern Lebanon” (Tessler 571).
Yaacov Lozowick sees it differently; he characterizes the Israeli intervention in response to attacks from the PLO as an act of self-defense. However, he refers to the implemented policy as “the nadir of Israeli behavior” (Lozowick 166). Begin intended to “massively invade Lebanon, overpowering anyone who got in the way, clearing PLO bases out of the South…” (Lozowick 167). This policy was to implement regime change and install a pro-Israeli leader at the helm in Lebanon. In addition, the Israeli choice to lead Lebanon, Bashir Gemayel, was to put an end to the civil war and declare Lebanon independent from Syria. The war was endorsed by exactly half of the Knesset (Lozowick 167). The invasion led to the mass killing of Lebanese civilians, with casualties numbering close to thirty thousand, and despite the fact that propaganda was used to inflate the numbers of the dead, the footage of Israeli troops massacring Lebanese civilians was enough to receive a condemnation from the Europeans, as well as Arab and Third World countries. Worse, Gemayel was assassinated in an arranged killing by Syria, and Begin admitted that the war was one of choice. Lozowick concluded that the war was a complete failure, going so far as to deride it as a catastrophe (Lozowick 169).
During the early 1980s, Defense Minister Ariel Sharon was the principal pursuer of a push for settlement in the West Bank and Gaza. He wanted to establish Jewish strongholds in predominately Palestinian areas; thus expanding the land belonging to the Israelis. In fact, Sharon pushes the settlements so hard that he offers “financial resources for development projects…” (Tessler 551). The Israelis even allow the settlers to bypass the local government in their own municipalities, creating yet another incentive to settle and undermine the Palestinians. Tessler argues that the settlements were intended to speak for the Palestinians, but the settlements increasingly isolated themselves, both for security and allegiance to Israel (Tessler 552).
After the debacle of Lebanon, Reagan pursued a one-dimensional policy directive towards the Middle East—total and unequivocal support towards Israel. Twenty-four military accords were signed between the two countries by 1987. Israel made it to the status of non-NATO ally, and covertly supported Reagan’s military policies towards Iran and Central America—Israel was a pivotal intermediary in the Iran side of the Iran-Contra scandal that plagued Reagan’s second term.
In December 1987, the first Arab intifada broke out. Intifada, in Arabic, literally means the act of “shaking off” (Tessler 677), but in this case, it is applied to the revolt of the Palestinians against the Israeli oppressors. Since the invasion of Lebanon, Israel enacted an “iron fist” policy, bearing down on the territory—“employing deportations, press censorship…school closings, curfews, and the demolition of homes…” (Tessler 677). The Palestinians had had enough already, and took to the streets. The intifada brought the emergence of the terrorist group Hamas. Based in the Gaza Strip, the group’s name is an acronym for “Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyya (the Islamic Resistance Movement)” (Lozowick 176). Most of the attacks were small in scale—stabbings, kidnappings, murder—but they got the ideological point across; Hamas had no regard for Israeli life, neither in the occupied territory nor Israel itself (Lozowick 178).
The new president, former Vice President George H. W. Bush, was more even-handed in his approach towards the conflict. However, according to Cheryl Rubenberg, the Bush administration’s approach did not go far enough. Proposed by Secretary of State James Baker, it was considered a “two-tier” approach, “separating the Israeli-Arab state and the Israeli-Palestinian (excluding the PLO) negotiations” (Rubenberg 199). This proposal was exactly opposite to that of a proposal formalized in UNGAR (UN General Assembly Resolution) 38/58. After the Persian Gulf War, Israel formally rejected the proposal, declaring that it would not comply with UNSCRs 242 and 338 (Rubenberg 209). Syria accepted the proposal in July 1991, putting pressure on the Israelis to do the same. They did, albeit grudgingly, and with many conditions, “including the repeated demand that Israel have a veto over the composition of the Palestinian delegation and that Israeli sovereignty of the [occupied territories] remain absolute” (Rubenberg 210). The result of these conditions was the Madrid Conference, which did not amount to anything.
The Environment
Hope for peace was sky-high when President Clinton took office. Developments from the previous Bush administration and domestic Middle Eastern politics led to a generally positive outlook for progress in the region. President Bush’s Secretary of State, James Baker, made many trips to the Middle East, and in October 1992, “his efforts led to the opening of an international peace conference in Madrid” (Tessler 750). Nothing was agreed upon, but it was considered progress anyway because the mere fact that Israeli and Arab leaders were “meeting face to face and discussing substantive issues was itself a development of potentially great significance” (Tessler 750). Process itself was considered progress, and this idea continued throughout the Clinton presidency.
The elections June 1992 in Israel further heightened the atmosphere of hope for peace. The largely dovish Labor party won most of the seats, with the even more dovish Shas party sealing a parliamentary majority for the Israeli left wing. The new Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, declared that the Israeli government is committed to a peaceful resolution of the crisis that has plagued the nation since its existence. To foster the goodwill towards the Palestinians, the Labor-led Parliament pronounced during the negotiations that the Israelis would build no more settlements, but they added that they would not take down existing ones (Tessler 750). The settlements built during the time of Likud dominance were a contentious issue still on the table, despite the goodwill gestures.
The United States Jewish electorate also contributed to Clinton’s insistence on negotiations in the Middle East. Jews comprise only three percent of the United States population, but vote more than any other ethnic group. Jews tend to live in groups, and thus are concentrated in strategically important states, and their tendency to behave as a swing vote in ways that makes them unique compared to all other ethnic groups in American politics. Incumbent President George Bush was contemptuous of Yitzhak Rabin and pressured the Israelis on their settlement policy. Therefore, the Jewish people overwhelmingly voted for Clinton, leaving Bush with only 10 percent of the Jewish vote. Clinton, initially at least, appeared to espouse the views of the Jews, but rather, according to Joe Stork, Clinton’s views were “steered strictly by utilitarian considerations, more influenced by the fact that Jewish donors accounted for an estimated 60 percent of his non-institutional campaign funds than by any strong conviction regarding Israel” (Stork 225). Clinton was following the trail of expediency.
The political environment was still contentious. Many issues were keeping the two sides apart. First, the 75-year feud between the two peoples had led to a “legacy of anger, bitterness, and above all, distrust” (Tessler 749). Second was the continuing violence in the West Bank and Gaza. Third was the problem of the settlements. They were not being built anymore, but the location of preexisting ones was a cause for controversy. According to Tessler, Israelis had killed 1,135 Palestinians since the beginning of the intifada in 1987. In addition, the Israeli Army also imposed curfews on certain West Bank areas.
The Policy Prescription
President Clinton had a keen interest in the Middle East peace process even before his term began. “In the second week of the transition…I spoke about Middle East peace with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd” (Clinton 448). Clinton recognized that stability in the region was vital to both the interests of the United States and those of the nations of the region. Most of President Clinton’s foreign policy decisions were influenced by their impact on American domestic policy, and part of the urgency in Clinton’s activism can be attributed to that. Peace in the area would bring about economic prosperity, and therefore Clinton pursued every avenue he could to that end.
Clinton, in his eight years in office, was actively engaged in the Middle East. He was consistently attempting to negotiate peace between Israel and its neighbors. Clinton’s appointments for national security positions in his administration illustrate the intention of settling the conflict. His staff was mostly pro-Israel, but they represented the full Israeli political spectrum. For example, CIA Director James Woolsey worked for the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, an aggressive Zionist group, but Deputy Secretary of State Sandy Berger was close with the American chapter of Peace Now, a dovish group (Stork 225). However, Clinton himself, as mentioned before, only showed preference to Israel for political expediency, instead of pure ideology.
The first major initiatives taken by Clinton involving the Middle East Peace Process were the policy regarding the 400 Palestinians Israel was threatening to deport, the signing of the Oslo Accords, and the symbolic handshake on the South Lawn of the White House between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. The agreement itself was without teeth, and largely failed due to a lack of compliance by both the Palestinians and the Israelis.
Prior to Clinton’s election, after the Persian Gulf War, a conference involving Israel and its Arab neighbors was held in Madrid. This conference was pivotal in getting the parties to just start talking, and further, “it is possible to see that the Oslo peace talks could never have been held if the Madrid conference had not preceded them, together with the successive rounds of bilateral peace talks which took place in Washington” (King 61). This conference was a failure for many reasons. First, the Israeli delegation was intransigent, primarily due to the fact that the government was at that time dominated by the right-wing Likud party. Secondly, Israel demanded bilateral talks, and in Madrid, there was an overwhelming American presence. King, in his post-conference analysis, believes that the Israelis agreed to participate in the conference not for negotiating for peace, but rather to prove that they would join in in the talks themselves (11). Prior to the direct bilateral talks between Israel and the joint Jordanian and Palestinian delegation, a meeting was set up in a Madrid hotel, in which the participants described the experience as substantive and satisfactory. This positive tone set the table for the Washington bilateral negotiations to take place, and, from there, the secret meetings in Oslo.
Clinton, after being elected, was desperate to keep the faith of the Palestinian Arabs, who believed that they lost their first key ally in George Bush. He did this by condemning the actions taken by Israel regarding 400 Palestinians. Israel wanted to deport them to Lebanon because they were purported to be supporters of Hamas, a Gaza-based terror group, but Lebanon would not accept them. Clinton called for Israel to readmit the men incrementally, with 100 coming back immediately, half of the remaining men a few months later, and the rest at the beginning of 1994 (Stork 226). The Clinton administration declared that, in return, it would not support any United Nations action if the compromise would be heeded.
Meanwhile, the official negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians were going on in Washington, with no real movement. The real action was going on secretly, in Oslo, Norway. Secret talks had been going on in Oslo since before Clinton took office (Clinton 541). Secretary of State Warren Christopher, representing the United States, kept the secret talks on track, and Rabin called Clinton on 9 September 1993 to say that an agreement had been reached between the Israelis and the PLO (Clinton 541). The parties had agreed on a Declaration of Principles, in which the leader of the Palestinian people, Yasser Arafat, renounced terrorism and recognized the right of Israel to exist. This alone was enough for the signing of the Accords to take place on the South Lawn of the White House, a symbolic gesture, showing the importance of the agreement.
The Declaration of Principles was a vaguely worded document that spelled out the agreement to which both Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Abu Mazen would sign. The declaration included the creation of a self-determined government for the Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority, in which the people can democratically choose their leaders. Further, the protocol calls for “rules and regulations regarding election campaign, including agreed arrangements for the organizing of mass media, and the possibility of licensing a broadcasting and TV station” (Oslo Accords Protocol 1). In addition, the Oslo agreement creates the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority. A five-year transitional period was to commence with the Israeli withdrawal from Jericho and the Gaza Strip, in which the Palestinians were to have their own nation after that allotted period.
The signing of the agreement was to take place on 13 September 1993, on the South Lawn of the White House. There was a major controversy brewing in the White House over whether or not to have the two leaders, Rabin and Arafat, shake hands at the public signing. Approached by Clinton about the subject, Rabin would not commit, “telling [Clinton] how many young Israelis he had buried because of Arafat. [Clinton] told Yitzhak that if he was really committed to peace, he’d have to shake Arafat’s hand to prove it” (Clinton 543). Even further, there was a debate over how to have Rabin avoid the traditional Arab kiss. Clinton and his staff choreographed the scene, trying to create the easiest opportunity for which a kiss was to be avoided. (Clinton 543). The scene went forth, with Clinton shaking the hands of both leaders, and the two of them shaking each other’s hand, creating a symbolic image of peace, regardless of how toothless the agreement actually was.
During the process with the Palestinians, Clinton was also creating the opportunity for peace between Israel and Syria. Prior to Clinton’s election, progress was being made by the Bush administration, but with the State Department now under the control of Secretary Christopher, a new sense of urgency took hold in the region. There was a seamless transition between the administrations and their handling of the Israeli-Syrian negotiations, due in part to the synergy and predictability of the offers by Rabin and Peres (Rabinovitch 87). The former research director for AIPAC, Martin Indyk, was appointed to the Middle East office of the National Security Council. He articulated the policy towards the Arab-Israeli conflict in this fashion: “[to] stem the spread of weapons of mass destruction and promote a vision of a more democratic and prosperous region for all the people in the Middle East” (qtd in Rabinovitch 90). For Syria specifically, this meant for Israel to give up land, as stated in UNSCR 242 and 338.
Two years later, a radical Jewish Israeli citizen, who believed that Rabin went too far by making peace with the Arabs, assassinated Rabin. His name was Yigal Amir, and according to Lozowick, “The assassination was the act of a small clique of fanatics, embedded…in a wider context of dissatisfaction with Rabin’s policies” (223). In fact, the Israeli right wing was growing in influence in the country; at the time of the assassination, Rabin and his political opponent, Benjamin Netanyahu, were running neck and neck in the polls (Lozowick 223). Amir’s association to the Israeli right led to the immediate rally of the left. However, with the terror situation spiraling out of control, the “reformed moderate” Benjamin Netanyahu was elected Prime Minister in May 1996. His election, and a new Parliament, meant a new take on the process for peace in the region.
Netanyahu’s election caused a major shift in the direction of the peace process. In fact, it led to no direction. Lozowick argues, “Whatever position [Netanyahu] took, he could be counted on to take a different one shortly thereafter” (224). He first said that he would slow the process, but not stop it, calling for “reciprocity” (qtd in Lozowick 224), where the Palestinians would have to live up to their end of the agreements as well, rather than just the Israelis. The Arab street believed that his stance was more of the same from Israeli reactionaries having access to the West. “Once again, the Arab states were condemned to silence or impotent hand-wringing from the sidelines” (Said “End of Peace” 64). Clinton’s envoy, Dennis Ross, got Netanyahu and Arafat to agree on something after months of talks, and he was very proud of the achievement, as illustrated in his memoirs: “it was the first time Netanyahu and Arafat had accomplished something together. If it had not been achieved, the entire peace process would have been in grave peril” (Clinton 740). Clinton was desperate for progress on this front; even though he acknowledged that the agreement was trivial and minor, it at least kept the parties talking.
In early 1995, the prospect of an agreement was slipping away on the Syrian front. Rabin’s job approval numbers were sinking in Israel, and his leverage in conducting peaceful negotiations was suffering as well. His only option was to “address the issue squarely and turn it into a challenge for the President of Syria…He began his meeting with [Secretary of State] Christopher by saying…‘I want and I can, and the time is now’” (Rabinovitch 163). Asad never rose to the challenge, according to Rabinovitch, because he saw this either as a pressure tactic or as a way for Asad to be played off against Arafat (163). The negotiations never materialized into substance, resulting in failed policy.
After Rabin’s death, there was another opportunity for peace with Syria. Shimon Peres, the new Prime Minister via succession, believed that peace should be versatile and active; unlike the “cold peace with Egypt” (Rabinovitch 202). Peres believed that the quality of the peace was just as important as the principle of peace itself. Asad was consistently evasive, creating obstacles around which Peres would creatively come up with a way to negotiate peace (Rabinovitch 197). After the election of Netanyahu, Asad realized he had made two egregious errors: he missed two opportunities for peace.
In 1998, Arafat and Netanyahu, along with Clinton, convened at the Wye River Plantation in Maryland. The intention was to have more negotiations regarding the peace process. However, all of the leaders were facing domestic crises, and they were not as confident in the negotiations as before. None of the talks were going anywhere, and finally Netanyahu called for a compromise solution: “Israel would withdraw from 13 percent of the West Bank and the Palestinians would dramatically improve cooperation on security, following a plan developed with the help of CIA director George Tenet” (Clinton 815). Clinton spent time with both delegations, trying to get a feel for the positions each took.
Clinton and Netanyahu prodded Arafat to convene the Palestinian National Council and have it erase language calling for the destruction of Israel. Arafat rebuffed the claims, saying that if he did that, he would have no control over the outcome (Clinton 816). Said saw the Wye Memorandum as another agreement to which the Israelis could do whatever they want while the Palestinians were subject to ever more surveillance, scrutiny, and regulation. He took particular offense to the new role of the CIA, which he characterizes as “an active role in adjudicating security issues such as extradition, combating (sic) the ‘terrorist’ infrastructure, incitement, and the like” (“End of Peace” 295). No part of the agreement was implemented.
With the failure to negotiate a peace with the Palestinians or the Syrians, Netanyahu was handily defeated in the next round of elections by retired General Ehud Barak, a Labor Party candidate. Barak won with such a “large victory margin [that it] had given him the chance to have a governing coalition in the Knesset that would support the hard steps to peace, something Prime Minister Netanyahu had never had” (Clinton 855). He was seen as the second coming of Yitzhak Rabin.
Barak came to office looking to create peace. His first initiative was to get Syria to negotiate peace, through action by Clinton. Clinton sent an envoy, including Secretary of State Madeline Albright, and Asad agreed to negotiations “without conditions” (qtd in Albright 475), which was seen as shocking by both Clinton and Barak. They agreed for negotiations to take place in Shepherdstown, Virginia, between Prime Minister Barak and Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Shara, about the returning of the Golan Heights to Syria. However, Albright said that everyone knew that the negotiations were doomed from the beginning. Both sides desired control of the Jordan River and the Sea of Galilee—Israel got 40 percent of its water supply from there, and Syria believed it rightfully belonged to them (Albright 476). Albright believed that the Israeli public, especially the far right, would not allow Barak to give up the strategically vital Golan Heights. William Quandt believed that the negotiations were encouraging at first, but was lost over the fight over the water. “Barak had told his Cabinet that Rabin had agreed to withdraw from the Golan Heights to the 4 June, 1967 lines…and that his government was not about to ‘erase the past’” (Quandt 363). Further, Quandt says that the Syrians would shift the border in order for the Israelis to continue using the sea for irrigation. Shara seemed willing to negotiate a peaceful end to the conflict. However, when Clinton called Asad to tell him the good news, Asad shot back that he would not accept such a border shift, the line must be at the 4 June 1967 border (Quandt 363). Clinton himself tried to get Asad to comply by going to meet with him on 26 March 2000. Clinton showed that the offer being made was essentially the border that he wanted, but Asad would have nothing of it. Quandt’s observation of the meeting was this: “Within minutes, the discussion had come to a dead end although the meeting dragged on for another two hours” (363). Albright’s description of the meeting is very similar, with Albright adding the fact that Asad pleaded with Clinton not to have Syria be to blame for the lack of peace (Albright 481). Peace would not be reached between Israel and Syria during the Clinton Presidency.
Negotiations with Arafat were at a stalemate again, even with Barak at the helm. Clinton held another round of negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis at Camp David, and the summit was dubbed Camp David II. It was a last ditch effort for Clinton, who was concerned about his legacy, and how it could be negatively impacted if both the Palestinians and Israelis do not sign another peace accord. Clinton’s first objective was to woo Arafat back to the idea of negotiation. Albright describes this initial meeting, saying, “The President was inspiring and eloquent. The PLO chairman was attentive, polite, and mute” (Albright 485). Arafat showed no indication of budging, as Quandt explains that Arafat did not want to look like he wanted to be the first president of a Palestinian state (365). Barak, arriving late after surviving a vote of no confidence from the Israeli Knesset, was not in the mood for peace. “He preferred that nothing happen for a few days because if success were achieved too soon, it would look as if he had not negotiated hard enough” (Albright 485). Barak would not reveal his demands to anyone, not even Clinton (Quandt 367).
The negotiations commenced, with Clinton pressuring Arafat to get his demands. “Clinton felt that Arafat would hold out for as close to 100 percent of the West Bank and Gaza as he could get; Palestinian sovereignty over the neighborhoods of Jerusalem and Haram al-Sharif; and a solution to the refugee problem that did not require him to give up the right of return” (Quandt 367). The American negotiating team wanted to put together a draft of the negotiating terms, similar to what Carter had done at Camp David I. Both sides rejected the draft; Barak felt “cornered” (Quandt 367), and Arafat felt plotted against, due to a handwritten edit made by Dennis Ross before showing the draft to the Palestinians. Meanwhile, Arafat was getting sick; Madeleine Albright was going to Arafat’s cabin just to take his temperature, during which he would rant about how the Israelis were out for him and about how many different promises Barak had broken (Albright 488).
Five days into the negotiations, neither Barak nor Arafat had moved anywhere. Barak’s strategy was to wait for Arafat to move; and with this not happening, nothing was being accomplished. Barak allowed two Israeli negotiators to meet with their Palestinian counterparts, but when they showed an inclination towards flexibility on the part of the Israelis, Barak pretended to be angry, claiming that he had not authorized the meeting in the first place. Clinton met with Arafat, and he sent Clinton a letter giving him an opening. It called for about four percent of the West Bank go to Israel for settlements, and that Clinton would decide what the Palestinians would receive in return (Quandt 368). Barak, in response to this letter, was even more intractable. It took another meeting with Clinton for Barak to come up with a counteroffer, one that Albright characterized as “both far-reaching and brave” (Albright 489). The Barak proposal called for Israel to receive:
9 percent of the West Bank, with a 1 percent swap opposite Gaza; the Palestinians would get 85 percent of the border between the West Bank and Jordan; Israel would agree to place the Muslim and Christian quarters of the old city of Jerusalem under Palestinian sovereignty, along with several other Arab ‘outer neighborhoods’ (Quandt 368).
Clinton approached Arafat with the proposal as he was leaving for a G-8 summit in Tokyo. Clinton gave Arafat the length of the G-8 summit to consider it, and upon returning, Clinton finds that the major issues involved were impossible to reconcile. Israel was unwilling to give up sovereignty of any part of Jerusalem, and Arafat did not accept the offer. “At midday on Tuesday July 25, 2000, a weary and disappointed President Clinton announced that the summit had ended without agreement” (Quandt 369). Camp David, and thus Clinton’s Middle East Peace Process, was over.
Throughout the two terms of his Presidency, Clinton tried everything in his power to get both sides, Palestinians and Israelis, to agree to peace. His attempts failed, and the Palestinians reacted by starting a second intifada, with which the next president, President George W. Bush, had to contend. The second intifada began during the end of September 2000. Palestinians began throwing stones at Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall during the holiday of Rosh Hashanah. Israeli police fired back, killing scores of Palestinians. “Then Israeli settlers and Israeli Arab citizens joined the fray in what seemed another intifada if not quite and all-out war” (Quandt 369).
During all the fighting, another meeting between Albright, Barak, and Arafat was held in order to stop the clashes. At first, Israel did not want the US involved in these negotiations, but in December, they relented. Prior to these meetings, Barak had to call elections, due to his unpopularity. His opponent was to be Likud leader Ariel Sharon, and Barak wanted to use this as leverage in the negotiations with Arafat—Arafat would not have the opportunity to make peace with a hardliner such as Sharon (Albright 496). Nothing materialized, and Yasser Arafat blows his last opportunity for peace because, due to the lack of a peace treaty, Ariel Sharon and the Likud Party win the Israeli elections of February 2001.
Evaluation
Within a year after Barak’s election, the peace process is dead. Both sides blame each other for the breakdown, and neither admits guilt in any sense. Each side has since run to the extremes of the radical right of their respective political spectrums, with the Israelis electing the Likud party, with Ariel Sharon as Prime Minister. The Palestinians resorted to terror and gave full support to Hamas and Arafat’s Fatah movement. Furthermore, neither side ever recognized the legitimacy of the other, and it is impossible to negotiate with someone that you do not even believe belongs on the planet.
Lozowick, representing the Israeli viewpoint, says that it is mostly the Palestinians’ fault, and gives five reasons the final negotiations failed. First, the Palestinians did not control the terrorism brewing in its poorer neighborhoods. The intention of the terrorists was to drive Israel out of the occupied territory, and the Israelis were doing it. Lozowick asks, then why would they continue the acts of terrorism? (226). Next, Lozowick blames the education given to Palestinian children: “that the Israelis…are the scum of the earth that they are descended from pigs and monkeys, or that it is the will of God they be destroyed” (226). He identifies this as a major problem for the future as well. The third reason for the failure, according to Lozowick, was that the daily life for Palestinians got worse after Oslo, not better, as they had been promised (227). The Palestinian citizens realized that the new Palestinian Authority was nothing more than, a “typical third-world kleptocracy run by and for the benefit of Arafat’s inner circle” (Lozowick 227). As bad as the leadership of the Israelis was, the PA neglected the needs of the Palestinian people, but not having any alternative, the people continually voted the same corrupt leader—Yasser Arafat—back into power. The final two reasons for failure Lozowick attributes to the Israelis, but they are minor compared to the blame leveled at the Palestinians. The fourth reason given by Lozowick involves the settlements built, maintained, and lived in by the Israelis. This failure, according to Lozowick, gives the Palestinians the opportunity to renege on their parts of the Oslo agreement (227). The last failure of the process, according to Lozowick, was the slow withdrawal by the Israelis. Lozowick concludes his evaluation by reiterating the fact that both sides were in fact to blame, but he cannot assign blame equally (228).
Edward Said, speaking on behalf of the Arab view, denies any culpability on the part of the Palestinians for the failure of Clinton’s policies towards Middle East Peace. He places all of the blame on the Israelis, and on the Americans for backing the Israelis. Said’s first argument is that the entire process under Clinton can be characterized as “a gigantic fraud” (“From Oslo” 6). He first mentions one of the reasons Lozowick admitted was an Israeli failure—the quality of life for the Palestinians has decreased since the signing of the Oslo Accords. Said speaks to the lack of mobility afforded to the Palestinian people, which was so extreme that Yasser Arafat must ask permission before leaving the West Bank or Gaza (“From Oslo” 4).
Next, Said mentions the mercantilistic system used by Israel over the Palestinians, citing a UN study that says “Palestinian trade with Israel accounts for 79.8 percent of total trade transactions” (“From Oslo” 4). Said uses this to argue that because of Israeli economic closure, the Palestinian economy lost an average of 19.5 million dollars per day during the first six months of 2000 (“From Oslo” 5). Said cites the continuation of settlement building as a major reason for the failure. According to Said, under the purportedly pro-peace Barak government, settlement building increased by 96 percent. Said furthers this argument by speaking to the problem involving the use of water. “Israel controls all the water supply of the Occupied Territories, uses 80 percent of it for the personal use of its Jewish citizens, rationing the rest for the Palestinian population…” (“From Oslo” 5).
Said says that the media depiction of events also led to the failure of policy. For example, Said uses New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman to show that it took him being trapped in Ramallah and bombed by the Israeli army for him to write from the Arab perspective once. (“From Oslo” 7). He cites a report from the agency of Fairness and Accuracy in Media that mentioned that out of 99 stories about the intifada, only 2 mentioned the Occupied Territories, with the others concentrating on the violence on Israelis by Palestinians (“From Oslo” 9). He goes on to mention, “Israel has poured hundreds of millions of dollars in what in Hebrew is called hasbara, or information for the outside world” (“From Oslo” 98). The Israelis have an active propaganda machine, according to Said, which coaches people to support Israel, at the expense of Arabs. All of this, Said believes, is a concentrated technique by the West to stamp out Arab viewpoints from the debate.
Said indicts Clinton with trying to rush Camp David II through while he was still President. He goes so far as to say that Clinton’s proposals are “a sort of fast food peace” with an “all purpose catchiness [and] egotistical urgency” (“From Oslo” 38). Clinton’s peace process calls for a “cancellation of the Palestinian right of return and…a Palestinian declaration of the end of the conflict with Israel” (“From Oslo” 39). Said says the cancellation of the right of return is a curtailing of human rights, and in violation of the UN Charter along with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (“From Oslo” 39). Said accuses Clinton of cherry-picking human rights, and says that Palestinians must distance themselves from the Oslo Accords, working their way to independence through peace with, as Said puts it, “like-minded Israelis and Diaspora Jews who understand that you cannot have occupation dispossession as well as peace with the Palestinian people” (“From Oslo” 41). Said believes that Clinton provided the impetus for peace, but only for the gain of his own legacy, and only in the interest of the Israelis, not the Palestinians.
The American analysis of the conflict is more balanced than that of the other parties involved in the negotiations. Madeleine Albright, the Secretary of State, calls it “[her] greatest disappointment as Secretary” (Albright 497). She says that it was impossibly complex, and that both sides are at fault, but the Palestinians more so than the Israelis are. The Israelis were at fault for some extremism, but more for their intransigence on the issue of their settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. The Palestinians were more preoccupied with what they would gain, instead of what they would be required to give up (Albright 497). Arafat was more concerned with his life than the negotiations; he was fearful of replicating the model of Anwar Sadat, former President of Egypt— who settled with the Israelis, and was assassinated by an extremist in his own nation. Albright pins the blame squarely on Arafat for the failure of the policy when she says:
If Arafat had chosen differently, Palestine would now be a member of the United Nations, its capital in East Jerusalem. Its people would be able to travel freely between the West Bank and Gaza. Its airport and seaport would be operating. Palestinian refugees would be receiving compensation and help in resettling. Instead, the Palestinians have their legalisms, their misery, and their terror (497-498).
Albright was largely articulating the Israeli view, but she acknowledged the guilt of the Israelis, even if her analysis is overly skeptical of the Palestinians, and especially Yasser Arafat.
William Quandt, in his analysis of Clinton’s policy, says that it is mixed. Quandt says Clinton should be given credit for simply bringing the parties to the table, but “in politics, good intentions rarely count for much” (Quandt 377). Quandt’s first critique is one of urgency. He says that Clinton cannot be faulted for neglecting the region, but he says that Clinton could have done more. Clinton had a golden opportunity during Rabin’s greatest period of influence especially during his first term, according to Quandt. He could have pushed the negotiations about Jerusalem before 2000; he could have pushed the Israelis and Palestinians to hold up each end of the Oslo agreement; he could have helped more in the deal with Syria (Quandt 378). Quandt cites four possible reasons why Clinton did not achieve more. First, Quandt cites Clinton’s presidential character. Quandt mentions Clinton’s personal and intellectual gifts, but says that they also led to his undoing. He was able to appeal to all sides, but could not summon the courage to call for decisive action in any direction (Quandt 379). Second, Quandt believes that Congress is partially to blame for Clinton’s failure. Clinton had to contend with a Republican Congress, and with Israeli interest groups receiving nearly unanimous support. Clinton, according to Quandt, spent more time campaigning and gaining political capital than spending it on major issues such as the peace process (379). Third, Clinton’s own staff was decidedly pro-Israel, and had a theory behind the process. Clinton’s main Middle East experts, Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk, believed that Clinton needed to be a facilitator, and not actively engaged, because “we cannot want peace more than the parties do” (qtd in Quandt 380). Clinton came around, and got more actively engaged, but only during the Wye River negotiations, two years into his second term (Quandt 380). Fourth, Quandt blames both negotiating parties, the Palestinians and the Israelis, for their reluctance to move, and for their unwillingness to hold their respective ends of the agreements. Quandt believes that Clinton should have looked to the models of previous administrations—forcing the parties to negotiate, rather than waiting for both to need to act. Quandt concludes his analysis by saying that Clinton was admirable for bringing the parties so close, but is at fault for not finishing the job of creating peace.
Clinton held meetings and negotiations on multiple occasions, but the intransigence of both sides is to blame for the failure of Clinton’s policy towards peace in the Middle East. Neither party recognizes the legitimacy of the other, therefore, they cannot be on a level playing field when trying to agree to peace. Each uses tactics that the other considers terrorism in order to sway public opinion; the Palestinians kill themselves to kill as many civilians as possible, and the Israelis invade and shell the private properties of Palestinian civilians. Clinton cannot be held solely accountable for the failure of his policy; but one can make the argument that with more force from Clinton, a lasting peace could have been achieved.
When weighing all of the problems of the Middle East, Clinton himself is partially, but not completely, to blame for the failure of implementation of his plan for peace in the Middle East. As Quandt believes, Clinton, because of his character, was not forceful enough with any of the parties involved with negotiating peace with Israel. Clinton grew up in a house of alcoholism, and it became his nature to try to accommodate everyone, without ever taking a firm stand and establishing a position. An emblematic example of this is the lack of urgency during the Oslo negotiations. Clinton’s staff advised him not to push too hard, and to wait until both sides wanted to sign. This led to a toothless agreement, with no enforcement of its vague statements.
Clinton did not meet his ultimate objective of absolute peace between Israel and its neighbors. He only achieved peace between Israel and Jordan, and this was a minor agreement. The Syrian talks broke down multiple times, as did the talks with the Palestinians. Clinton came extremely close, but as Quandt said, close was not good enough. Clinton should be given credit for having the talks in the first place and for getting the nations on speaking terms. In addition, Clinton did progress further in the peace process than any previous President since Jimmy Carter. If Clinton could have done just a little bit more, he could have cemented his legacy as the President who solved the problem of the conflict of the Middle East.
Clinton’s lack of efficiency is a major reason as to why the policy itself failed. Clinton, thinking that the main objective is civil discussion and negotiation, let deadlines pass and allowed both sides to use propaganda to rally their extreme elements, just to keep the parties talking. Again, this harkens back to Clinton’s accommodating nature, which Quandt identifies as one of the main obstacles to Clinton’s effectiveness. Instead of forcing both sides to end the extreme rhetoric and tactics (allowing and fostering terror) at home, Clinton allowed them to continue unabated, thus creating further hostility among the peoples of the region. In so reacting to public opinion, he gave both leaders the opportunity to claim that they were representing their respective constituencies when they stalled the talks. Netanyahu and Barak allowed the settlements to continue, while Arafat encouraged terror and refused to recognize the State of Israel; the Clinton administration was not willing to stand up to the representatives of either side.
Clinton could have gone the extra mile in pushing the prospect of peace to both Arafat and, most notably, Yitzhak Rabin. Quandt was most forceful in pushing this idea, and Said would agree with this assertion. Said has said that in order for the Palestinians to have their own, autonomous state, they must negotiate it with truly peace-seeking Israelis. Clinton could have forced Rabin to offer more than he did, but the combination of Clinton’s character and staff prevented him from doing so. Ross and Indyk advised Clinton to be a facilitator, not an activator, and Clinton’s progress in the region suffered greatly until Clinton really pushed hard in 1998, after the assassination of Rabin, and after any true possibility of peace.
However, Clinton, could not force the negotiations to occur, or for agreements to be signed no matter how hard he pushed. Clinton got an agreement in Oslo, but it was not very progressive and not effective. The fact that both sides were being obstinate throughout Clinton’s presidency did not contribute to the progress of the negotiations—the lack of recognition by both sides against each other creates an impossibility in negotiation. As mentioned before, neither side, after signing agreements, followed up on their respective ends of the bargain, they did the opposite. The Israelis were extremely slow in pulling out of the region; they also continued to build settlements, even at a higher rate than before, as Said mentions. The Palestinians continued their support of terrorism, as endorsed by Arafat, and allowed their quality of life to decrease. Even after Oslo, the Palestinian people did not have the collective will to vote Arafat out of the Palestinian Authority. The Israelis would vacillate, depending on the results of talks with Arafat. They would vote for one radical flank or the other, Labor to Likud, Rabin to Netenyahu to Barak. A seesaw effect such as this does not bode well for creating a progressive, forward-leaning policy.
On the Syrian front, Clinton could have pushed Asad much harder on the amount of land being offered. Asad was so stubborn on the Syrian side of the negotiations that he would not take Barak’s offer of nearly all of the strategically vital Golan Heights, simply for the issue of control over a 400-yard strip of land and water that would not even be used by his nation. Asad realized that making any deal would be betrayal to the other, more radical Arab nations. He blew the opportunity to have a major military advantage if Syria ever engages in a war with Israel in the future. Had Clinton prodded Syria to deal with the Israelis, Clinton could have pointed to this as major progress in the region.
Clinton’s forcing the issue could have had positive and negative results. Clinton pushing each side could possibly turn the negotiating partners away, but such an event would not likely happen. Clinton, in his fantastic, eloquent fashion, could have better illustrated the mutual need for peace, and its positive effects. Clinton knew domestic policy best, and could have articulated the benefits of each leader’s domestic political gain by negotiating peace. This could only have positive effects, and required limited additional resources. Clinton’s initial lack of initiative and creativity in the Middle East led to an exceptional engagement in the region with an ultimate failure of policy.
Conclusion
Clinton’s attempt at forging peace in the Middle East was futile. The parties may have been at the negotiating table together, but they still did not agree to anything of substance. Clinton’s failure to implement peace led to another intifada and much more bloodshed. His attempt was valiant, but attempts in politics amount to nothing unless something comes out of such efforts. The prospect of achieving Middle East peace has been left to the presidency of George W. Bush, but the parties in 2001 are further apart than they ever were during Clinton’s presidency.
Works Cited
Albright, Madeleine. Madam Secretary. New York: Miramax Books 2003
Cohen, Michael J. The Origins and Evolution of the Arab-Zionist Conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press 1987
King, John. Handshake in Washington: The Beginning of Middle East Peace? Ithaca: Ithaca Press 1994
Lesch, Ann M. “The Reagan Administration’s Policy Toward The Palestinians.” Suleiman. 175-193
Lozowick, Yaacov. Right to Exist: A Moral Defense of Israel’s Wars. New York: Doubleday 2003
Parkes, James William. Whose Land?: A History of the Peoples of Palestine. Alyesbury: Penguin Books 1949
Quandt, William B. Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli Conflict Since 1967. 3rd ed. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press 2005
Rabinovitch, Itamar. “Seven Wars and One Peace Treaty.” Rubinstein. 41-67
---. The Brink of Peace: The Israeli-Syrian Negotiations. Princeton: Princeton University Press 1998
Rubenberg, Cheryl A. “The Bush Administration and the Palestinians: A Reassessment” Suleiman. 195-221
Rubinstein, Alvin Z. ed. The Arab Israeli Conflict: Perspectives. New York: Praeger 1984.
Said, Edward W. From Oslo to Iraq: And the Road Map. New York: Pantheon Books 2004
---. The End of the Peace Process: Oslo and After. New York: Pantheon Books 2000
Stork, Joe. “The Clinton Administration and the Palestine Question.” Suleiman. 223-232
Suleiman, Michael W. ed. US Policy On Palestine From Wilson to Clinton. Normal: Association of Arab-American University Graduates Inc 1995.
Tessler, Mark. A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press 1994
United States, Israel, Palestinians. Declaration of Principles On Interim Self-Government Arrangements. Sep 1993. 8 Dec 2005. < http://www.mideastweb.org/meoslodop.htm>
