Another Failure for U.S. Diplomacy in the Middle East

On June 13, the CIA-brokered peace plan for Israel officially went into effect. Dubbed the Tenet Plan, for CIA director George Tenet, the plan declared that "both sides will take immediate measures to enforce strict adherence to the declared cease-fire and to stabilize the security environment."

Unfortunately for the Bush administration, which is desperate to be seen as playing a leadership role in resolving the Mid East crisis, Israel pre-empted the plan by announcing on May 22 that it was implementing a "unilateral cease-fire". Conscious of a growing international image problem that was causing even some of its most ardent defenders to squirm, the State of Israel retained the services of the U.S.-based PR firm Rubenstein Associates, and shortly thereafter announced their cease-fire. This cease-fire, of course, did not apply to assassination attempts against Palestinian leaders, which have continued unabated since the cease-fire was declared.

The language in the Tenet plan is quite striking. For instance, it calls on the Palestinian Authority to "undertake pre-emptive operations against terrorists, terrorist safe houses, arms depots and mortar factories," while specifying that Israeli authorities will "take action against Israeli citizens inciting, carrying out, or planning to carry out violence against Palestinians". On the one hand, terrorists, on the other hand, citizens.

But what is most striking about the Tenet plan, which was supposed to form the basis for re-establishing security cooperation between the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, is that it does not offer a single shred of analysis of the cause of the current crisis in the region. According to the official story, the current Palestinian uprising was triggered by a visit of then opposition leader, now Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount.

In fact, any objective reading of the facts demonstrates that this highly provocative visit, with Sharon accompanied by hundreds of security forces, bodyguards and members of the press, was simply the final straw in a series of humiliations that the Palestinian people have endured.

Despite years of promise from both the Israelis and the Americans that the peace process would work in their favour, the fact is that Palestinians are even worse off than they were before the Oslo peace process started. Average annual income has decreased by almost 50 per cent since 1992; there are more restrictions on their movement and travel both within the Occupied Territories and in and out of Israel, where a majority of Palestinians work. And despite the promise of the Oslo Accords for an Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories within five years, Israel has security and administrative control of 61.2 per cent of the West Bank and about 20 per cent of the Gaza strip. Moreover, the number of settlers in the occupied territories has more than doubled in the last ten years. Along with the increased number of settlers came a new highway network, built in the mid-90s on confiscated Palestinian land. The network isolates Palestinian towns and villages from one another, forcing many Palestinians to go through Israeli checkpoints just to visit friends or relatives in a neighbouring town. The network also isolated the West Bank and Gaza from Jerusalem which remains, despite all Israeli propaganda otherwise, disputed.

Peace in the Middle East is not possible without dealing with these issues, no matter what spin the Israelis try to put on it. Their reluctance to live up to a single commitment made under the Oslo Accords and subsequent agreements is causing the U.S. a great deal of embarrassment. The first two attempts by the Bush administration to salvage the situation have failed, and public sympathy for the Palestinian people, both internationally and in the U.S., is growing.