Annapolis – opportunities and limitations
In her contribution Galia Golan explains, why the meeting in Annapolis is an extraordinary opportunity after years of lack of negotiations between the conflicting sides. At the same time she sees great obstacles especially for the aftermath of Annapolis in the Israeli interpretation of the Road Map.
An extraordinary opportunity?
The Annapolis conference could offer an extraordinary opportunity for the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. For the first time in many years a serious negotiation process could be started, with international backing and support of the entire Arab world. Indeed, for their own reasons, the Arab states (including Syria) are interested in seeing a peaceful end to the conflict and are willing to provide Israel with security, normal relations and acceptance in the region. Additionally both populations, Israelis and Palestinians are "ready" for an agreement, weary of the conflict and supportive of a "two-state solution." While scepticism is high, on both sides, as to the sincerity of the other, polls continue to indicate a majority wish for a successful conference.
Possible contents of a joint declaration
As the conference draws nearer, however, there are varied and conflicting reports both of Israel’s view of Annapolis and its aftermath as well as of the level of agreement or disagreement between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators. Ideally the conference would be the occasion for a joint declaration of a plan for the resolution of the conflict based on • Israeli withdrawal and the creation of a Palestinian state along the 4 June 1967 lines with minor agreed upon and equal land exchanges. • An arrangement for Jerusalem as the capital of both states. • An agreed upon resolution of the refugee issue. All this should be negotiated following the conference according to a strict time-table, with implementation of the final agreement to be monitored by an international body. However, it would appear that the declaration at the conference will only be a far more general assertion of allegiance to the two-state idea, accompanied by an agreement to open negotiations, immediately after the conference regarding the core issues (without a timetable). There is still disagreement, reportedly, over the Israeli demand that the declaration should include a reference to Israel as “a Jewish state”, possibly even to “Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state” – both ideologically and politically loaded, and unnecessary.i This formulation was added relatively recently by the Israeli right-wing subsequent to all previous agreement such as the Egyptian-Israeli and Israeli-Jordanian peace treaties and the Oslo Accords.
Scenarios for the aftermath of Annapolis
Assuming that this hurdle is overcome, the real problems of Annapolis lie in its aftermath. There is the danger that Abu Mazen’s position will have been further weakened by the merely general nature of the conference’s declaration and other pre-conference concessions, with the possibility of indefinitely prolonged negotiations over the core issues absent a timetable. A still greater danger, however, is the return to the Road Map that Israel has announced as the precondition for the implementation of any agreement reached in the post-conference negotiations. Presumably this is the result of Olmert’s efforts both to maintain support of his own party Kadima and to keep his government coalition together: core issues will be negotiated but not implemented unless and until the Road Map is fulfilled.ii
Road Map or Road Block?
In the past the Israeli interpretation of the Road Map basically blocked any movement along the Road Map. According to Israel, the obligations of each side within each phase are sequential rather than parallel, with the very beginning of any progress through the Road Map dependant upon the Palestinians’ carrying out their obligations first, including the elimination of the “infrastructure of terrorism”. Recently Abu Mazen accepted even this interpretation, arguing that the Palestinians had now, in fact, fulfilled these and all the obligations of the first phase, but Olmert has now stated that these must include Gaza as well as the West Bank. Thus, the (total elimination of) terror infrastructure demand may well be used after Annapolis and even after final status negotiations (assuming that these negotiations are in fact completed) once again to indefinitely delay any movement forward in the Road Map.
And even if Israel should decide that the Palestinians have fulfilled phase one, and itself fulfils its obligations under phase one (dismantling of outposts, freezing settlements, humanitarian measures, etc.), the Palestinians are opposed to the option presented by the Road Map’s second phase: the creation of a state with provisional borders (fearing that such borders would in fact become semi-permanent). The Palestinians want to skip to the third phase, which calls for final negotiations (in another international conference) for a final peace settlement. One can only wonder what these negotiations are supposed to be about if in fact the post-Annapolis negotiations are supposed to resolve all the core (final status) issues.
There are still other problems and contradictions with the Road Map itself,iii but it would seem that the reintroduction of the Road Map has very little meaning except to provide a perhaps insurmountable barrier to progress, in the form of the Israeli precondition that terrorism be totally ended before any moves will be taken by Israel. Olmert may not intend it this way; he may have brought the Road Map back in deference to President Bush, and tactically for domestic political purposes. But it does not bode well for the achievement of Israeli-Palestinian peace.
2 Galia Golan Prof. Galia Golan is Academic Director of the International Program and Program in Conflict Resolution of the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy & Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya and Darwin Professor Emerita at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. She is in the leadership of the Israeli party Meretz and of Peace Now and a founding member of the Jerusalem Link (Bat Shalom). Galia Golan is the author of eight books and innumerable articles on Soviet foreign policy and on Eastern Europe, including works on Russia and Iran and Iraq as well works on the Arab-Israeli Conflict and on women and politics. Her latest book Israel and Palestine: Peace Plans and Proposals from Oslo to Disengagement was published in 2007.
i The PLO recognized the right of Jewish state to exist when in 1988 it accepted UN resolution 181 (that called for the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine). The demand today is meant to foreclose any option of a compromise on the refugee issue (e.g., permitting even limited numbers to return as in the Geneva Initiative), complicates matters with regard to Israeli Arabs, and places Abu Mazen in a very precarious position domestically, unnecessarily. ii Olmert to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, Haaretz, 13 November 2007. iii I provide an extensive critique of the Road Map in my book Israel and Palestine: Peace Plans and Proposals from Oslo to Disengagement, Markus Wiener Publishers, Princeton, 2007.
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