“Peace hasn’t died yet,” Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was saying shortly after the failure of the Camp David summit. Indeed, it hasn’t died, but it’s badly wounded. And the fatal bullet was – the irony of fate – nothing else but the Holy City, claimed by the Israelis as the “eternal and indivisible” capital, of which the Palestinians want the Eastern part, annexed by Israel in 1967 after the “six-day war,” for the capital of their future state. The Palestinian state that would be unilaterally proclaimed, even wanting a peace accord, on September 13.
Can peace be salvaged now? After more than two weeks of intense negotiations, extraordinary effort, heightened tension, Israeli Premier Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat went home, leaving room for violence and extremism. Although failure was one of the options from the outset, when US President Bill Clinton announced the Camp David summit, the main players are now standing before an accomplished fact. Because the risk for an outbreak of new violence between Palestinians in the occupied territories and the Jewish settlers is greater than ever.
Pressure is constantly building, waiting for a mere sparkle to turn into a blaze that will not go out too easily. Even more so as radical groups were tapping their fingers in the wait for failure to become official so they could start instigating violence. The Islamic resistance movement, Hamas (the major Palestinian opposition group) has demanded forceful action to reclaim the occupied territories. Furthermore, the Palestinian population has called for Holy War, not as much against the Israeli army, as against Arafat’s corrupt and incompetent system.
Violence did not break out. Yet. But the two armies have been standing by to intervene for several days now, warned of the possibility of clashes in case of failure.
The Palestinians won’t waive their plans to proclaim an independent state on September 13. And the Israelis will certainly react. Perhaps with more occupations by means of force. Will leaders on both sides be able to control their peoples? Hard to believe.
As to Israel, it is still a question whether Barak will remain the leader, after making too many concessions over Jerusalem during Camp David. He admitted himself in a press conference following the announcement of failure that he was willing to make a number of concessions on Arab districts in East Jerusalem. Under these circumstances, more than half of the Israeli are “unhappy” with how Ehud Barak handled negotiations with the Palestinian side in Camp David. Even if he manages to settle down the government crisis he left behind when he flew to Washington, will he be able to avoid early elections?
What chances does peace stand now? Although a failure, negotiations in the United States produced significant progress, as Bill Clinton said himself. And part of the progress has been the fact that, for the very first time, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators discussed the most sensitive issues in their 52-year-old conflict – the fate of Palestinian refugees, the borders of the future Palestinian state and, the most difficult problem, the status of Jerusalem. In Camp David, the two sides seemed closer to agreement than ever. But because of the dispute over the Holy City, negotiations failed.
But Bill Clinton, who has gone to almost desperate lengths to strike an agreement, cannot accept defeat. He is obstinately working to end his second mandate with a success. With the success of achieving a final peace accord in the Middle East, although no one can guarantee it will be applied and respected. He never quits. So he is sending an emissary to the Middle East to probe for means of dialogue between the two sides. But time is running out, with just six weeks until the Palestinians’ deadline, September 13. Six weeks when extremists won’t be idle.