Robert Malley has a long article in the current New York Review of Books entitled “Israel and the Arafat Question.”
It contains a useful summary of Dennis Ross’s analysis in “The Missing Peace” — which blamed the failure of Oslo on Yasser Arafat, who “definitively demonstrated that he could not end the conflict.”
But Malley reaches a different conclusion from Ross. He believes Ross has a “one-dimensional take” on Arafat that lacks “nuance.” He cites “nuanced analyses” by Aaron Miller and Martin Indyk that blame “numerous factors” for the failure of Oslo.
Malley believes there was a “defect at Oslo’s core” — reliance on a step-by-step process, without defining the shape of a “permanent peace” at the outset. According to Malley:
[T]he process ought to be turned on its head, with the US seeking to describe the endgame at the outset and with the parties agreeing on the means of getting there afterward. . . .
I believe the US ought to push the parties toward ending their conflict, rather than wait until they are somehow ready to do so . . . [and] spell out the components of an acceptable deal, rather than press for incremental steps.
Just spell it out. Push the parties to accept it, even if they are not ready. Forget about incremental steps. Boy, how nuanced can you get?
“Pushing the parties” inevitably means pushing Israel — and Israel alone — since the U.S. has virtually no leverage over the Palestinians.
And once the U.S. “spells out” the “deal” and pushes Israel to accept it, what if Arafat refuses to accept it? Perhaps he could be given an ultimatum — but even Malley recognizes that Arafat “sees in every ultimatum a last demand before the next concession.”
The problem is not the absence of a spelled-out proposal. The problem is that peace is not created by an “agreement,” but rather by parties that want to live in peace. Saul Singer has succinctly described the problem with peace agreements:
[R]eal peace between the United States and the Soviet Union did not depend on an agreement between them, but rather on the collapse of the Soviet Union. . .
[P]eace between Israel and the Arab world, likewise, will depend on the transformation of the Arab world rather than on agreements with it in its current dictatorial state. . .
The problem with the Geneva Accord, like Oslo and the other agreements that came before it, is that they signal that agreements can lead to peace and transformation is not necessary. Each time this happens, transformation is undermined, real peace is delayed, and more war is invited.
This is why the real road to peace is the one that George W. Bush laid out on Tuesday in his speech to the United Nations:
For too long, many nations, including my own, tolerated, even excused, oppression in the Middle East in the name of stability. Oppression became common, but stability never arrived.
We must take a different approach. We must help the reformers of the Middle East as they work for freedom, and strive to build a community of peaceful, democratic nations.
This commitment to democratic reform is essential to resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. Peace will not be achieved by Palestinian rulers who intimidate opposition, tolerate corruption, and maintain ties to terrorist groups. . . . Those who would lead a new Palestinian state should . . . create the reformed institutions of a stable democracy.
This will take a little longer than simply spelling out a deal and pushing it on Israel. It may even take longer than the unsuccessful seven-year Oslo process did. But at least, at the end, there will be peace — not just a peace agreement with a new terrorist state.