Things move very slowly in this part of the world. Sometimes they
even seem to move backward rather than forward. Indeed, since
Binyamin Netanyahu's right-wing Likud government came into office,
it has been trying to reverse the peace process.
Security coordination has become the major issue in today's crisis.
Security is a need. No one can deny the right of Israelis to have
it. Suicide attacks and acts of violence emphasize the urgency of
the matter. By contrast, Palestinian security is not on any party's
agenda, and the implication of the measures taken by the Netanyahu
government against the Palestinian population raises very little
reaction or concern.
Following every attack, Israel automatically places the
responsibility on the Palestinian Authority (PA) and imposes
collective punishment on the Palestinians in the West Bank and the
Gaza Strip: more stringent closures, closure of borders with Jordan
and Egypt, demolition of houses, etc. These Israeli punitive
measures against the Palestinian Authority and people are
attributed to the lack of "security coordination" on the
Palestinian side.
The PA, on the other hand, denies responsibility for these attacks
and wonders why Israel should punish the Palestinian people for
something they have not committed. The PA has always declared its
readiness for security coordination according to the Oslo
agreement, but rejects, for example, the Israeli demand for massive
arrests, including 230 citizens who are now committed to peace, but
were involved in acts of violence against Israel in the past. It
seems that Israel demands security "dictation" rather than
"coordination."
Two major issues underlie this crisis: the Jewish settlements on
Palestinian land, and the way each side understands "security
coordination." Settlements are one of the issues of final-status
negotiations, and according to Article 4 of the Oslo Declaration of
Principles, no party should take any unilateral steps that
jeopardize the outcome of final-status negotiations. Based on this,
Israel should desist from expanding settlements and should wait
until their status and future are determined at the conclusion of
negotiations. When Israel insisted on continuing to build in Jabal
Abu Ghneim (Har Homa) - a mountain near Bethlehem annexed to Israel
after 1967 - the Palestinians decided to discontinue contacts
between their security systems and those of the Israelis. In the
wake of this, Israel blames the resumption of suicide-bombings on
the absence of coordination.
The problem besetting the peace process, however, seems to be even
bigger and more basic than the issue of settlements or security
coordination. The problem lies with the concept of "peace process":
how each party understands it and envisions it. Clearly, for th~
Israeli government, peace means the ability to continue settling
Palestinian land and having overriding control over it. For the
Palestinians, peace means the end of occupation, the establishment
of a Palestinian state and a solution to the Palestinian question
in all its aspects.
Until a clear concept and understanding of the "peace process" can
be reached, there will be many "mines" along a road that will lead
to nowhere.