great article on anti-normalization

great article on anti-normalization
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2000/482/op5.htm

Al-Ahram Weekly
18 - 24 May 2000

From front line to periphery
By Laura Drake *

Accusations are flying these days, directed by pan-Arab civil society elements against this or that Arab state on the periphery making suspicious moves toward normalisation of relations with Israel. Atop the list are Mauritania, Tunisia, Algeria, and Yemen, in that order. Morocco is old news, whereas Oman and Qatar have made clear that they are waiting for Syria and/or Palestinian final status.

Of the three, Mauritania has gone the farthest; there are no doubts as to its intentions. Algeria is on the fence: it could easily dismiss its recent suspicious handshake gesture, if it wanted to, as an instance of "diplomatic entrapment" with no harm done -- provided that it takes no further steps in this direction.

As for Yemen, it is most likely that Sana'a's recent hosting of Israeli tourists of Yemeni origin has been dramatically misinterpreted. The accusations are at this point clearly unwarranted. This is not the first time Yemen has hosted Jewish visitors of Yemeni origin coming from Israel. Yemen has hosted such people before, with no political implications whatsoever. The central criterion is that Yemen did not accept the Israeli passport; instead, the Yemenis insisted that these individuals use Yemeni travel documents. This procedure is in line with pan-Arab custom, which insists that Jews originating in Arab countries are Arab Jews and, like Jews of any origin, they and their descendants -- like their ancestors -- are the rightful citizens not of occupied Palestine but of the countries from which they hail. Yemen does in fact consider these people to be its citizens, just as Syria and Iraq and others considered the Jews in and from their countries to be their citizens.

As for Iraq today, the subject must be brought up in the context of a country that does not fit cleanly into either the front-line or peripheral state category. While Iraq technically is not a front-line state, due to the lack of a border with Israel, it has always behaved as if it were. This is the combined result of Baghdad's long-term regional leadership aspirations and the depth of its pan-Arab ideology. Furthermore, Iraq now faces Israel militarily on both its Turkish border to the north and its Jordanian border to the west, which latter has essentially been turned into Israel's new security border.

That said, the pressure that Iraq is facing today to re-settle Palestinian refugees from Lebanon in its territory as a condition for the eventual lifting of sanctions is intense and long-term, yet Iraq has been steadfastly resisting that pressure since late 1993. Had Iraq capitulated to the insidious scheme, it would have been evident by now.

These individual judgements on this select group of countries, however, obfuscate the reality of the larger divide in the Arab world relating to the problem of normalisation. Underneath it all lies a classic geopolitical split on the large scale, which pits the interests of the Arab cordon states that share borders with occupied Palestine -- and which are hence enmeshed in the "peace process" -- against those of the far-flung states on the Arab periphery that do not. Underneath the periodic normalisation "alarms" that we hear about from time to time regarding periphery state moves toward Israel, there lurks a profound disconnect on the matter between the Arab cordon and the Arab periphery. This exists in the form of a gap in expectations in an atmosphere of divergent priorities. It is a problem of strategic communication, one that fortunately can be solved through serious inter-Arab negotiations given the requisite political will on all sides. Before continuing, however, a few disclaimers.

On the part of the true front-line states -- namely, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and the Palestinians -- there is an expectation of national duty that periphery states should not "rush to normalisation." According to this understanding, Arab patriotism dictates they reject premature normalisation, excessive normalisation, or any normalisation at all.

The standard response of the periphery runs approximately as follows: "Each of you, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and the Palestinians, has entered a peace process whose declared end result is to normalise relations with Israel. Furthermore, you the Palestinians specifically, who stand at the centre of this conflict, have already signed on and done that very thing. We have been defending the Palestinian cause faithfully for all these years, yet now that you are ready to stop fighting you expect us to keep fighting. Why should we be more Catholic than the Pope?" I personally have encountered this argument from "moderate" intelligentsia personalities, fortunately only a handful, in places as far away as Iran.

The unspoken answer from the cordon states and the Palestinians is approximately thus: "We are doing it not by choice, but because our territory is occupied, and this is the only way to get it back. Even after we do sign, normalisation will be kept at the absolute minimum possible. You, as Arab states sharing no border with Israel, do not need the return of any territory from it, nor are you threatened by its massive military machine even in the absence of a formal peace, so why should you undermine our future leverage and yours by normalising relations with it? You must know that this is going to be an armed peace and not a friendly one; Israeli leaders have said it themselves. And in any case, why would you "want" to normalise relations with Israel, even in the most minimalist of ways, when you don't have to? Why would you enter willingly into a formal peace that we are entering into only under extreme duress?" The underlying theme here is that any such move would be foolhardy, contrary to both individual and shared Arab national interests.

This is as far as it usually goes, but here we take it one step further. Here is the deeper, second-layer response of the periphery states that is not being heard in the Arab Mashreq: "You, the front-line states, are benefiting financially or are poised to benefit -- by way of US assistance programmes and access to international loans on favourable terms -- as a result of your peace with Israel. Look at how you, the Egyptians, are already benefiting; and you, the Syrians, are also going to benefit from American financial assistance, albeit not to the same degree, as soon as you sign. And look at Jordan, with the forgiving of all that foreign debt."

To continue the periphery state argument: "We are poorer than you, and our economic situation is higher on the list of priorities for us than it is for you. The Americans tell us that their assistance is subject to political conditions, and we can find no way around it: they tell us that we cannot hope to receive financial assistance from them, either directly or indirectly, unless we make some moves toward normalising our relations with Israel."

This must be addressed, and it must be addressed seriously. Although it is true that US foreign aid is being decreased, due to pressure from US citizens who think foreign economic assistance constitutes a much higher percentage of the US budget than it actually does, periphery states point out that every little bit makes a difference for countries mired in poverty. Economics is foremost on their minds. They have a different order of priorities from that of those front-line states whose strategic agenda is consumed by matters of war, peace, occupied territory, and foreign policy independence. And even though the front-liners are signing on for the territory and not the financial rewards, periphery states nevertheless seem to resent their reaping those rewards and then preaching abstinence and national duty to everybody else.

The only solution that can conceivably be postulated under this unfortunate set of circumstances is some sort of inter-Arab resource-sharing arrangement to make up for the small amounts of economic aid the peripherals might hope to receive from the United States if they take steps to normalise their relations with Israel. The responsibility for this will fall equally upon Egypt and post- agreement Syria and Lebanon on the one hand, and on the Arab Gulf states perhaps together with Iran (and post-embargo Iraq) on the other.

As for Oman and Qatar, or any other GCC members that may or may not be considering steps toward normalisation: they do not need the money, the US has no strategic leverage on Gulf states since it cannot do without them, and hence these countries have no conceivable excuse for entering into normalisation under any circumstances -- even if Syria does achieve a Golan withdrawal, and even in the event a final status agreement is reached on the Palestinian track. This expectation is of course contingent on Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinians not taking the normalisation any single inch further than is absolutely and minimally required of them to achieve the territorial withdrawals. In fact, post-Sadat Egypt has proven to be a good example in this regard.

The desired outcome of an inter-Arab dialogue -- in the form of a serious discussion between Arab cordon and periphery states -- is that once arrangements are made, nobody beyond the front line should feel compelled to normalise for any reason, even after all the front-liners have completed their withdrawal agreements. This desired end will require that whatever financial incentive might be offered to the periphery by Washington -- and it will be small indeed, as more and more geopolitically minor countries are being cut out of the foreign aid loop -- be offset by the front-line states, the Arab Gulf states, and Iran each doing their part in upholding the forthcoming national (and Islamic) duty.

The supporting role of Arab civil society, and particularly the anti-normalisation movement, is to launch direct diplomatic initiatives with the foreign ministries in the periphery states concerned. Since the anti-normalisation movement is strongest in the front-line countries, their civil society elements will obviously initiate the dialogue, but they will have to do it together with anti-normalisation counterparts who live in the periphery countries concerned. The goal would be to convince the periphery states via direct dialogue -- by presenting details of their own experiences as front-liners with normalisation to date -- that whatever benefits the peripherals might hope to achieve from the United States will be vastly outweighed by the damage that Israel will inflict upon their economies and their national independence if they succumb to the pressures of normalisation.

Anti-normalisation forces need look no further than their own front yard for concrete evidence to support their warnings: they need only demonstrate the carnage currently being inflicted on Jordan's sovereign economy by the invasion of Israeli capital into its domain.

*The writer is adjunct professor of international relations at the American University in Washington.
weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg