The Financial Times Editorial, 20.03.07
 

For the first time since 1991 a small difference in approach to Middle East peace has opened between the US and Israel. For the first time in the presidency of George W. Bush – otherwise a catastrophe for the region – it looks as though the administration may be able to do something constructive.

In 1991, the administration of George H.W. Bush, fresh from evicting Saddam Hussein from Kuwait at the head of a multinational and pan-Arab alliance, in effect demanded constructive Israeli participation in the Madrid peace conference. Inconclusive but not negligible peace deals with the Arabs followed.

In ostensibly the most unpromising of circumstances – the quicksands of Iraq, the danger of a confrontation with Iran – there is now a chance to end the conflict between Arabs and Israelis.

The first step towards this is a willingness to deal with the new Palestinian coalition of Fatah nationalists and Hamas Islamists forged by Saudi Arabia’s mediation at Mecca last month.

Mecca does not meet the three demands of the US, European Union, Russia and United Nations: that Hamas recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept all previous peace deals. That was always unreal, demanding Palestinian capitulation to Israel’s final goals before negotiations began – without demanding Israel stop its creeping occupation of the West Bank.

Mecca requires Hamas to “respect” existing agreements – something Israel has not done. But Hamas must also extend its truce indefinitely and, as part of a responsible government, demand that Fatah and Islamic Jihad observe it too. But full recognition, of an Israeli state in continual expansion, is not a serious demand before a final agreement on borders; if it were, the US would logically demand the same of Saudi Arabia and all the other Arab states that do not recognise Israel.

Washington may be starting to see this, impelled by a panic it shares with the Saudis and other Sunni Arab states at the spread of Shia Iran’s influence. It says it will treat with non-Hamas Palestinian officials – but no more.

But next week, the Arab League will re-present its spurned 2002 peace offer: Israel returns all occupied Arab land, including the necessary constituents of a future Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza with east Jerusalem as its capital, in return for full peace. The plan also calls for an “agreed, just solution” for Palestinian refugees.

Israel says this “right of return” would swamp its Jewish state. But the Arab formula points towards compensation rather than repatriation – the reason Hamas rejected it in 2002. Israel knows very well what the deal is. Seven years ago, in talks with the Syrians, it was discussing up to $15bn recompense – underwritten by the US and EU – for Palestinian refugees in Syria alone. To pretend this is now a deal-breaker is disingenuous. Israel and its friends should know that only war will come from continuing to spurn peace.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007