almotamar.net Project Syndicate - BERLIN -- Does history repeat itself, after all? Recent developments in the Middle East suggest that the answer is “yes,” because the situation at the end of President George W. Bush’s tenure increasingly resembles that of Bill Clinton’s final year in the presidency. Both presidents, at the end of their respective terms, sought to resolve one of the world’s most dangerous conflicts, while facing the threat that time was running out on them.

One could despair: the Bush administration has obviously wasted almost seven years during which it could have pursued a solution. We are now back to the starting point: the Camp David and Taba talks – flippantly abandoned in January 2001 – are to be taken up again. Still, as the wise saying goes, better late than never!

The Middle East conference to be held in Annapolis, Maryland should be a forum for final status negotiations between the parties, dealing above all with the establishment of a Palestinian state and its borders (those of June 1967, with some negotiated exchanges of territory), its capital (Jerusalem), Israeli settlements, and the right of return for Palestinian refugees. It should also address questions of security, the termination of the decades-long state of war, and recognition of Israel by the Arab states. Indeed, it is high time for progress on a two-state solution, because the Palestinians are increasingly losing hope of ever having a state of their own. Without it, the Middle East conflict will remain at a stalemate and violence will only intensify.

Acceptable compromises on all of these questions have been negotiated repeatedly by the parties and stowed away for many years. The only missing ingredient is the political will and strength to enter into a peace agreement.

But this very political strength is precisely what both the Israeli and Palestinian governments lack. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are very weak domestically, and, given the compromises needed on both sides, they will be risking a lot.

The same is true of President Bush. Indeed, the US government does not even stand whole-heartedly behind its own initiative. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wants the conference to happen and has done much to push it ahead. But how much risk is Bush – without whom a real breakthrough will be impossible – prepared to accept?

Fortunately, existing taboos about what is acceptable in the final status talks have fallen – on both sides. The parallel weakness of Olmert and Abbas has produced a parallel interest in a peace settlement. Indeed, both men hope for political survival through a peace agreement: Olmert by means of new elections and Abbas by a referendum through which he can regain ascendancy over Hamas. So will a failed “Peace of the Strong“ be followed by a successful “Peace of the Weak”?

As the domestic situations in Israel and Palestine have changed, so, too, has the regional political environment changed in a positive direction, because most Arab states today are more afraid of Iran’s regional domination than they are of Israel. This development offers an unprecedented opportunity.

There are obvious pitfalls, to be sure. Olmert’s room for maneuver within his party, and particularly within his coalition, is very small. Can he make sufficient concessions on borders and Jerusalem? Similar doubts apply to Abbas. Can he deliver the security guarantees that Olmert needs, especially given the Palestinians’ fear that, in the end, they will give too much, without getting back concessions on what they see as their fundamental demands?

Moreover, the critical hurdle will not be the negotiations, but rather implementation of whatever agreement may emerge – and its political cost will be very high. The Palestinians are already in the midst of a civil war. The compromises necessary for peace are likely to lead to a stark political confrontation in Israel as well. Obviously, Olmert is thinking of fusing an agreement on the final status with the Road Map mechanism. Such an agreement should be implemented gradually, and progress should depend on the parties’ fulfillment of their obligations each step of the way.

Yet a mechanism of this kind can only work if a third party (the US, the “US plus,” or the Middle East Quartet) is available to monitor the agreement. Otherwise, disputes about fulfillment of this or that provision will lead the entire process back into the familiar quicksand of Middle East futility.

So, from a realistic point of view, a positive outcome for the Annapolis talks seems almost impossible. Why should this conflict, which has proven to be unsolvable in the past, be suddenly solved (or brought closer to a solution) by three actors – Bush, Olmert, and Abbas – who are all in a state of profound domestic weakness?

Karl Marx wrote that history always repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. One might fear that Camp David proves to be the tragedy and Annapolis the farce. But, then, this is the Middle East, where earlier breakthroughs grew out of defeat, not victory. So one should never give up hope, even when hope seems impossible to sustain.

Joschka Fischer, Germany’s Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor from 1998 to 2005, led Germany’s Green Party for nearly 20 years.

Copyright: Project Syndicate/Institute for Human Sciences, 2007.
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