Trickier than meets the eye

  Ezzedine Choukri Fishere

It is easy for peaceniks to praise the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty; it expanded the circle of peace to a second major Arab state, legitimized much-valued cooperation between two neighbors and passed the tests of Jordanian succession and Palestinian intifada. Rejectionists find it equally easy to criticize the treaty, using the same arguments but with an opposite spin. Both focus on what meets the eye; but a closer look at the 1994 treaty reveals a trickier aspect. Although it created a solid Israeli-Jordanian peace, the treaty has for all practical purposes impeded progress toward broader Arab-Israel reconciliation.

Peace with Jordan was easy for Israel. In a sense, the two neighbors "grew up" together. The leaders on both sides understood, even if they sometimes ignored, each other's constraints. They clashed only under severe pressure, as was the case over Jerusalem in 1948 and in the 1967 war. But even then, they tried to find ways to limit the damage to their co-existence. Since Jordan dropped its West Bank claims--thanks to the PLO's shortsightedness--there have been no major Jordanian claims to territories controlled by Israel. Peace with Jordan, therefore, came at almost no territorial cost to Israel and, consequently, at little domestic political cost. For an Israeli prime minister, peace with Jordan was a dividend, not an expenditure.

But this is precisely the problem with the 1994 treaty, because the same cannot be said for Jordan. Although keen on peace with Israel, recognizing Israel publicly and flying its flag in Amman was certainly not a politically lucrative position for its king. Declaring an end of conflict with Israel while the latter occupied Palestinian territories didn't resonate with Jordan's Palestinian majority. Even the two issues that King Hussein had a claim on--Jerusalem's Aqsa Mosque and Palestinian refugees--were practically ignored by the 1994 peace treaty. Only Hussein's statesmanship could see this treaty through in Jordan.

All this could have been a petty calculation; who got more than the other out of a peace deal is of little interest. But the treaty raised a more fundamental question: what political capital did it leave behind to cover the cost of peace with Syria and the Palestinians?

Toward the end of 1993, Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin faced a choice between pursuing a costly path to peace with Syria and tapping the Jordanian dividend right away. All those who wanted broad Arab-Israel reconciliation, including the Clinton administration, urged him to move on the Syrian track first. Progress on the Syrian track was expected to be politically costly for Rabin, but key to comprehensive peace. For Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, the Israeli choice to make peace with Jordan meant that Rabin was bent on isolating Syria in order to ignore it or force it to accept a humiliating deal. A friendlier interpretation, by American officials, saw in Rabin's choice a sign of political weakness: an easy way out of the required territorial concession on the Golan. Either way, Rabin's choice was a bad omen.

It was ominous because it confirmed what Arab leaders feared; that their Israeli counterparts are unable to muster enough political support to make the difficult decisions needed for peace. Rabin's choice in the fall of 1993 recalled PM Menachem Begin's choice in the fall of 1977.

Back then, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat created an opening for possible Arab-Israel reconciliation. Begin and his Likud crowd, however, were in no mood to relinquish their "promised land". They grabbed the opportunity to reach a bilateral Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty while carefully closing the window on broader Arab-Israel reconciliation, the price of which would be withdrawal from the Golan and the West Bank. Sadat tried to create a link between the two tracks, with support from US President Jimmy Carter. But Begin stood his ground. Faced with a choice between failure and bilateral peace, both Sadat and Carter chose the latter. Begin won the battle, but obviously Arab-Israel peace lost out.

Bilateral peace treaties do not "grow" into broader peace. Begin used one to avoid a broader and more costly peace. Rabin used another as a respite; as an additional resource to face the costs of the 1993 Oslo shock. Rabin wasted the Jordanian dividend and undermined his own ability to pay the political cost of withdrawal from the Golan or Palestine.

Peace with Jordan was an immediate gratification Rabin couldn't resist. But in doing so, he depleted his own "peace accounts" and undermined his ability to pursue the difficult peace path with Syria and the PLO. The easier peace with Jordan was achieved at the expense of broader Arab-Israel peace and was not a prelude to it. Deferred gratification is a virtue of those who think about the future of their children; this does not usually include politicians.- Published 29/10/2009 © bitterlemons-international.org

Ezzedine Choukri Fishere is an Egyptian writer and academic. He now teaches political science at the American University in Cairo.