POLITICS
On its fiftieth anniversary, Israel is visited by our lucky Prime Minister
BRUCE ANDERSON
Success breeds success. It was almost inevitable that Mr Blair would have a good visit to the Middle East. Unlike his Foreign Secretary, the Prime Minister knows how to conduct himself, and he arrived in the region with all the prestige conferred on him by the Ulster settlement. In the event, however, even the optimists were con- founded. This would appear to be one of the most successful overseas trips ever made by a British prime minister. But this does not mean that he had a lasting impact on the Middle East.
Modern Israel was created 50 years ago in hope, out of tragedy. Never has a new state come into being with such high ideals; but even as Israel was born, the idealism became embroiled in ethnic conflict. For 50 years, high-minded Israelis have been try- ing to reconcile their values with their secu- rity needs — and trying unsuccessfully. Not that high-mindedness is universal in Israel. The Netanyahu government's attitude to the other peoples of Palestine is generous, but only when compared to Joshua's.
There was a lost opportunity for peace after the Six Day War in 1967. The Israelis' territorial gains gave them enormous lever- age. As the Arabs tried to exert diplomatic pressure to recover the occupied territo- ries, it became harder and harder for them to maintain the fiction that the whole of Israel was an occupied territory. A couple of years after that, King Hussein and Moshe Dayan slipped into London for secret talks at Julian Amery's house in Eaton Square. The agenda was land for peace, but nothing came of it.
It is easy to understand Israel's reluc- tance to withdraw from the West Bank. The pre-1967 border had been only 12 miles from Tel Aviv; most Israelis felt much safer with their frontier on the Jordan. There would have been two further obsta- cles to a territorial settlement. With a handful of exceptions, even the minority of Israelis who would have been prepared to evacuate Gaza and the West Bank — sub- ject to security guarantees — would have been implacably opposed to relinquishing the Old City of Jerusalem, with its sacred sites. To avoid damaging them, the Israeli soldiers who overran the Old City used only small-arms, and thus suffered addi- tional casualties. The arrival of the first Israeli troops at the Wailing Wall was the most emotionally charged event in the post-1948 history of Judaism. At least as regards the Old City, no Israeli government has ever been in a position to implement UN Resolution 242, on withdrawal from the occupied territories.
Then there is Gaza. It is possible to imagine the West Bank becoming a state. It is even conceivable — just — that state- hood and the need to provide normal pub- lic services might have dampened the fires of irredentism. But the Gaza Strip is little more than a transit camp, and one for peo- ple with nowhere to go to; it might have been designed as a recruiting ground for fundamentalism.
As if the obstacles to a land for peace deal were not already almost insurmountable, there is a further, terminal, complication: the Israeli settlements in the occupied terri- tories. The Americans might have been able to stop the settlement programmes, but the Israelis are much better at manipulating the American political process than the Ameri- cans are at controlling Israel.
It is hard for any Democrat to become president without Jewish votes and Jewish money, and most American presidents have only a fitful attention span when it comes to the intractabilities of the Muddle East. Back in 1982, when President Reagan was trying for a peace settlement, he warned Menachem Begin that as a result of the invasion of Lebanon, Israel was coming under criticism in Congress. 'Don't you worry about the Hill, Ron,' Mr Begin replied, 'I'll fix that for you.' Mr Reagan was irritated. `Sonofabitch: what does he mean he'll fix the Hill?' But the irritation passed, unlike the fixing.
Some British Arabists blame Israel's mis- treatment of the Palestinians for all the problems of the region. That is absurd. Even if Israel had never existed, Egypt would have chronic economic problems and Saudi Ara- bia chronic political problems. It also seems unlikely that Libya, Syria, Iraq or Iran would be free-market democracies under the rule of law. Israel has caused damage in Lebanon, though the various Lebanese fac- tions have inflicted far more injuries on one another, and on their country.
But there is one undoubted victim of Israeli excesses: Jordan. This is cruelly unfair, in that, with the possible exception of Anwar Sadat, King Hussein has done as much as anyone to promote the cause of peace. Some Jordanians have even come to believe that the State Department is in league with Mr Netanyahu and the Israeli fundamentalists to overthrow the Hashemite monarchy and turn Jordan into a Palestinian state. They are wrong, but they are right to feel dismayed by the lack of support from Washington. They would be justified in echoing the Middle Eastern ruler who, when asked whether he would rather be America's ally or America's enemy, paused and thought before answering, 'Enemy. The Americans often appease their enemies, but they always betray their friends.' They can- not, of course, be accused of betraying Israel, but they have failed to display true friendship. They ought to have restrained Israel's worst instincts, which could ultimate- ly prove self-destructive.
Mr Clinton has sometimes given the impression of welcoming any opportunity to involve himself in the Middle East, as a distraction from his own affairs. But the Middle East is equally incurable, and some- what more serious. Mr Blair is right to do anything he can to advance the cause of peace; his sincerity in convening a confer- ence is not in doubt. But we should not raise our hopes.
It may be that Tony Blair himself is plac- ing too much store on the goodwill which greeted him wherever he went. The leaders he met were hardly likely to tell him that they were opposed to peace, and though their goodwill towards him may be genuine, that tells us nothing about their feelings for one another. Mr Blair is about to learn that some problems are even harder than Northern Ireland.
He will also discover, like Margaret Thatcher before him, that however favourable the media coverage, interna- tional disputes cannot be resolved by the momentum of previous successes. After the Falklands, she believed in her own invinci- bility. That led to the Anglo-Irish agree- ment, and also the attempt to renew the lease on the New Territories, which ended up with the handover of Hong Kong.
It is yet to be discovered whether Mr Blair is prone to hubris, but there is one respect in which he may resemble Mrs Thatcher. He appears to possess one attribute which she enjoyed for her first ten years as premier, unlike poor John Major, who had it for about ten minutes. Mr Blair has luck. But it is unlikely to rub off on the inhabitants of the Middle East.
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