The Arab world (1)

The Mediterranean, Middle East, Palestine and the EGG

Ian Meadows

During the last three years, the phrase, 'joint Mediterranean policy ', has cropped up with increasing frequency in the European Common Market vocabulary. Europe, including Britain, realised that fast and positive action had to be taken if their present and future positions in the area were to be maintained or improved on. Arab states which border on, or export their oil through, Mediterranean terminals know it even more and it is now, during these closing months of 1972 that the contenders are jockeying for position.

In recent months, however, Europe and Arab North Africa in particular have found a good measure of common ground, in their belief that this vital sea-route should be one in which riverain nations and their European allies should share the prosperity and growth. A Mediterranean, therefore, freed of domination by the two superpowers and where there is already talk of draft treaties that would indemnify the signatories against flare-ups. Why, argue the Mahgreb Arabs, should we all risk involvement, or even war, arising out of the commercial and political struggle for supremacy between the US and USSR.

After the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, in November of that year, experts from America and Europe met at Beaulieu in France to thrash out three, inter-related ' case-studies ': the Mediterranean itself, the effect thereon of the quarter-century old Arab-Israeli conflict, and right through the middle, the rich flow or Arab or Middle East crude oil, on which Europe is almost entirely dependent and to which America must turn increasingly.

The results of the Conference surfaced only three years later and in very restricted form. What, however, did emerge very clearly was the stark fact of diametrically opposed views on each and every one of the issues. America took an especially dim view of the British-bolstered European thrust that was obviously coming in the Mediterranean and would challenge the US position even if America were able to bring certain counter pressures to bear on certain "spheres of agreed influence."

In late 1970, not long after the Middle East cease-fire had halted the growing possibility of dangerous escalation, Common Market ministers, notably from Spain, France and Italy began a series of visits to Arab capitals. They were also careful to take in vital peripheral, non-Arab countries such as Iran, Greece and Turkey. France also kept a watchful eye on the Arabian States. By early 1971 a Common Market Middle East peace initiative, about which Whitehall had been kept informed, was ready.

The EEC document brought down immediate and hostile criticism from Israel. Tel Aviv foresaw the possibility of a sturdy, third-force Europe, emerging powefully in the Mediterranean, and listening more and more to the oil rich Arabs, with their potential 200 million customers, rather than the relatively unproductive and undemanding Israel. It was also foreseeable to Israeli planners that if American influence in the area diminished, would there be a corresponding diminution in help for Israel from Washington. Nor could the balance of power between America and Russia be relied upon to keep the status quo from which Israel would benefit. What concessions were made by the EEC to Israel have not been revealed but by the end of 1973 the Market will have defined and negotiated a common EEC policy in the Mediterranean. This agreement, or pact as it could well become, is intended to replace all the various bilateral agreements relating to the area signed by EEC states since 1962. More important, the putative EEC foreign affairs ministry has moved swiftly to launch its initial thrust at the heart of the Middle East conflict, at the Palestinian refugee question.

M. Jean-Francois Deniau has just left the Middle East after a series of meetings with officials of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA). During his stay in Beirut M. Deniau also met Lebanese government representatives. He then visited Amman, where, at the Jordanian government's request, he attended a conference which provided a valuable picture of Jordan's development over the next decade and with which the Palestinian future is closely linked. Deniau's next stop was Damascus. Significantly he did not visit Jordan's West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Very briefly the EEC plan, which is still highly flexible, falls into two broad headings. First, UNRWA itself will receive the equivalent of four million dollars each year for the next three years. This is a significant development, for UNRWA, these last years, has repeatedly faced an annual budget deficit which has nearly always been made up by the United States. The European contribution means that UNRWA, barring unforseen drops in other revenues, will have no financial headaches for the next three crucial years. Second, a further sum, which some sources estimate at thirty million dollars spread over five years, is also to be made available. Who would be the recipients? Nobody is being precise at this moment but it is almost certain that this sum, and possibly more, will be available for those Arab countries which are hosts to the one and a half million Palestinian refugees, namely Syria, Lebanon and Jordan and possibly but not definitely, the Gaza Strip.

Another key EEC move is to be the setting up of a Mediterranean-Middle East Free Exchange Zone in which about twelve as yet unspecified Middle East states would participate. The expressed aim of this monetary alliance is to combat, in every possible way, competition by America, Japan and 'other industrial nations ' — this last phrase a possible reference to India or China, both of which have been active lately in the Middle East commercial and industrial markets.

It is important to realise fully the vast impact that the 1971 meetings in Teheran between the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the western oil companies had on the whole future of this vast area, and, by extension. on the Arab-Israeli conflict. At that fateful January meeting OPEC, dominated by the Arab producers and Iran, wrung a massive global price increase agreement from the western oil men. It was also decided that the individual OPEC ' grouplets ' such as the Arabian Gulf and Iran on the one hand and the Western Hemisphere members on the other would negotiate further complementary deals with the object of getting local OPEC participation, or even majority holdings, in the westernowned oil prospecting concessions.

Subsequent events, for the Arabian Gulf group, culminated in the milestone agreement in New York last month, where the principle of 51 per cent Arabian participation was agreed. This agreement, however, also relieved the Arabs of one of their most powerful weapons, a unified oil lobby, used as a political lever in the regional Arab-Israeli problem. There were protests, of course, in Arab ranks but in certain quarters one almost sensed a feeling of relief of being unburdened of this particular trump in case it had ever to be played and the consequences faced.

Iraq, part of the Arab Gulf five, withheld its agreement to the New York deal. The official reason is that Iraq still has to settle with the recently nationalised Iraq Petroleum Company. But according to usually reliable oil sources the Baghdad government is trying to negotiate a separate, long-term, contract with France and to work out a secret deal with Britain and the previous owners of IPC using France as intermediary. The prospect of new oil pipelines into Europe, no longer exposed to transit across Syrian territorY,

makes pleasant news Baghdad.

Iran, too is on the point of signing 3 comprehensive new deal with western exploiting companies that will not guarantee each side mutual benefits until 1995 but will see joint development schemes both in Iran and farther afield Western Europe. This flow of oil gold ha,5 also permitted Iran to build up its artricu forces, a task that has been undertaken

with great speed, and has resulted in the, occupation ot two strategic Arabian Gul'

islands and the deployment of an in' creasingly powerful Iranian navy (includ' ing the world's biggest hovercraft fleet'

ideal for operations in the shallow waters of the Gulf). It was no casual rendezvoul that took place in the Ethiopian port Massawa two years ago, when seninl American, British, Iranian and Indian nava commanders used a ' social visit' to pla,!', future co-operation in the suddentY exposed outlets of the Indian Ocean, Of Red Sea and the Arabian (or Persian) GI.11' Thus the Arab world has now divided into two distinct 'oil halves' with all the resultant political implications. The Western half of the Middle East oil map is dominated by Libya and Algeria. For many months now the Algerians have been sewing up American concerns to cover the supply of Algerian natural gas and oil for a twenty-five year period. Algeria has also been quick to extend the hand to Tunisia and Morocco and all have been quietly negotiating future co-operation. The realistic and able Libyan Prime Minister Major Jalloud has spent a lot of time in Paris this year. The problem of Mirage aircraft for Libya probably took all of one day to settle. Jalloud spent much more of his time With the Compagine Francaise des Petroles. His immediate task is to convince his leader Colonel Khaddafi to think less about his Arab nationalism (which few apparently want) and more about a 'Libya first' policy of Mediterranean alliances.

Sticking out between these well defined ' eastern' and 'western ' groups is the Levant coast, embracing Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Jordan and incorporating, last, but not least, the gut problem of Palestine.

When Egypt, after much patient manoeuvring, recently invited the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, ostensibly grouping all eleven guerrilla groups, to form a government in exile, it was construed in many informed circles as a 'take it or leave it offer.' As long ago as 1970, not long after the joint SovietAmerican fourteen point memorandum on a Middle East solution had been cautiously debated in Arab and other world capitals, the late President Nasser made a fairly Clear cut offer to Palestine guerrilla leader Yasser Arafat, asking him to accept the fact that he could never hope to achieve What he was asking, and that it was better to accept 20 or 30 percent less in an overall settlement, and with the Palestinians eventually having a voice in the indirect peace negotiations.

There remain many imponderables, not excluding the forceful eruption on the Middle East stage of Black September. But if the majority of Palestinians opt for government-in-exile (and Arafat has to contend with the powerful Palestinian civilian factions from Gaza and the West Bank) Egypt and other Arab states will move swiftly to recognise the ,Araf atdominated Palestine Liberation Organisation as the sole, legal representative of the Palestinian people. Cairo should have little difficulty in getting the Arab League to Make such backing total, thus leaving Black September holding the uneviable Position of being out on a limb, with the Prospect of fighting against a guerrilla hierarchy which has been declared the on/y recognised Palestinian entity., It may be, although this is a dubious theory, that Black September has retained certain links With the Palestinian Liberation OrganisatIo.h, and has been escalating its operations With the aim of securing bigger concessions later. But if Black September is 100 per cent independent and committed to the struggle for Palestine it would appear that they are destined to join the growing band of homeless who want world revolution, with nothing to fight for but revolution itself.