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Hard Questions, Tough Answers with Yossi Alpher - November 20, 2006

Q. What are the ramifications of international focus and new peace initiatives for the Olmert government? Q. ...announced Egypt Nuclear program, Iran's nuclear program, and Arab world reaction?

Q. There seems to be a proliferation of new Israeli-Palestinian peace initiatives, against a backdrop of growing international focus on the need to resolve the conflict. What are the ramifications for the Olmert government?

A. The latest initiatives originate with Spain (together with France and Italy) and with Meretz/Yahad leader Yossi Beilin. An additional recent initiative was the Arab League proposal to revise the March 2002 peace plan. And rumors abound that the United States will call for an international peace conference or offer some new peace formula.

Then too, in the past two weeks both PM Tony Blair of Britain and a commission appointed by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan pointed to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a principal source of regional and even global instability and terrorism. The United National General Assembly passed a resolution, with European agreement, condemning the accidental Beit Hanoun massacre and calling for an investigation.

(Problematic statements like Blair's, reiterated in Pakistan yesterday and implying that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would somehow reduce jihadi terrorism emanating from that country, will apparently only cease when the conflict is resolved and the jihadis persist in their campaign. Even the Pakistanis don't talk that way.)

The Spanish-led initiative reportedly comprises five components: an immediate ceasefire, establishment of a Palestinian unity government that is acceptable to the international community, a prisoner exchange involving Hamas and Hizballah, talks between PM Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and the dispatch of an international monitoring force to the Gaza Strip. It was rejected by Israeli FM Tzipi Livni, who criticized the Spanish for not coordinating their efforts with Israel.

Beilin's plan is more comprehensive. It involves four phases: 1) ceasefire and prisoner exchange; 2) Israel will withdraw from most of the West Bank by 2008, dismantling settlements in coordination with the PLO; 3) the Palestinians will extend their control to the areas Israel leaves, either under the aegis of the Palestinian Authority or by declaring a state with temporary borders; 4) permanent status negotiations based on the 1967 lines, with Palestinian refugee return to the Palestinian state.

Livni's rejection of the Spanish proposal was accompanied by her own call for a new Israeli initiative regarding the Palestinian issue. Acting Minister of Justice Meir Sheetrit has called on PM Ehud Olmert to agree to negotiate on the basis of the Arab League's March 2002 initiative. Minister of Environmental Protection Gideon Ezra suggested recently that Israel declare a unilateral ceasefire in Gaza. Defense Minister Amir Peretz has reportedly tried to negotiate a ceasefire with Abbas. All these proposals reflect a pervasive sense that the absence of any Israeli initiative is liable to invite international pressures on the Olmert government.

Olmert, for his part, has rebuked the ministers for publicizing their proposals or (in Peretz' case) bypassing him, but has tabled none of his own. He did, however, delay any new Israeli military initiative in Gaza, apparently in the hope that Abbas' current efforts to form a new PA unity/technocrat government will create conditions for a ceasefire, prisoner exchange and the commencement of substantive negotiations.

It is tempting to compare the current situation to that of 2003, when the roadmap, Beilin's Geneva initiative and a variety of international and internal Israeli pressures led PM Ariel Sharon to preempt and propose his disengagement initiative for Gaza and the northern West Bank. The primary difference on the Israeli side is that Olmert is not Sharon, meaning that the current prime minister appears to have a deficient grasp of the strategic parameters of the situation and little capacity to make good politically on any new initiative. Nor, apparently did he see fit to discuss any new initiative with US President George W. Bush last week in Washington.

Q. Egypt has announced a nuclear program. How is this related to Iran's nuclear program, and how in general is the Arab world reacting to Iran's nuclear plans?

A. The most widely discussed Arab reaction to Iran's nuclear ambitions is the desire expressed by some moderate, pro-western Arab states to make common cause with Israel and the United States against Iran, but only on condition that positive movement is registered on the Israeli-Palestinian front in order to assuage the Arab "street". This direction, led by Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, with Qatar and the UAE also taking initiatives, is one of the factors behind the multiplicity of peace proposals and related statements about the conflict discussed above.

But a number of Arab states are also considering developing nuclear programs of their own as an insurance policy against the prospect of a rapidly nuclearizing Middle East. According to the deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Tomihiro Taniguchi (quoted in Middle East Economic Digest), Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Morocco have requested IAEA aid in carrying out research aimed at building nuclear electric power reactors, while nuclear programs of the UAE and Tunisia are still in an "embryonic phase".

Egypt's program was first broached by President Husni Mubarak's son, Jamal, a few months ago. Mubarak the elder recently visited Russia and inquired about the purchase of a reactor. Egypt previously nurtured a nuclear project, beginning in 1957, but closed it down two decades ago in the aftermath of the Chernoble disaster, openly declaring that it rejected the nuclear route. Since then it has led the inter-Arab and global campaign for nuclear disarmament in the region, which quite naturally focused on Israel.

This sudden and radical about-face on the nuclear issue by Egypt and others can only be explained with reference to Iran's program. It is particularly notable that neither Egypt nor any other Arab country ever cited Israel's alleged nuclear capabilities as a rationale for starting their own nuclear programs. When Pakistani nuclear proliferator Abdul Qadir Khan offered a few years ago to sell nuclear know-how to Egypt--along with Saudi Arabia, Syria, Algeria and Libya--only the latter apparently agreed, and Tripoli has since closed down its project in coordination with the US and UK.

A number of prominent Arab strategic thinkers have broached the possibility of an Arab-Iranian war being catalyzed by Iran's nuclear program and its accompanying hegemonic ambitions--particularly in the Gulf region, where several countries including Saudi Arabia have large Shi'ite communities. Last week the Kuwaiti Interior Ministry reportedly sponsored a simulation exercise of a Gulf Cooperation Council crisis with Iran, which included a scenario of a hostile Iran seeking to attack or destabilize Kuwait, about one-third of whose population is Shi'ite. The exercise was conducted by Kuwait's Center for Strategic Studies, whose director, Sami al-Faraj, stated that "the GCC countries and Iran are on a collision course".

Similarly in recent months Nawaf Obaid, an adviser to the Saudi defense establishment, has repeatedly warned of the Iranian threat and cited Saudi Arabia's capacity to counter it, in the virtual pages of bitterlemons-international.org and elsewhere:

Saudi Arabia has both the strategic interest and the authority to limit the influence of Iran, which is responsible for much of the current violence. . . I believe there will be a slow reconsideration of Iran's relationship with the Arab countries that have a majority Shi'ite community. . . . there is an understanding that whatever the Saudi government is told on an official level by Iran is not necessarily what is actually happening, specifically in Iraq, but also in Lebanon. . . . one consequence of the war [in Lebanon] is a realization that Iranian policy is being disruptive. . . We see a disconnect at the official level of what is being told to Riyadh and what is actually happening on the ground, and the latest reminder was in Bahrain where the government had to stop the sale of land to front companies acting on behalf of Iranian charities and intended specifically for the Shi'ite community.

Israel is not particularly worried about the prospect of an Egyptian or Saudi nuclear program. Both countries have signed the NPT; Egypt has a stable peace treaty with Israel and neither Egypt nor Saudi Arabia evinces hostile intentions toward it. On the other hand, like Iran, neither fossil fuel-rich country, especially Saudi Arabia, really needs nuclear-generated electricity.

Rather, the main Arab motive in Israeli eyes is the perceived need to possess a conspicuous nuclear program so as enhance the Arab power profile and counter Iran's drive for regional hegemony. In a worst case scenario, a Saudi nuclear weapon would be understood to be reserved as a deterrent against Iran. In any case, these programs are in their infancy and could not be considered in any way problematic for one or two decades.