Democratic Palestine : 23 (ص 14)
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- عنوان
- Democratic Palestine : 23 (ص 14)
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US—Israeli ‘peace’ conference
International Peace Conference?
Major capitals in the Middle East
have, for some time now, been witness-
ing very active movements, dealing with
the revived deliberations about an in-
ternational peace conference on the
Middle East. Israeli Foreign Minister
Shimon Peres’ visit to Cairo in late
February, the EEC’s declaration about
an international conference, and the
generally positive response of the Arab
regimes, have all helped the forceful
comeback of talk about the conference.
This comeback has occurred despite the
fact that the stands of the various par-
ties involved on the conference have not
changed in contents. Nor is it clear
whether such a conference can be con-
vened this year, or the next for that
matter.
BACKGROUND
It couldn’t have come at a better time
from the point of view of the enemy
alliance. The situation on the Arab and
Palestinian level presents a tempting
offer for the imperialist powers to now
come up with the idea of an interna-
tional conference on the Middle East.
The capitulationist trend that spread in
the region after the Israeli invasion of
Lebanon in 1982, paved the way for
Arab reaction and the imperialist-
Zionist alliance to attempt to impose
14
the imperialist plans on the region.
The imperialist-Zionist alliance drew
hope that they had a chance to impose
their plans due to a series of
developments, chiefly: the PLO’s divi-
sion, the Amman accord, the Cairo
declaration of the rightist PLO leader-
ship, the Peres-Hassan II meeting, the
Peres-Mubarak summits in Alexandria
and Cairo, the Iraq-Iran war, the war
of the camps in Lebanon, and Egypt’s
official return to the Islamic conference
and its restoration of relations with
many Arab regimes.
The convening of an international
conference, which would lay out an
acceptable basis for a peaceful settle-
ment of the Middle East conflict, is not
a new idea. Neither is it an Israeli idea
as Peres attempts to project. The idea is
an old one, dating back to after the
1967 war. The US and ‘Israel’ have
consistently rejected the whole idea for
obvious reasons: the Israeli insistence
on direct, bilateral negotiations, and
the US desire to impose its hegemony
on the region.
Before the 1973 war, all doors
leading to an international conference
were blocked, which led Egypt and
Syria to enter that war. Afterwards, the
talk about an international conference
was revived. Under the pressure of the
military consequences of the war, the
Geneva conference was held. Henry
Kissinger, then US national security
advisor, succeeded in transforming the
conference into an «international um-
brella» - exactly what Peres wants to-
day - in which direct, bilateral negotia-
tions between Egypt and ‘Israel’
ultimately resulted in the Camp David
accords.
After the achievement of the first and
second disengagement agreements
between Egypt and ‘Israel’, Kissinger’s
step-by-step diplomacy stopped. For
the third time, talk about an interna-
tional conference was revived and even
developed. It halted, however, with
Sadat’s visit to occupied Jerusalem in
1977, which replaced the idea of an in-
ternational conference with direct
negotiations. This resulted in the in-
famous Camp David accords. The US
and its Zionist ally considered that what
was achieved with Sadat was a prece-
dent which could be repeated and
spread.
CURRENT PROSPECTS
Foi mally, there are only small rocks
that obstruct the road to an interna-
tional conference. The US administra-
tion which used to consistently veto the
idea of such a conference, had now
withdrawn its reservations, supported
by Western Europe. In the Israeli - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 23
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