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Interview: Martin Indyk, Former Ambassador to Israel, Discusses The New Peace Initiative in the Middle East
Morning Edition: February 9, 2005
Sharon, Abbas Look to Make Cease-Fire Last
STEVE INSKEEP, host:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
And I'm Renee Montagne.
Having agreed to a cease-fire, Israeli and Palestinian leaders will try to make it last. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, have pledged to work out a number of issues, including the release of Palestinian prisoners and a withdrawal of Israeli troops from Palestinian towns. But Israel's prime minister warned that the cease-fire will last, quote, "only as long as Palestinian attacks are quiet." The last cease-fire fell apart in a matter of weeks.
INSKEEP: Those watching the negotiations include Martin Indyk. He directs the Saban Center for Mideast Policy at The Brookings Institution. He was US ambassador to Israel, involved in failed negotiations during the Clinton administration, and Indyk says there is a chance that these negotiations could work.
Ambassador MARTIN INDYK (The Brookings Institution): You have an elected Palestinian leader who is not Yasser Arafat, who is committed and has a mandate to stop the violence and return to negotiations. There's an exhausted population on both sides who want to see an end to the violence. And you've got an Israeli prime minister who has an interest in showing that this is over, his people, too, have suffered enough. So the real question will be when a terrorist bomb goes off, and it will, how Abu Mazen reacts and then how Sharon will react. Will he hold back the army and exercise restraint and give Abu Mazen an opportunity to act? But those who confront the authority of Abu Mazen now will have to face the consequences. If there are no consequences, then the whole thing will collapse because Abu Mazen will then appear weak in front of these people and they will continue to challenge him.
INSKEEP: What are the next few steps as the two sides try to work out confidence in each other's security measures?
Amb. INDYK: There needs to be a quick sense of normalcy returning to both sides. For the Israelis, that will come from the lack of terror threats. For the Palestinians, it will come from the removal of roadblocks, the withdrawal of the Israeli army from Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank, and the resumption of economic life, including Palestinian workers going back to Israel. All of those things have been discussed between Abu Mazen and Sharon and their people, and there are plans to put that into place, because I think there's a very real feeling that if the people see the benefit of this, it will improve the chances that those who would seek to disrupt the cease-fire will not have the popular support for doing so.
INSKEEP: You said that it is hoped here that a peaceful period might remove popular support for further attacks. Is it also possible that a peaceful period might build popular support among Israelis or Palestinians for the difficult compromises that might lie ahead if they're ever to reach a permanent peace?
Amb. INDYK: Certainly over time, but I think it's important to understand the stages we would have to see them go through before we actually get to a negotiated settlement that ends the conflict. First of all, both sides have a fundamental distrust of the intentions of the other, and we cannot jump over that and say, `OK, let's go and do the deal now.' So there has to be a period in which the Israelis are going to be pulling out of Gaza anyway. That's going to happen over the next six months. And that is going to give the Palestinian Authority an opportunity to establish order in Gaza, and if they do that effectively, there will be much greater credibility in the eyes of the Israelis to the notion that they now have a Palestinian partner that is capable and willing of fulfilling its responsibilities to establish order and stop violence and negotiate and live up to commitments entered into. Then if that process succeeds, the issues left on the table--disposition of the territory and settlements in the West Bank, Jerusalem and the refugee issue.
INSKEEP: You're talking about where the borders will be drawn, what is Israel, what is Palestine, who gets what part of Jerusalem and whether Palestinians have the right of return to Israel. Those are the issues still on the table at that point.
Amb. INDYK: Yeah. I would refer to the last one as Palestinian rights. The right of return is one thing, but there's also the issue of compensation and absorption in the state of Palestine, which is going to be much more important. But you can't have that negotiation for a final agreement until you've gone through these initial stages, of the Gaza disengagement on the Israeli side and Palestinian capacity-building, elections, democratization that will be necessary on the Palestinian side. That's a kind of nine- to 10-month period. If that goes well, then I think by the end of the year, we're looking at a situation in which negotiations could begin for the establishment of a Palestinian state. On the other hand, it's the Middle East and I think our optimism at this moment should be tempered by a certain degree of caution.
INSKEEP: Ambassador, thanks very much.
Amb. INDYK: Thank you, Steve.
INSKEEP: Martin Indyk is a former US ambassador to Israel.
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