The Atkin Paper Series
Making Peace Work:
Bridging The Gap Between
Hopes and Deeds
Manar Rachwani
January 2010
About the Atkin Paper Series
Thanks to the generosity of the Atkin Foundation, the International Centre for the
Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) offers young leaders from
Israel and the Arab world the opportunity to come to London for a period of four
months. The purpose of the fellowship is to provide young leaders from Israel and the
Arab world with an opportunity to develop their ideas on how to further peace and
understanding in the Middle East through research, debate and constructive dialogue
in a neutral political environment. The end result is a policy paper that will provide a
deeper understanding and a new perspective on a specific topic or event.
Editor
Dr. Peter R. Neumann
Director
International Centre for the Study of
Radicalisation and Political Violence
(ICSR), King’s College London
Editor
Dr Ahron Bregman
King’s College London
Editorial Assistant
Katie Rothman
Project Manager, International Centre for
the Study of Radicalisation and Political
Violence (ICSR), King’s College London
To order hardcopies or contact the editor,
please write to [email protected].
All papers in the Atkin Paper Series
can be downloaded free of charge
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About Manar Rachwani
M
anar Rachwani joined ICSR as an Atkin Research Fellow for Winter 2009.
He holds a Masters degree in Political Science from Al al Bayt University
of Jordan (1999), and B.A in Law from the University of Jordan (1995).
In addition to his work as a researcher, Manar has worked as Managing Editor of
Art and Culture at Al Ghad Daily Newspaper based in Jordan, and Director of the
Research Department at Al Arab Daily Newspaper based in Qatar. Manar’s areas of
interest include Democracy, Human Rights, and Economic Reform. In addition to his
articles in Arabic newspapers, he has published several studies on various issues in
the Arab World, including, among others, “Structural Adjustment Policies and Political
Stability in Jordan”; “Particularity Creation and Human Rights in the Arab World” and
“Economic Reform and Democratization in the Arab World”.
Summary
I
n his paper ‘Making Peace Work: Bridging The Gap Between Hopes and Deeds’,
Manar Rachwani addresses what seems to be a paradox within Arab attitudes
towards peace with Israel, represented in announced desires for peace combined
with contradictable deeds on the ground. The core of this paradox, according to
Rachwani, is embodied in the perception of “peace” by the Arab peoples, which is
supposed to be comprehensive. Nevertheless, Rachwani argues that a real ‘warm’
peace in the Middle East cannot be achieved on merely political level. Such peace
requires broad reforms on local levels in Arab countries. Also, political progress
towards peace should go hand in hand with normalisation to create mutual trust on
the both sides of the conflicts.
1
2
Making Peace Work:
Bridging The Gap Between
Hopes and Deeds
By Manar Rachwani
F
ollowing Egyptian President Anwar Al Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem in 1977, many
Arab leaders – and indeed their publics – came to believe that negotiations
were the only way forward in trying to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.
This view took root in the “Madrid Peace Conference” of 1991, which almost
all Arab countries attended and which later, in 1994, led to the signing of a peace
treaty between Jordan and Israel. Much like the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty,
the Jordanian-Israeli treaty was based on the principle of ‘Land for Peace’, which
required Israel’s withdrawal from Arab territories occupied in 1967 in exchange
for Arab recognition of Israel’s right to live in peace in the region, in compliance
with United Nations Security Council Resolution 242. This resolution, issued on
22 November 1967, called for ‘the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the
Middle East which should include the application of both the following principles:
(i) Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;
(ii) Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and
acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence
of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and
recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force’, in addition calling ‘for
achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem’.1
In line with the Israeli-Egyptian treaty, Israel has withdrawn from all Egyptian
territories, with arrangements made that led to the creation of Demilitarized Zones
(DMZs) in the Sinai Peninsula. The same can be said about the Jordanian case,
which was also based on land swaps and the long-term lease of Jordanian land to
Israel. However, it is obvious that Israel has never managed to achieve real ‘peace’,
1
The difference between the English and French versions of this resolution triggered different
interpretations by Israel and the Arab countries. While the French text called for the withdrawal of
Israeli armed forces from ‘the territories occupied in the recent conflict’, the English text read as
‘territories occupied...’.
3
by which I mean not only the official termination of the state of war but also, and
perhaps even more important, the normalisation of relations on all levels with her
former enemies.
Although Arab public opinion surveys over the years show only a minority
opposes the two-state solution (i.e., the recognition of Israeli and Palestinian states,
which means acknowledging Israel’s right to exist peacefully in the Middle East),
the existing peace between Israel and Egypt and between Israel and Jordan is still
a cold peace at best.2 In both cases, apart from strict official cooperation at the
governmental level with Israel, mainly on security issues, the main characteristic at
the public level is a lack of any normal relations between the Israelis on one side and
the Egyptians and the Jordanians on the other.3 In fact, many indicators of hostility
towards Israel can be found at this level in both Egypt and Jordan.
Strikingly, years after the signing of the peace treaties, instead of making some
progress toward more normal and stable relations, coldness has started to penetrate
the official level itself in Jordan, which was known as a big defender of peace at both
the public and governmental levels. On the eve of the 15th anniversary of the peace
treaty between Israel and Jordan, King Abdullah II described the relationship between
the two countries as ‘getting colder’.4
Against this background, this paper will focus on what seems to be a paradox
within Arab attitudes toward peace with Israel: namely, if the Arabs are eager to
achieve genuine peace with Israel, as was expressed in the peace treaties that have
been signed as well as the positive results of public opinion surveys, then how can
the lack of deeds translating this desire into reality be explained?
From Cold Peace to Colder Peace
In assessing the effectiveness of any peace accord, we can borrow Benjamin
Miller’s model to distinguish between three main types or levels of peace, which
consequently imply different tendencies towards renewing regional conflict or
war: cold peace, normal peace, and warm peace.5 Cold peace’ constitutes the
first indispensably step to putting an end to a conflict; however, due to its being a
‘governmental peace’ rather than peace between peoples, ‘the danger of a return
to the use of force still looms in the background’. This vulnerability to conflict or war
can be decreased in the next phase by moving to a higher degree of ‘normal peace’
based on relations beyond that of governments. These relations could then evolve
into ‘extensive transnational relations and a high degree of regional interdependence’,
2
3
4
5
The percentage opposing the two-state solution amounted to 25% in 2009, 19% in 2008, and
29% in 2006. Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at University of Maryland/Zogby
International, ‘Arab Public Opinion Surveys’. Available at: www.sadat.umd.edu/new surveys/surveys
See for example: Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein (Jordan’s ambassador to the United States) interview
with Middle East Bulletin, 27 October 2009. Available at: middleeastprogress.org/2009/10/the-viewfrom-amman
King Abdullah II interview with Akiva Eldar of Haaretz, 9 October 2009. Available at: (http://www.
kingabdullah.jo/main.php?main_page=0&lang_hmka1=1)
Benjamin Miller, ‘When and How Regions Become Peaceful: Potential Theoretical Pathways to
Peace’, International Studies Review (2005) 7, pp.229-267.
4
leading to a ‘warm peace’ where ‘war is no longer thinkable, whatever the
international or regional developments’.6
Table 1
Ideal Types of Regional Peace
Cold Peace
Normal Peace
Warm Peace
Main issues in
conflict
Mitigated, but not
fully resolved
Resolved
Resolved or
transcended
(rendered irrelevant)
Channels of
communication
Only
Intergovernmental
Mostly
intergovernmental;
beginning of
development of
transnational ties
Intergovernmental
plus highly
developed
transnational ties
Contingency
plans for war
Still present
Possible
Absent
Possibility of
return to war
Present
Possible
Unthinkable
Source: Benjamin Miller, ‘When and How Regions Become Peaceful: Potential
Theoretical Pathways to Peace’, International Studies Review (2005) 7, p.232.
Looking at the relations between Israel on one side and Egypt and Jordan on the
other, according to many indicators on different levels, it would be safe to say that the
existing peace is in a lower position than ‘cold peace’.
Besides the continuous demonstrations against Israel, the most important
indicator of hostility can be found in the powerful ‘anti-normalisation’ campaigns
against Israel in Jordan and Egypt. These maintain strong relationships with similar
entities in almost all other Arab countries and aim to prevent any voluntary relations
with Israel and any of its institutions, whether political, economic, cultural, or social.
A notable aspect of this campaign, which explains its growing influence, is the
diversity among the groups and individuals who run and support it. These groups
include political parties with different ideologies and attitudes (e.g., Islamists, leftists,
nationalists), professional associations, academics, and prominent former officials
(two former prime ministers, for example, in the case of Jordan). Those who have
relations with Israel, on any level, usually keep it secret as it is still considered a
‘scandal’.
6
Ibid., p.232.
5
Although ‘anti-normalisation’ endeavours are directed mainly at the public levels
–individuals, companies, and institutions – a byproduct of the campaign’s successful
effort can be seen in the ‘cold peace’ with Israel at the official/governmental level
in both countries. In this context, an important indicator is the fact that President
Hosni Mubarak, as well as the late King Hussein and his successor King Abdullah
II, have refrained from visiting Israel, with the exception of Mubarak and Hussein’s
attendance at the funeral of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995.
Another important indicator is the negative media coverage of Israel in Jordan
and Egypt,7 mainly by Al Jazeera, which is regarded as the most important media
outlet in the Arab world.8 The importance of the Al Jazeera indicator comes not only
from its influence, but also from the fact that it is based in Qatar and funded by the
Qatari government, which established quasi-normal diplomatic relations with Israel in
1996 by opening an Israeli trade office in Doha.
Finally, while these indicators of hostility and a ‘cold peace’ at the governmental
level feed public attitudes toward Israel, we can argue that the same indicators are a
reflection of existing attitudes among ordinary people. Public opinion surveys in six
Arab countries (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Morocco, Jordan, and the United Arab
Emirates) show that the vast majority see Israel as the most threatening state, which
helps explain the high popularity of Hezbollah and Hamas, who deny Israel’s right to
exist.9
The Dividends of Peace
As land was the main, if not the only, reason behind the start of the Arab-Israeli
conflict in 1948 (or perhaps since the Balfour Declaration in 1917), it is reasonable
to assume that the return of occupied Arab territories was the only motive behind
the Arabs’ acceptance of peace with Israel. Thus, normal or warm peace would
compensate Israel for its withdrawal from the occupied territories, in compliance with
UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, or the principle of ’Land for Peace’.
Although this is true, another incentive, no less important, made it vital for the Arabs
to pursue peace: economic benefits. This incentive was clear in the Egyptian case
as well as the Jordanian and played a crucial role in selling the peace treaties to the
public in both countries.
Years before his visit to Jerusalem, Egyptian President Anwar Al Sadat launched
a new economic policy: the Infitah (open door), based mainly on ‘the achievement
7 8
9
On Jordanian media coverage of Israel after peace, see Gadi Wolfsfeld, Rami Khouri, and Yoram
Peri, ‘News About the Other in Jordan and Israel: Does Peace Make a Difference?’, Political
Communication, Vol. 19, No. 2, (2002), pp.189-210; Shlomo Gazit, ‘Israel and Egypt: What Went
Wrong?’, Strategic Assessment, Vol. 12, No.1 (Tel Aviv: Institute for National Security Studies/Tel Aviv
University, 2009) p. 71.
In a 2009 public opinion poll 55% of those polled mentioned Al Jazeera as their first choice for
international news. See: Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at University of Maryland/
Zogby International, ‘Arab Public Opinion Survey 2009’. Available at: www.sadat.umd.edu/new
surveys/surveys
Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at University of Maryland/Zogby International, ‘Arab
Public Opinion Surveys’. Available at: www.sadat.umd.edu/new surveys/surveys
6
of regional stability through a negotiated settlement’.10 As a result of four wars
with Israel and one war in Yemen, in addition to internal factors related mainly to a
dramatic increase in population, Egypt was heading towards serious social dilemmas,
represented by the rise of poverty and the expected high rate of unemployment.
In spite of food subsidies, the World Bank estimated that ‘about 19% of the urban
population and 27% of urban households, and 25% of the rural population and 35%
of rural households’ were below the absolute poverty line in 1975, which explained
the ‘bread riots’ that erupted in 1977 after the reduction of food subsidies.11 President
Sadat used economic incentives to justify his pursuit of peace with Israel publicly,
and ‘domestic public opinion was reoriented to expect that the economic rewards of
peace would compensate for the sacrifices made by two generations of Egyptians’.12
In the case of Jordan, economic incentives were even more obviously one of the
most important factors behind the signing of the peace accord with Israel. On the eve
of the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991, Jordan was facing a serious financial crisis
that had already led to riots and disturbances in 1989, mainly in the southern part of
the country which has always been considered the stronghold of the regime. After
a decade of growth, gross domestic product (GDP) on average declined in 19851989 to -1.2% from an average of 9.9% in the period 1980-1985, which led to the
devaluation of the Jordanian currency and consequently a rise in prices of goods in
general, including some basic goods.13
The burden of the economic crisis of 1989 increased after the Iraqi invasion
of Kuwait in 1990 and the war that followed. As King Hussein refused to join the
international coalition against Iraq in 1991, Jordan lost one of its most valuable
sources of funds: external transfers in the form of workers’ remittances (as a result
of the return of more than 200,000 Jordanians from many Arab Gulf countries)
and international grants from the same countries.14 These developments led to a
deterioration of almost all economic and social indicators; unemployment increased
to 18.8% in 1993 (vs. 5.2% in 1982/1983) and absolute poverty increased to 19.8%
in 1993/94 (vs. 3% in 1986/87).15
In this context we can understand why Jordan insisted, according to Fayez
Al Tarawneh (then Ambassador to Washington and one of the leading negotiators
with Israel), on signing ‘a detailed treaty… providing for peace, security, and the
10
11
12
13
14
15
Heba Handoussa and Nemat Shafik, ‘The Economic Peace: The Egyptian Case’, in Stanley Fischer,
Dani Rodrick, and Elias Tuma eds., The Economics of Middle East Peace: Views from the Region
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993), p. 20.
World Bank, ‘Egypt: Economic Management in a Period of Transition’ (Baltimore: World Bank, 1980),
pp. 49-50.
Heba Handoussa and Nemat Shafik, op. cit., pp. 20-21.
World Bank, ‘Jordan: Consolidating Economic Adjustment and Establishing the Base for Sustainable
Growth’, Vol.1 (Washington D.C.: World Bank, 1994), p. 4
Department of Statistics, Jordan, 1997.
Ahsan Mansur, ‘Social Aspects of the Adjustment Program: Strengthening the Social Safety Net’,
in Edward Maciejewski and Ahsan Mansur, eds., Jordan: Strategy for Adjustment and Growth
(Washington, D.C.: IMF, 1996), p. 68; World Bank and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Poverty
Assessment Report (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1994).
7
prospect of cooperative relations’, which was followed the next year by the signing of
‘nineteen technical agreements, covering such fields as tourism, cultural exchanges,
telecommunications, the environment, and health’.16
Strikingly, the economic benefits of peace expected by Egypt and Jordan
matched the Israeli desire for extensive cooperation at this level. From the Israeli
point of view, the economic benefits of peace, mainly through regional cooperation,
played a crucial role at the political level. In Israeli President Shimon Peres’ words, ‘A
new Middle East’ – which is supposed to emerge after peace in the region – ‘cannot
be established on a political basis alone. If we define change as erecting a few new
signs and marking off old borders, very little will have been gained, and certainly none
of it will last. The unrest will not abate, because the reasons underlying it are more
economic and social than they are political’.17
In other words, regional cooperation on different levels constitutes the best
way to make the achieved peace accords permanent, prevent them from being
jeopardised by circumstantial changes and, as a result, legitimise Israel’s existence in
the middle of the Arab world.
What Went Wrong?
Contrary to the high expectations, the outcomes of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty
were frustrating in almost every aspect apart from ending the state of war between
the two countries. Such frustration was extremely obvious in the case of mutual
cooperation that would have consolidated the infant peace and made it a first step
towards a comprehensive peace in the region as a whole.
Instead of enjoying the economic rewards of peace, Egypt paid a very high price
for what was considered then, in the Arab world, a unilateral step and a betrayal of
Arab rights. The Arab countries’ reaction to President Sadat’s peace initiative was to
boycott Egypt and freeze her membership in the Arab League. As a result, ‘Arab aid
and private investment capital immediately dried up, Arab markets were effectively
closed to Egyptian-based enterprises, tourist flows from Arab countries dwindled,
and large investors pulled out of numerous major joint venture projects in tourism,
manufacturing, the free zones, and defense’.18
On the bilateral level between Egypt and Israel, the regional developments and
incidents that followed the signing of the peace treaty made cooperation between
the two parties almost impossible on any level, and almost froze relations at the
governmental level. The first important development took place just before Israel’s
complete withdrawal from the Sinai. On 30 July 1980, the Knesset passed what was
called the ‘Jerusalem Law’, declaring the city, including the eastern part occupied
in 1967, as the capital of Israel. Another development came a few days after the
return of the Sinai to Egypt. In June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon and occupied an
16
17
18
Fayez Tarawneh, ‘The Middle East Peace Process from the Jordanian Perspective,’ (speech to the
National Committee on American Foreign Policy (NCAFP), 7 November 1996), American Foreign
Policy Interest, February 1997.
Shimon Peres (with Arye Naor), The New Middle East (New York: Henry Holt, 1993), p. 101.
Heba Handoussa and Nemat Shafik, op.cit., pp. 20-21.
8
Arab capital for the first time in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Egyptian
response was to recall its ambassador to Israel and wait eleven years before
appointing a new one.
Though the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty was doomed to remain merely a
governmental peace, the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty arrived in a completely
different context, which could be considered the heyday of peace in the modern
Middle East. This treaty was the result of the international Madrid Peace Conference
that brought all the parties, including Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinians, to start
direct negotiations with Israel, aimed at achieving a comprehensive peace.
More important, the Jordanian-Israeli treaty was signed only after the Oslo
Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) were
officially signed on 13 September 1993 in Washington, D.C. These accords created
the Palestinian Authority (PA) and laid the foundations for a Palestinian state; more
important, they enjoyed high support among ordinary Palestinians in the occupied
territories. According to public opinion polls in the West Bank and Gaza Strip,
approval of the 1994 ‘Gaza-Jericho First Agreement’ – which granted the Palestinians
self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho area as a first step towards the establishment
of a Palestinian state within five years – ranged between 64.9% and 68.6% (with
higher approval in the Gaza Strip than in the West Bank).19
This exceptional regional environment was accompanied by the unique bilateral
relations between Jordan and Israel dating back decades before the signing of the
peace treaty in 1994. Because of this both parties, the Jordanians as well as the
Israelis, were expecting no less than a ‘warm peace’ based on bilateral cooperation
at all levels, which could be a model for the region as a whole. In his speech on
19 June 1996 at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Marwan Mu’asher,
Jordan’s then Minister of Information and former inaugural ambassador to Israel,
described the Jordanian-Israeli peace model as ‘unique to the region… If this model
is to succeed and become the norm within the region, it is imperative to broaden the
framework. Cooperation will bring benefits not only to Jordan but also to the entire
Middle East, creating a region of stability, prosperity, and interdependence’.20 A few
months later, the same view was expressed by Dan Meridor, then the Israeli Minister
of Finance from the Likud party, who emphasised that ‘Israel and Jordan can be a
model for peace throughout the entire region, specifically for the Palestinians. There
is a ripe opportunity for the citizens of both Israel and Jordan to realise the benefits of
peace, because Jordanian society has made itself more open to peace’.21
19
20
21
Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, ‘Public Opinion Poll #1: The Palestinian-Israeli
Agreement: “Gaza-Jericho First”’, 10-11 September 1993’, available at: www.pcpsr.org/survey/
cprspolls/94/poll1. Jerusalem Media and Communication Center, ‘Public Opinion Poll No. 3 On
Palestinian Attitudes on PLO - Israel Agreement’, September 1993’, available at: www.jmcc.org/
publicpoll/results/1993/no3
Marwan Mu’asher, ‘Jordan and the Peace Process’, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy,
19 June 1996. Available at: www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=1804.
Dan Meridor, ‘Israel: Economics, Politics, and Peace’, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy,
11 October 1996. Available at: www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=1102.
9
Unfortunately, in spite of all the positive elements that encouraged the possibility
of a peace between Jordan and Israel that would go beyond governmental relations,
the ultimate outcomes were frustrating. The failure to meet the expectations of
prosperity in an era of peace prevailed as the main feature of the Jordanian-Israeli
peace treaty.
After fifteen years of peaceful relations, no single joint-development project has
taken place, including the projects that were mentioned in the peace treaty regarding
the Rift Valley (Article 20) and Aqaba and Eilat (Article 23). According to Oded Eran,
the Israeli Ambassador to Jordan from 1997 to 2000, ‘despite [Prime Minister Yitzhak]
Rabin’s explicit directive, the idea of building a joint airport, with Aqaba as its base,
has expired. The idea of moving most of the Eilat airport activities to the Aqaba
airport has never even been examined. Expensive coastal real estate, which could
have been developed and leveraged to generate income, now serves as a parking lot
for cars from the Far East’.22
Actually, Jordan tried from the very beginning to draw attention to the poor
performance on cooperation in reference to the peace treaty. In a speech in 1999,
Rima Khalaf-Hunaidi, then Jordan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Planning,
said that peace with Israel was supposed to generate ‘an unparalleled expansion in
economic activity. It was expected to lead to a sizable increase in per capita income
and a significant improvement in the standards of living of the average Jordanian.
The translation of the peace dividend was an improved quality of life and a brighter
tomorrow’. But the results, according to the Jordanian minister, ‘do not look as good
as even what the most modest scenario had portrayed. Since 1996, the standard
of living in Jordan progressively deteriorated, as real growth rates dropped from an
average of 10% during the period 1992-1994, to 5.6% in 1995, and then to a mere
1.5% during the period 1996-1998, a rate which is well below the natural population
growth rate’.23
The only exception to this grim picture was supposed to be what are called the
“Qualifying Industrial Zones” (QIZs), which entitle goods jointly produced by Israel
and Jordan to enter the United States duty free. By producing ‘tangible economic
benefits’, QIZs were expected to enhance support for the Middle East peace process
at the public level.24 On the tenth anniversary of the signing of the Jordanian-Israeli
peace treaty some Western researchers suggested that the QIZs were the main
reason behind the creation of thousands of new jobs in Jordan since 1996, as well as
22
23
24
Oded Eran, “Look eastward”, Haaretz, 26 October 2009. Available at: www.haaretz.com/hasen/
spages/1123559.
Rima Khalaf-Hunaidi, ‘Peace in the Middle East and the Jordanian Economy’, The Washington
Institute for Near East Policy, 30 September 1999. Available at: www.washingtoninstitute.org/
templateC07.php?CID=33.
Mary Jane Bolle, Alfred B. Prados, and Jeremy M. Sharp, ‘Qualifying Industrial Zones in Jordan and
Egypt’, CRS Report for Congress, 5 July 2006. Available at: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/
crs/rs22002.pdf. (Egypt concluded an agreement with Israel on QIZs by the end of 2004).
10
increasing economic growth. Because of this, Jordanian-Israeli cooperation could be
a ‘regional model’ to be followed.25
But Jordanian and American data, as well as data from the International
Labor Organization (ILO), suggest a different story. While enterprises in the QIZs
can, according to the governing regulations, employ up to 30% non-Jordanian
workers in the first year ‘to allow for rapid startup’, this percentage was at its best
around 50%, and up to 75.5% in 2008. Most important, Jordanian workers in QIZs
complained about the low wages.26 Under such unpleasant conditions, it became
easy for the proponents of ‘anti-normalisation’ to portray the QIZs as an example of
Israeli exploitation of Jordanian workers and the Jordanian infrastructure, especially
as the Israeli investments in the QIZs in Jordan, according to the most recent study,
constituted about 0.3% of the total volume, as Israeli inputs were still required in
order to enter the American market duty free.27
The Postponed Peace
Beyond joint projects, peace dividends are expected to include an increase in the
inflow of foreign investment, a greater ability to accommodate domestic capital, and
a better position on competitiveness in the global market as a result of the significant
decrease in the costs of production in comparison with the previous high-risk
situation generated by the conflict. However, such benefits are possible only in the
case of a comprehensive peace that ends the conflict. Here we should remember that
both President Sadat and King Hussein considered their peace treaties with Israel a
step in the effort to achieve a comprehensive peace.
Thus, the persistence of conflict between Israel and the Palestinians not only
prevents Egypt and Jordan from materialising these benefits, but also made both
countries pay an additional price for peace. While Egypt was boycotted for almost
a decade by all Arab countries in response to signing a peace treaty with Israel,
Jordan’s exports to Arab countries came under high scrutiny in the name of fighting
normalisation with Israel. Jordan was accused of secretly facilitating the export of
Israeli products to Arab countries in compliance with Article (7) of the JordanianIsraeli peace treaty, which calls for cooperation ‘to terminate economic boycotts
25
26
27
David Makovsky, ‘Peace Pays Off for Jordan: Benefits of pact with Israel suggest a regional model’,
Los Angeles Times, 31 January 2003. Available at: articles.latimes.com/2003/jan/31/opinion/
oe-makovsky31. Michael Herzog, ‘A Decade of Israeli-Jordanian Peace: An Untold Economic
Success Story’, Peace Watch #478, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 29 October 2004.
Jordan Human Development Report 2004: Building Sustainable Livelihood, Ministry of Planning
and International Cooperation, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the United Nations Development
Program (Amman: 2004), pp. 94-97. Mary Jane Bolle, Alfred B. Prados, and Jeremy M. Sharp,
‘Qualifying Industrial Zones in Jordan and Egypt’, CRS Report for Congress, 5 July 2006. Available
at: www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/crs/rs22002.pdf. Mutayyam al-O’ran, ‘The First Decade of the
Jordanian-Israeli Peace-Building Experience: A Story of Jordanian Challenges (1994-2003)’, Middle
East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 10, No. 4 (December 2006), p. 86. Taleb Awad, Qualifying
Industrial Zones in Jordan: Performance, Economic Impact, and Future Horizons (Amman: University
of Jordan, 2009), p. 9 (In Arabic).
Taleb Awad, Qualifying Industrial Zones in Jordan, op. cit., p. 7.
11
directed at the other Party, and to co-operate in terminating boycotts against either
Party by third parties’.
These facts highlight the importance of a comprehensive peace. We can argue
that such a peace constitutes the only path toward a warm peace.
The first element in justifying this argument is embodied in the fact that when
the majority of the Arab world expresses its support for peace, it refers to the
‘comprehensive peace’ that is based on an Israeli withdrawal from ‘all the territories
occupied in the 1967 war including East Jerusalem’. This definition is a normal
reflection of the centrality of the Palestinian question in the Arab world. According to
Shibley Telhami, Palestine ‘remains a central issue for most Arabs’. Thus, ‘increasing
Sunni-Shiite tensions’ do not change the fact that ‘the Arab- Israeli issue remains the
prism through which most Arabs view the world’.
Graphic 1
The importance of Palestine Among Non-Palestinian Arabs (2002-2008)
IMPORTANCE OF PALESTINE AMOUNG NON-PALESTINIAN ARABS
How important is the issue of Palestine in your priorities?
(respondents who answered “most important” or “top three”)
6-COUNTRY TOTAL
89%
73%
2002
73%
73%
2003
86%
69%
2004
2005
2006
2008
Source: Shibley Telhami, Does the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict still Matter?: Analyzing
Arab Public Perceptions (Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2008) p. 6.
This becomes even more clear in the case of Jordan, where 50% of the population
is of Palestinian origin -- which explains why 100% put Palestine among the ‘most
important’ or ‘top three’ priorities.
12
Graphic 2
The Importance of Palestine Among Jordanians (2002-2008)
IMPORTANCE OF PALESTINE AMOUNG NON-PALESTINIAN ARABS
How important is the issue of Palestine in your priorities?
(respondents who answered “most important” or “top three”)
JORDAN
100%
94%
92%
85%
2003
85%
2004
2005
2006
2008
Source: Shibley Telhami, Does the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict still Matter?: Analyzing
Arab Public Perceptions (Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2008) p. 7.
This centrality also explains the popularity and power of ‘anti-normalisation’
campaigns, and why they have become an umbrella for political parties with different
ideologies and attitudes.
Peace… the Panacea?
However, a comprehensive peace is not a sufficient requisite for normal and peaceful
relations in the region. While some would blame Israel for the existing state of
‘partial peace’, it is still true that there are many obstacles on the other side – within
the Arab world – which would prevent regional cooperation even under a situation
of comprehensive peace. Consequently, these obstacles would keep any peace
cold, unable to go beyond relations between governments to relations between
peoples. The best example of such obstacles appeared in the regional economic
summits in Casablanca, Amman, and Doha between 1994 and 1996 as part of the
comprehensive peace process in the region.
During that era, the Israelis were enthusiastic about the regional cooperation
that was supposed to be the hallmark of ‘the New Middle East’, while almost all
Arab countries were suspicious of such cooperation. For many observers, Israeli
interest in regional cooperation created an image in the Arab world that in the era
of peace Israel aimed to dominate the Arab world through economic means instead
of military means. This image was reinforced by Israel’s ‘overbearing presence’
at the first summit in Casablanca; Israeli proposals for joint projects at all three
regional summits; and most important, statements by Israeli officials that gave Israel
13
a position of leadership as the heart of ‘the New Middle East’. Shimon Peres, the
godfather of the ‘New Middle East’, was quoted as saying at the Casablanca Summit
that ‘Egypt led the Arabs for 40 years and brought them to the abyss; you will see the
region’s economic situation improve when Israel takes the rein of leadership in the
Middle East’.28
But from another perspective, Arab suspicion and fear are nothing less than
an implicit confession of the development gap, speaking broadly, between the Arab
countries and Israel, which gives the latter supremacy within the region. Because
of that, ‘the admission of Israel into this pre-industrial region, armed with its vast
economic and military superiority over the combination of its neighbours, threatens to
transform the Middle East from a multipolar system into a hegemonic one’.29
This highlights the importance of internal reform, in its wider meaning, in the
Arab world as another prerequisite for true warm peace in the region. The required
internal reform does not involve merely economic and educational reforms that would
make regional cooperation possible on the base of equality; political reform is an
integral part of any successful reform, at every level and in every area.
Political reform in itself was among the expected gains of peace at the public
level. For decades the Arab-Israeli conflict was misused by almost all Arab countries
to prevent any kind of political reform and accountability, under the slogan ‘No sound
is higher than the sound of the battle [with Israel]’. Thus, the end of the state of war
with Israel (or what we can call ‘the pretext’), even through bilateral agreements,
was supposed to lead to more openness at the political level, if not to a real
democratisation process. Unfortunately, the results on the ground, in both Egypt and
Jordan, were completely different. Since 1981, after the assassination of President
Anwar Al Sadat, Egypt has been ruled by emergency law, aimed at marginalising and
sidelining the opposition.
In Jordan, which witnessed an impressive parliamentary election in 1989,
the years that followed the signing of the peace treaty with Israel in 1994 were
accompanied by a deterioration of political and civil freedoms, which people and
politicians (mainly from the opposition) linked to the signing of the JordanianIsraeli peace treaty. In the words of Bassam Haddadin, then a Jordanian member
of parliament, ‘whenever progress was made in the negotiation process, the
government had tightened its grip on the opposition and limited participation in the
decision making process to the smallest circles and sometimes to a few individuals’.30
The lack of political freedom contributes significantly to the failure to feel the benefits
of peace on an economic level, or to create the proper environment for regional
cooperation.
28
29
30
For full discussion, see: Laura Drake, ‘Arab-Israeli Relations in a New Middle East Order’, in J.
W. Wright, Jr., ed., The Political Economy of Middle East Peace: The impact of competing trade
agendas (London: Routledge, 1999), pp. 11-39.
Laura Drake, ‘Arab-Israeli Relations in a New Middle East Order’, op. cit., p.22.
Paul L. Scham and Russell E. Lucas, ‘Normalization and Anti Normalization in Jordan: The Public
Debate’, Israel Affairs, Vol. 9, No. 3 (2003), p. 149.
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In considering the dividends of peace, studies concentrate mainly on the
benefits of the decrease in military expenditure after peace and the possible
reallocation of resources for developmental goals.
In the case of the Middle East, before the Madrid Peace Conference, ‘the
region as a whole has been shown to account for the highest relative allocation of
resources to military expenditures among all developing-country regions. For the
period 1972-88, military expenditure (excluding expenditures funded by foreign
assistance), accounted for 10.1% of GDP, almost twice the average of 5.3% for
developing countries as a group’.31 While we can see a significant decrease in military
expenditures in the Egyptian case, as a percentage of GDP over the period 19882007 (6.9% in 1988 vs. 2.5% in 2007), military expenditures in Jordan stand at almost
the same high level since the signing of the peace treaty with Israel (6.7% in 1994 vs.
6.2% in 2007).32
But regardless of the trend in military expenditures, regional and internal
instabilities suggest that any decrease in military expenditures does not mean
necessarily more resources for productive civilian projects. The greater possibility
in this regard is that more resources are allocated for (internal) security goals, in
response to the growing influence of extremist Islamic groups, like Al Qaeda. Of
course, many would argue that the continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict explains
the power of these groups, which use the Palestinian question to rally people around
them and justify their attacks. But while this is true in part, the real support for
fundamentalism stems from the lack of political reform in the Arab world in general.
Conclusion: Peace is Comprehensive
This paper aimed to address and explain what seems to be a paradox within Arab
attitudes toward peace with Israel, represented by announced desires for peace
combined with contradictory deeds on the ground. We can say, on the basis of the
above discussion, that the core of this paradox is embodied in the perception of
‘peace’ by the Arab peoples. At the public level, ‘peace’ with Israel is supposed to be
comprehensive, which includes different dimensions.
In explaining the meaning of comprehensive peace, it is definitely true that
one of the most important attributes of this peace is represented by a just solution
for all the problems resulting from the Arab-Israeli conflict, with special concern for
the Palestinian question. As discussed earlier, the Palestinian issue still constitutes,
after more than six decades of conflict, the central issue for the vast majority in the
Arab world. Thus, any normalisation of relations with Israel that could lead to a warm
peace would seem – under the existing conditions characterised by the occupation
of the Palestinian territories – as a step at the expense of the Palestinian right to
an independent state, and also at the expense of the Palestinian refugees’ right to
31
32
Said El-Naggar and Mohamed El-Erian, ‘The Economic Implications of a Comprehensive Peace in
the Middle East’, in Stanley Fischer, Dani Rodrick, and Elias Tuma eds., The Economics of Middle
East Peace: Views from the Region (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993), p. 208.
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Military Expenditure Database:
milexdata.sipri.org/.
15
a just solution for their misery. This explains why the anti-normalisation campaign
that was able to attract ‘a couple of hundred people’ in Jordan in 1994 has become
so powerful and such a natural response to what is happening in the occupied
territories.33
Also, according to the same public perception, the comprehensive peace
should involve another dimension beyond the arena of political relations with Israel,
to include a wide range of benefits internally as direct or indirect outcomes of peace.
As economic and social difficulties represent the most urgent problems in the Arab
world, it becomes well understood why significant attention is paid to the economic
benefits of comprehensive peace in the Middle East. Nevertheless, another important
outcome of peace that is expected by Arab publics is political reform, which was
sacrificed by many regimes in the Arab world in the name of prioritising the war with
Israel. This dimension of comprehensive peace reveals that a lasting warm peace
is not merely a regional issue but strongly connected to internal reforms in the Arab
world as ‘only after domestic leaders begin to be held accountable for their state’s
welfare can regional economic interdependence, and the peace... associated with it,
be realized’.34
It is crucial to emphasise the mutual relations between these two dimensions,
especially in the case of the Middle East, and the need to tackle the two at the same
time. The political process that aims for the termination of the state of war and finding
a just solution for the Palestinian question encourages the normalisation of relations
with Israel at the public level. Consequently, a higher degree of normalisation
could enhance the feeling of security and make any concessions regarding land an
accepted price for peace and the ensuing prosperity.
Making progress on these two dimensions – regional and local – would lead to
the creation of a vested interest in peace for ordinary people and raise the possibility
of taking this peace from the governmental level of a mere cold peace to a warm
peace based on popular interaction between the societies in the region, including the
Israelis.
33
34
Danishai Kornbluth, ‘Jordan and the Anti-Normalization Campaign, 1994-2001’, Terrorism and
Political Violence, Vol.14, No.3 (Autumn 2002), p. 85.
Amichai Kilchevsky, Jeffrey Cason and Kirsten Wandschneider, ‘Peace and Economic
Interdependence in the Middle East’, The World Economy (2007), p. 661.
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About ICSR
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of Pennsylvania, the Interdisciplinary
Center Herzliya (Israel), and the Regional
Centre for Conflict Prevention Amman
(Jordan). Its aim is to counter the growth
of radicalisation and political violence
by bringing together knowledge and
leadership. For more information, see
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