Origen de la lectura: ¿Qué es leer? Solé (2002) responde:

Against the background outlined in the previous chapter, it is appropriate to take a modest view of the potential for developing fresh approaches to regional security. A realistic goal for the Arab-Israel peace process for the next few years may be to lay the foundations for relationships within the region which, like those among the European nations, are neither wholly competitive nor wholly cooperative. 1 The success of that process may be measured by the extent to which each of the parties feels satisfied that restraint on their part, in dealing with each other, will be reciprocated according to certain agreed principles.

Peace along such lines offers the most viable basis for leaders to address existing and emerging national and regional security problems. But an assessment needs to be made as to whether political differences between Israel and its Arab neighbours, on one hand, and between Israel and the Palestinians, on the other hand, may prevent such an outcome.

Israel and the Arab neighbourhood

At first glance, there may be greater cause for optimism about the prospects for durable cooperation between Israel and its neighbouring states than is justified at this stage in the Israeli-Palestinian context. A peace process designed along the lines of traditional diplomacy may prove viable because it can address traditional conflictual issues between states, unlike the need in the Israeli-Palestinian context to address fundamental issues of existence and communal identity. The establishment of peace treaties between Israel and Egypt, and between Israel and Jordan, and positive contemporary developments between Israel and Arab states on the periphery of the conflict such as Morocco, Tunisia, Qatar and Oman, support that assessment. 2

A high level of stability and predictability has been maintained over the past two decades in dealings between Israel and neighbouring Arab governments. Apart

1 Dewitt, op. cit. pp. 11-12.

2 Developments during 1994 included the opening in September 1994 o f Israeli “interest sections” in Rabat and Tunis. Oman proposed hosting a desalination research and technology centre in Muscat, with full Israeli participation. Press reports predicted early establishment o f official ties with Oman, Qatar and Comoros.

from isolated terrorist activity against Israeli tourists and diplomats, there have been no serious military security incidents between Israel and Egypt since the signing of their peace treaty in 1979. The record elsewhere also suggests an aversion on both sides to armed clashes, except between Israel and Syria in Lebanon in June 1982 during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. At that time, however, Israeli actions directly threatened key Syrian strategic interests in the Beqaa valley.3 Even during the missile crisis in the Beqaa of April 1981, both Syria and Israel moved with caution while challenging and testing the other.4

It is probably unwise to generalise about the prospects for change in this situation. Each of the countries bordering Israel has its own interests and experiences with Israel, and its national agenda to pursue. The absence of agreement on fundamental political and territorial issues has continued to present a major barrier to movement beyond crisis management arrangements between Israel and Syria. The chicanery of dealings between the parties has left a legacy of deep distrust among leaders and political audiences alike.5 But that is not a universal picture.

An assessment of the prospects for peace between Israel and Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, and for the warming of its relationship with Egypt, needs to take account of three key factors. The first is the impact of regional political and economic trends on leaderships. The second is the unpredictability of the reaction of wider Arab audiences to the unfolding of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on core issues. The third, which will be discussed in the following chapter, is the asymmetry of power between the Arab states and Israel, and between the Arab states themselves. Nakhleh makes the point that ironically, many of the challenges facing Arab states were brought forward by the “public diplomacy” that Saddam Hussein advanced to justify his aggression against Kuwait. He suggests those messages which resonated with the street included “democratisation and political participation, redistribution of wealth, artificiality of state boundaries, control of natural resources, human rights, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Islam and foreign presence.” Of these, he suggests, the three main challenges facing the Arab state system are the issues of democratisation, Islam and the modem state, and the Palestinian conflict, and “the most fundamental issue” is that of democratisation.6

Political and economic trends, radical Islam and democratisation

Though it is difficult to generalise about movements which are active in widely differing political circumstances, radical Islamic movements are probably the most

3 For an Israeli view of the opening o f the conflict with Syria in Lebanon in 1982 see Schiff, Ze’ev and Y a’ari, Ehud Israel’s Lebanon War, translated by Ina Friedman, Allen and Unwin, London, 1984 especially pp. 157-9.

4 Seale op. cit. pp. 368-72.

5 Seale describes how Israeli forces had the mission to seize the Beqaa valley and advance on the Beirut- Damascus road, despite Begin's assurances to the Knesset (and to the US) that Israeli objectives were limited to widening the security zone o f the border area to 40 kms. op. cit. p. 379. Asad found, after accepting a US

brokered cease-fire, that Begin denied that this meant a cease-fire in place, op. cit. p. 385.