Big power cataclysms eased Israel out of Gaza

Big power cataclysms eased Israel out of Gaza

By Bradley Burston

TEL AVIV (Reuter): For many Palestinians, the 27 years that passed before Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday felt like forever.

But the withdrawal under Israel's peace deal with its once deadly foe the PLO might have taken much longer had it not been for bedrock shifts in the roles of faraway superpowers.

The U.S.-led Gulf War offensive against Iraq and the breakup of the Soviet Union were crucial in turning the Israel-PLO relationship from relentless blood feud to uneasy partnership in Palestinian self-rule, analysts said.

An Israeli defense ministry strategic analyst said the end of the Cold War was a kind of "declaration of independence" that allowed both Israelis and Palestinians to secretly conclude the peace deal they signed in Washington in September.

"With the U.S. and post-Soviet Russia as co-sponsors of the Middle East peace process, the sides could move forward knowing that Syria, a pivotal player, would be limited in its response over being 'left out' as the sides moved forward," he said.

"Syria, without Soviet might at its back, simply doesn't have the same crack to its whip," said the analyst, who declined to be identified.

Joseph Alpher, director of Israel's Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, said the collapse of the Soviet Union created a one-superpower world that paved the way for Israeli-PLO peace.

"When the U.S. led the coalition in the Gulf War it thrust itself as that single superpower into the Middle East in a way unprecedented in the last 50 years," Alpher said.

Most of the PLO's Arab allies backed Washington's move, and the organization's support for Iraq took a crippling toll.

"In siding with Iraq, the PLO emerged from the war in a position of weakness unique in its history," Alpher said.

"It had effectively burned its bridges with the Arab world, with (PLO Chairman) Yasser Arafat persona non grata in most Arab capitals, in Cairo, in Riyadh, certainly in Damascus."

The PLO lost its traditional financial aid sources, mainly Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and its coffers emptied rapidly. "Clearly, this had a rather major influence on Arafat's readiness to make compromises," Alpher said.

Arafat's money woes also compromised his ability to counter a rising threat to his leadership posed by Islamic militants who capitalized on anti-Western undercurrents among Palestinians.

Keen to overcome then-Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir's hardline opposition to talking to "PLO killer terrorists," Washington brought muscular leverage to bear.

Shamir, reminded by the administration of Israel's vulnerable high profile as the largest single recipient of U.S. foreign aid, agreed to meet Palestinians not explicitly tied to the PLO when Middle East talks began in Madrid in October 1991.

"Shamir got an offer he couldn't refuse," Alpher said. "But he has made it pretty clear what his real intentions were."

A bitter foe of ceding occupied Arab land, Shamir said after he was crushed by Yitzhak Rabin in a 1992 election he had intended to drag out the peace talks for 10 years.

Winds from Washington blew warmer after the poll, as Rabin announced a partial freeze on Jewish settlements and promised Palestinian self-rule in the occupied lands within a year.

The Bush adminstration promptly announced the granting of $10 billion in loan guarantees for Israeli immigrant needs.

Washington has since signaled its approval in gifts of used aircraft, and sales of an advanced version of the F15 warplane.

The Palestinians have also begun to reap U.S. benefits from the peace deal, with the administration twisting allies' arms to wring aid donations for the occupied lands.

U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, visiting the new Jericho self-rule zone in the West Bank on Tuesday, reiterated an American promise to supply Palestinians $500 million in aid over the next five years.

"The aid may prove critical to the success or failure of the peace, and the real test of foreign promises to stand by the PLO and the Israelis," said the defense ministry official.

"It's going to take more than just kind words to fashion an amiable divorce from what has been a long, murderous marriage."

-30-