Ramzy Baroud, Special to Arab News

AMMAN, 21 November 2003 — The “Geneva agreement”, a symbolic peace initiative devised by ex-Israeli and Palestinian officials, is yet another charade whose only objective is to gratify the political fervor of the “publicity hounds”, according to many Palestinians and Israelis.

Even before the fine print had been scrutinized, mistrust has flared; even before the Israeli Labor Party’s media offices mailed out hundreds of thousands of copies to every Israeli household, the Sharon government was able to conclude that the agreement “reeked with bad odor.” While the Israeli right has an abundance of reasons to feel threatened by the Geneva “breakthrough” — on political, ideological and religious grounds — Palestinian skeptics are wary of the peace proposal for another reason: The last time they rejoiced over a similar “breakthrough”, they forfeited more territories to Israeli settlements and militarized zones at yet a more rapid pace. In fact, since the last breakthrough in Oslo in September 1993, the number of Israeli Jewish settlers in the occupied territories has doubled.

In order for the Geneva agreement to endure, it must, and without any reservation, be seen as distinct from Oslo and its offspring. Oslo’s shortcomings are many; it spurned international law, failed to realize a tangible mechanism for executing the agreement, stipulated no accountability, and undermined issues Palestinians consider fundamental.

But Oslo’s most serious failing was that it did not address the historic injustice imposed on the indigenous population of Palestine; in fact, the grotesque history of injustice experienced by the Palestinian people was reduced to a mere “dispute”, whose solution demanded the victims surrender to the calamities of fate.

Israel still argues that the Palestinian refugee problem was not their creation so it ought not to have to shoulder the burden of resolving it. And what the Geneva agreement says about this should gladden the hearts of Sharon and his followers. “For the first time in history, the Palestinians explicitly and officially recognized the State of Israel as the (exclusive) state of the Jewish people forever. They gave up the right of return to the State of Israel and a solid, stable Jewish majority was guaranteed,” writes Amram Mitzna, the former Israeli Labor Party leader, in the Israeli Haaretz newspaper. Mitzna boasts over the ever-willing Palestinian side’s concession to keep major Jerusalem and West Bank settlements intact — in violation of the 4th Geneva Convention: “None of the settlers in those areas will have to leave their homes.”

Mamduh Nawfal, a political advisor to Yasser Arafat is also hailing the agreement. However, according to Nawfal’s commentary in Al-Hayat, the gains are mostly sentimental: “The reconsideration of peace forces within the two parties; the reconsideration of the Palestinian peace plan; it provided a new realistic project around which international forces can find a ground of concurrence; it limited the polarization in Israel based on pursuing the occupation of the Palestinian people; the document proved that there is a Palestinian partner in establishing real peace; it confirmed that Sharon’s claim according to which there is no political solution to the struggle is wrong.”

The Oslo sham is reborn in Geneva. The Israelis are to gain peace and security, to legitimize their racially-inspired democracy, to ensure and sustain their territorial gains in the occupied territories, while Palestinians will have to contend with symbols: The moral victory of Arafat over Sharon and the emergence of the PA as a relevant peace partner, and so on.

Even where the Geneva agreement refers to a “lasting” peace, it refrains from tackling what a permanent peace must involve: A comprehensive just solution to those who endured the brunt of the conflict for over five decades.

Granted, peace entails compromises, but compromise should not require the near-complete abandonment of one’s aspirations.

The agreement’s demand on Palestinians to barter the right of return of their refugees — 60 percent of the total Palestinian population — in exchange for curtailed and qualified sovereignty over 10-20 percent of historic Palestine is not likely to garner mass approval from the Palestinian population. If the goal of the Geneva agreement is to restore lost hope, then success is possible. But it will be brief. If its intent is a lasting solution, then Palestinians and Israelis — neither shortsighted nor self-seeking — must work diligently to amend the agreement without secrecy and without unwarranted barter.

A just peace should not be subject to the haggling of Middle Eastern bazaars. It must be based on a real, even revolutionary, desire to rectify past and present injustices, many of which the Geneva agreement seems entirely to discount under the all-too-familiar ruse of “necessary concessions.”

— Ramzy Baroud is editor in chief of The Palestine Chronicle online newspaper.