The Last Idealist

Jimmy Carter and Bashar al Assad in Damascus on Friday. / Photo by Andrew Lee Butters

Wouldn't it be great if just as the storm clouds gather in a darkening Middle East, the person who has done more to achieve peace in the region than any one else alive could come back from semi-retirement and somehow pull off the impossible?

For a moment after former President Jimmy Carter's controversial trip to Damascus, it looked like the man who brokered the Camp David Accords had a little of the old magic left. After meetings last week with Syrian President Bashar al Assad and Hamas leader Khaled Meschaal, Carter yesterday announced peace overtures on their behalf. Syria, which has been one of the most anti-Israeli countries in the Arab world, said it wants a peace treaty with Israel and wants it fast. Also according to Carter, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic militant group, would be willing to accept a Palestinian state within the West Bank and Gaza, a de facto recognition of Israel as it existed before 1967. Just how serious a peace proposal is this? Serious enough that it was quickly denounced by Osama bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri. Surely if al Qaeda is grumpy, peace is back on track, no?

But Carter's efforts have gone unappreciated in Jerusalem and Washington. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice took time out of a trip to the Persian Gulf to tell reporters that President Carter was in no way a party to peace negotiations, that his meeting with Hamas was unhelpful, and that the real American peace negotiators were not going to talk Hamas. A spokesman for the Israeli defense department said that the proposals were more of the same hot air from Hamas.

How did the Carter initiative tank so quickly? The problem is not so much the proposals from Syria and Hamas, but the deep layers of cynicism that now surround the Arab-Israeli conflict, which will enter its 60th year next month. President Assad has been offering to restart peace talks with Israel for over a year now, but many Israeli leaders don't think he's serious. Critics of Syria say that the Assad regime is unlikely to stop playing the role of regional troublemaker –supporting Hamas and Hizballah militants and trying to topple the Lebanese government, for example -- even if Israel returned the Syrian land it has occupied since 1967. Critics of Israeli policy say that Israel has gotten too comfortable in Syrian territory, and is unwilling or unable to withdraw from the strategic Golan Heights, especially not after its botched invasion of nearby Lebanon in 2006, and the botched withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2004.

The Hamas proposal appears to be a more significant development. Though the group officially calls for the destruction of Israel, Hamas has now given Carter written assurances that it would accept the outcome of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks if the outcome is ratified by a popular Palestinian referendum. The only Palestinian group that actually has the strength to create a lasting peace (or de-rail it) has essentially said that it would be willing to accept the existence of Israel.

But the Israeli and American governments have consistently refused to meet Hamas until it explicitly denounces terrorism and explicitly recognizes Israel. In their view, to give Hamas a place at the table would essentially reward those who have chosen violence, opening up Israel to other predators in the region who think that they too can scare the Jewish state into concessions. Besides, Israeli leaders say that they have seen Hamas cease fires come and go, and suspect that the group is merely playing games to end the Israeli siege of Gaza, which has been the group's stronghold since it won elections there in 2005.

But Hamas is unlikely to go all the way and explicitly accept Israel on its own. The group's refusal to recognize Israel is its greatest weapon. The inaccurate rockets it fires into Israel are a deadly nuisance, but they don't threaten the country's existence. On the other hand, the fact that Hamas, the democratically elected representatives of the Palestinian people, don't accept the Jewish state denies Israel the self-confidence that comes with being a normal country. Hamas won't give that up for nothing, and what it wants is international recognition. It's a closed circle.

Such is the absurd tragedy of the Middle East. Giving recognition to one's foes is the ultimate concession and sign of weakness, and yet is also the only solution. It will take more than one well-intentioned old man from Georgia to resolve that Catch-22.

--Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut