Times keeps hope alive; all others give up
Yesterday, as the Annapolis summit on the Middle East came to a close, The Times’ editorial board conceded that the meeting managed to defy “rock-bottom expectations” but concluded that, “where there is even the faintest hope, we must protect and nourish the fragile embryo of peace.”
Then again, that embryo should be old enough to drive and be considering colleges by this point. Israeli and Palestinian leaders first agreed to meet face-to-face sixteen years ago, and judging the paper’s editorial responses to past peace summits, setting low expectations is the key to keeping that hope alive. Let’s take a hajj through The Times’ responses to major Israeli-Palestinian meetings and agreements.
In 1991, it seems, expectations were even lower than they were for Annapolis: everyone, board included, was content that a meeting was happening at all. Days before the joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. sponsored Madrid conference, The Times listed all the reasons the meeting could collapse, and chided commentators for “excessive optimism” in proclaiming that peace was on the way. The Times chose on Nov. 2, 1991, as it has done often since, cautious optimism expressed through metaphor:
The first phase of the Middle East peace conference has ended.... Phase one went pretty much as most observers expected. On all sides the formal speeches, interview statements and rebuttals struck familiar themes and recited well-known grievances. Look closely at what the chief spokesmen for the Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian sides said, however, and you can discern faint glimmers of light hinting at doors that may have opened just a crack. But look even cursorily at the comments of Syria’s Foreign Minister Farouk Shareh and you will see a door that remains firmly barred and bolted....Is Syria interested in peace with Israel? What the last two decades have made clear is that its rulers’ first priority is holding on to power, using whatever ruthless measures are required. That doesn’t bode well for a Syrian peace with Israel. The greater misfortune is that it could hinder progress between Israel and the Palestinians and Jordanians as well.
As the conference progressed, The Times’ glimmer of hope grew. On Nov. 5, 1991, in an age when editorial boards still honored the split-infinitive rule, the paper wrote:
“My God,” said an exasperated Secretary of State James A. Baker III in an unguarded moment, “it’s incredible what they can argue about!”Welcome to the world of Middle East diplomacy....And yet, for all the maddening difficulties surrounding the historic encounter in Madrid, real progress was achieved. Syria, all but visibly kicking and screaming, was forced finally to show up for direct if unconstructive talks with Israel, shattering a barrier against such contacts of more than 40 years’ standing....Egypt’s late President Anwar Sadat used to say that 90% of the problem between Arabs and Israelis was psychological. At a minimum the psychological climate between Israel and its Arab enemies has been altered, certainly for the better....Agreement is yet to be reached on where the next round of bilateral talks should be held. It’s interesting that no one sees this immediate lack of accord as insurmountable. A process has begun....
But only two days later, The Times retreated, worried about Israel’s expansive actions following Madrid:
Israel’s highly publicized inauguration of a new settlement on the occupied Golan Heights in Syria on Monday, just hours after the Mideast peace conference adjourned in Madrid, brought cheers from Israeli hard-liners and a rebuke from Secretary of State James A. Baker III....A recent U.S. opinion poll found that, by a margin of 37% to 35%, Americans for the first time view Israel as a greater impediment to Middle East peace than the Arabs.
Three years later came the seminal Oslo Accords. Negotiated and finalized in secret with help from Norwegian diplomats, the accords established for the first time mutual recognition between Israel and a Palestinian entity. The Times wrote on Aug. 30, 1993, two weeks ahead of the official announcement and the handshake heard around the world, acknowledging the seeming futility of being hopeful about the Middle East, but continuing to be hopeful:
Throughout the long and tortured history of the postwar Middle East, despair has never been far removed from hope. These two diametrically opposed emotions have never been more closely linked than now. For every assent of optimism raises anew the risk that hopes will be dashed and the region’s seemingly terminal state of despair will soon return.Over the weekend, highly informed diplomatic sources let it be known that a potentially amazing breakthrough has been achieved in the dreary Middle East negotiations that have been going on longer than anyone cares to remember.... [T]he efforts of [Shimon] Peres, with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, must not go for naught. On the evidence that became public over the weekend, these two men have stuck their political necks out a very great distance to move these infernally stalemated peace talks forward. So too, as far as anyone can tell, has Yasser Arafat, the chairman of the PLO, who faced down a revolt within his ranks that he appears to have quelled, for now.... This deal would begin a process of self-government long denied Palestinians by the history of the region, the determination of Israeli governments and the shortsightedness of Palestinian leaders. But now, thanks to Rabin and Peres, an enlightened way out of the morass has been put on the table.
On Oct. 3, 1996, it reacted briefly to a White House summit aimed at putting the Oslo agreement into effect:
The two-day Middle East summit meeting, hastily arranged and hosted by President Clinton at the White House this week, seems to have achieved its minimum goal, if only barely. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat have agreed to resume negotiations on how to implement the Oslo accords, the basic framework for peace between two peoples who have paid so dearly for decades of war....[M]ost Israelis, and probably most Palestinians as well, continue to support the peace process. The latest poll in Israel, taken after the latest violence, finds that an overwhelming 79.5% of Israelis still favor putting the Oslo accords into effect....The Washington meeting appears to have nudged two determined antagonists back onto the negotiating track. Now they must show that they have the courage to move ahead.
Between the Oslo Accord and President Clinton’s Camp David summit, three meetings on applying Oslo’s withdrawal and Palestinian self-rule provisions came and went without a Times reaction. But when Clinton, coming to the end of his eight years in office, arranged a high-profile meeting to address what Oslo had postponed, The Times had running editorial updates. July 7, 2000:
Summit meetings between national leaders are usually staged to put a ceremonial stamp of approval on agreements already reached by subordinates. Next week’s scheduled Israeli-Palestinian summit at Camp David will be different. President Clinton has summoned Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Barak and the Palestinian Authority’s Yasser Arafat to the Maryland retreat because their lower-level negotiators have failed to break the stalemate on the hardest of the issues facing the two sides....Some U.S. diplomats rate the chances of a successful summit this time at only one in three, and that’s realistic....Clearly the Camp David talks will take place in an atmosphere of urgency, even desperation. There’s no such thing as a last chance when it comes to making peace in the Middle East, but there is a pervasive feeling that if Barak and Arafat fail to make major progress now on such basic issues as the boundaries of a future Palestinian state and the status of Jerusalem, it will be a long time before they or more likely their hard-line successors will be ready to try again.... Arafat and Barak will have to accept politically costly compromises that many in their constituencies abhor and will vigorously oppose. The two leaders can duck that responsibility, but only if, as Barak put it, they are prepared to see their conflict “continue for another 30 years.” That succinctly and probably accurately defines the stakes at Camp David.
Two weeks later, The Times board wouldn’t let optimism get the best of them, even though the parties extended the meeting to keep talks going:
On Wednesday night it appeared that the summit was about to break up without making the advances that would assure that the peace process would stay active. Bags were packed, limousines summoned, announcements scheduled. And then, as an exhausted Clinton told the world early Thursday morning, “we discovered that nobody wanted to quit.” And so, while Clinton flew off to Japan for a meeting of the seven major industrial states and Russia, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and their delegations remained at Camp David, ready to go on talking, perhaps at least until Clinton returns Sunday night.Whether this readiness to keep trying indicates a genuine belief that accommodation still may be possible is far from certain. It might just as likely show that each side, brought to the edge of the abyss, wasn’t quite ready to face the consequences of failure....American presidents and secretaries of State have long said that the United States can’t want peace in the Middle East more than the parties to the conflict want it. That truth endures.
On July 26, 2000, The Times sounded its most disappointed, perhaps because expectations had been high for a change:
After two weeks of often exhausting peace talks at Camp David, the Israeli-Palestinian negotiators came up short. The quest for an accord eluded them, despite President Clinton’s best efforts. But agreements were reached on a number of contentious issues, and the parties must build on those to maintain the process. This is not a time to sit back and apportion blame....Despite the ultimate failure, the two sides for the first time laid out many of the terms of peace, breaking some major taboos. As one Middle East expert put it, “The genie is out of the bottle and no one will put it back in again.”....The collapse of the talks is bound to usher the Middle East into a period of high emotions.... The two sides have set a deadline, Sept. 13, to reach a settlement. If they don’t, Arafat threatens to declare an independent Palestinian state, a move that would be likely to trigger a seizure of West Bank territory by the Israelis and perhaps ignite a conflict as explosive as the intifada of the 1980s. Any delay of the deadline would be helpful.
On June 5, 2003, after Israeli-Palestinian had been on President Bush’s back-burner, The Times praised his decision to enter the fray at a summit in Egypt, ending, of course, with slight optimism:
President Bush’s intense personal involvement gave a strong shove to Middle East peace this week, pushing Israeli, Palestinian and Arab leaders to state their intentions. His meeting at Sharm el Sheik, Egypt, with the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain produced pledges to halt funding of the terrorist groups killing Israelis.... The meetings offer hope that Palestinians will turn away from 32 months of suicide bombings and Israelis from targeted killings of alleged terrorists.Agreement on lasting peace seemed closer three years ago, during intensive but ultimately failed efforts by President Clinton. Things slipped far downhill after that.... Bush’s continued efforts could have a better end.
Get the L.A. Times Politics newsletter
Deeply reported insights into legislation, politics and policy from Sacramento, Washington and beyond. In your inbox three times per week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
