Wye Peace Pact Participants Try to Define, Avert Incitement

The Wye Plantation peace agreement might seem thoroughly dead, buried under a divisive election campaign in Israel and the just-completed impeachment hearings in the United States.

However, one sliver of that latest Israeli-Palestinian accord is alive--and, at times, shouting.

Every few weeks, as stipulated under the deal signed in October at Maryland’s Wye River Plantation, a group of Israelis, Palestinians and Americans gets together to talk about “incitement” and how to prevent it. And while the committee still can’t agree on exactly what incitement is, that has not stopped members from meeting to thrash it out.

In the limited terms of a paralyzed peace process, that alone constitutes progress. And there’s more, according to members of the three delegations: the beginnings of a dialogue about the extent to which Israelis and Palestinians inflame passions through the deliberate or careless use of words.

“There’s still a great deal of disagreement,” said Mel Levine, the former Democratic member of Congress from Santa Monica who heads the five-member U.S. delegation. “But I think we’ve moved into a serious discussion of how the media, the educational systems and law enforcement can lead to incitement and a focus on how to reduce it.”

Levine, who has a long history of involvement and interest in Mideast issues, heads a team that includes Father Theodore M. Hesburgh, the former president of Notre Dame; former Los Angeles Deputy Police Chief Mark Kroeker; veteran journalist Bernard Kalb; and Shibley Telhami, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at the University of Maryland.

For the first five meetings, Israelis and Palestinians argued--at times heatedly--over how to define the word at the heart of their task.

For Israel, the issue was clear.

“There are open calls in the Palestinian media and by Palestinian leaders to use guns, violence and force against Israel. It’s very clearly incitement,” said Uri Dan, a veteran journalist who heads the Israeli delegation.

Dan pointed to recent statements by Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and other officials vowing to “keep the rifles ready” or to “use all means” to achieve a Palestinian state and halt Jewish settlement expansion on Israeli-occupied portions of the West Bank. Israelis have also cited a recent play put on by the militant group Hamas that portrays the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers.

For the Palestinians, led by Arafat advisor Marwan Kanafani, the concept should be more broadly defined. For example, he said, it should cover Israeli Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon’s call for Jewish settlers to seize additional lands and references by Israeli radio stations to Palestine Liberation Organization members as “terrorists.”

Actions should also be included, Kanafani said: “Settlement expansion is itself incitement.”

Finally, at Levine’s suggestion, the two sides agreed to disagree. And as a working definition, they adopted the adage made famous by former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in reference to obscenity: They can’t define it, but they know it when they see it.

Since then, the atmosphere has been more constructive. A recent committee session with Israeli and Palestinian journalists was particularly useful, participants said, and led to an informal framework for moving the discussion into areas of education and law enforcement.

Each side also agreed to study examples of incitement provided by the other and pass them on to the government official or media outlet involved.

All recognize the difficulties of trying to bridge gaps created by misunderstandings, mistrust and suspicion built up over years of conflict.

“Do we see any real response yet from the Palestinian media or officials? The answer is no,” Dan said. “But we have started a dialogue about it and there is a good spirit.”

Attitudes will not change overnight, Kanafani agreed.

“You cannot sell peace very easily when you do not have peace,” he said. “But I do believe that we have to change some things in expressing our demands and our rights as a people. You don’t have to talk about blood and killing to talk about Palestinian choices.”