Newsletter No. 552
News-Analysis
March 17, 2007

 

POLITICS MATTERS -- TOKYO AND THE ARAB-ISRAELI ECONOMIC TALKS

As planned, four-party Arab-Israeli economic talks were held in Tokyo on the 14th and 15th. A statement was released by the four parties as follows: “We will maintain high political interest in promoting this initiative. We will focus our attention on supporting the activities of the feasibility study mission starting the end of March for agro-industrial park development in Jordan River Rift Valley, in particular, on selecting possible places to build an agro-industrial park. We will regularly convene four-party meetings at technical-level within the region, and the first meeting will be held around June this year.”

Photo: Farouk Kasrawi, Saeb Erekat, Taro Aso, and Shimon Peres
Source: AP

It appears that Tokyo’s plans have received a polite welcome from the delegates to the conference, but a great deal of skepticism was also expressed.

For example, PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat stated, “Can regional cooperation be translated into a political solution? Can we achieve prosperity for Palestinians, Israelis and Jordanians while the Israeli occupation continues? Any plans will be meaningless without progress in the peace process.”

For his part, Haim Divon of the Israeli delegation said, “As long as lawlessness continues and terrorists continue to launch missiles, security will unfortunately remain the critical factor.”

More upbeat on Tokyo’s approach was Special Advisor to Jordan's King Abdullah II Farouk Kasrawi, who said, “We cannot leave the economy of Palestine as it is… With a better economy, the local people will be more open to reconciliation… This economic process should be a building block for a viable economy for Palestine, an essential step in state building.”

Also, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres offered these gracious comments to his Japanese hosts: “Jordanians, Palestinians, and Israelis, we shall work together. This is the first time in the Middle East that such an economic cooperation takes place… I believe we've committed a mistake by dwelling so much on the military side and the political side, and almost nothing on the economic side… I think the locomotive of change in our time is economic, and not political or strategic.”

Rather than offer my own analysis at this time, I would like to present commentary on Tokyo’s initiative that has been published elsewhere.

The first essay by Azzam Tamimi (published in The Guardian) argues that Tokyo’s approach is doomed to fail because the people they are talking to are yesterday’s news. Specifically, he condemns the fact that Tokyo is still negotiating with PLO leaders as if the Hamas electoral victory of January 2006 never took place.

The second essay by Shaopeng Gong (first published in China Daily) is weak on some of the basic facts and statistics, but he provides an interesting Chinese view of Tokyo’s initiative. Gong attempts to give a broad overview of Japan’s postwar policies in West Asia with only limited success, but it is his view of Japanese intentions that is interesting. According to Gong’s view, Tokyo now has a “policy of currying favor with both sides [that] will win understanding from Arab states without antagonizing the United States.”

TOKYO NEGOTIATES WITH THE WRONG PARTNERS
By Azzam Tamimi

It is rather baffling that the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs chose to host a meeting yesterday to be attended by some Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians who have little, if any, relevance to the real issue at hand in the Middle East conflict. The so-called Four-Party Consultative Unit for the concept of "Corridor for Peace and Prosperity" is likely to be nothing but a waste of time and taxpayers' money.

One needs only scroll through the names of the invited guests to realise how futile this endeavour is likely to have been. Shimon Peres, who seemed to be heading the Israeli delegation, and Saeb Erekat, who was apparently heading the Palestinian delegation, are both part of an era that is long gone and finished, the era of a failed peace process that brought Israel no peace and the Palestinians no justice. As for the Jordanians, what can be said about their role is that it is the least significant of all players in the region.

The meeting is called the Third Conference for Confidence-Building between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The astonishing thing is that the Palestinians expected to take part in these confidence-building talks have no problem whatsoever with the Israelis, with whom they see eye-to-eye almost on every single issue; the only problem is that they do not speak for the Palestinians and have no mandate to negotiate on their behalf.

It should have become obvious to the Japanese government that the world has changed dramatically since the first confidence-building conference between the Israelis and the Palestinians was held in July 2004. In January 2006, the Palestinian people elected a new Palestinian legislative council and gave a mandate to the Hamas movement to speak for them. If Japan is at all interested in pursuing its initiative to promote peace in the Middle East it cannot afford to ignore these developments and cannot be seen to dismiss the wishes of the Palestinian people.

The time and money dedicated to the initiative should have been utilised in a more constructive endeavour to put a stop to the world community inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinians for having made a democratic choice. The Japanese could have done a much better job persuading their US and Israeli friends that there can never be peace and stability in the region so long as occupation continues. The Japanese have been keen to provide for the Palestinians' humanitarian needs but have always failed to adopt an independent or a neutral political stance on the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis. They've always stuck to the American line.

Today, Japan is in a position to bring the two sides of the Middle East conflict to negotiate an end to the violence by means of signing a long-term truce. This is the only way pain and suffering on both sides may come to an end. It is futile to keep hoping that the Palestinian people will recognise that creating a Zionist state on their land nearly sixty years ago was legitimate. However, the Palestinians, as proposed by Hamas, would be willing to form a state in the West Bank and Gaza should the Israelis accept the three conditions of a long-term truce, namely: withdraw to pre-5 June 1967 borders, release all Palestinian prisoners and remove all Jewish settlers now living on Palestinian property seized in the aftermath of the 1967 war.

The assumption that no peace can be achieved unless the Palestinians recognised Israel's right to exist is totally false. The British had no option but to negotiate with the IRA in order to bring peace to the troubled Northern Ireland region despite the fact that the IRA never conceded the right of the Irish people to aspire for a united Irish republic.

The Japanese government needs to talk to Hamas, which no regional or international player in Middle East politics can afford to ignore, in order to see how the long-term truce (hudnah) proposal can be turned into a fresh peace process that may succeed where previous processes have failed. The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs will contribute nothing to the resolution of the conflict by talking to the failures.

Azzam Tamimi is Director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought in London.

WHY JAPAN IS NOW PLAYING THE MIDDLE EAST PEACE CARD
By Shaopeng Gong

The road to Middle East peace just got a lot more crowded, with the current two-day talks in Japan with Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian officials.

Japan's involvement follows close on the Saudi initiative, which calls for the Arab world to establish relations with Israel in return for Israel withdrawing from all Arab land captured in 1967. Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres, in Tokyo for the latest peace talks, said Tuesday that the Saudi initiative for Middle East peace was a step forward but only a starting point for negotiations. Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat and the senior representative of the Jordanian king have joined Japan's Middle East Special Envoy Dr. Tatsuo Arima, who is chairing the two-day meeting.

The meeting opened yesterday with government level talks on Japan's Corridor of Peace and Prosperity Initiative. Today's meeting includes non-government participants in a bid to build confidence among the three parties from the Middle East.

It is fair to say even those who closely watch the Middle Eastern situation would probably find the Japan meeting perplexing. Since the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations have already revived the Quartet Roadmap for Middle East peace, why would Japan, which has been a faithful follower of the United States, blaze some trail of its own?

To answer this question we have to take a look back at the evolution of Japan's Middle East policy.

During the Cold War, Japan based its national strategy fully on US foreign policy. However, as a country where 78 percent of energy consumption depended on imported oil, mostly from the Arab oil producing countries, Japan had to consider its own national interest when formulating its Middle East policies.

When the October War of 1973 against Israel broke out, the Arab oil producing countries launched an oil boycott against nations that supported Israel. In order to secure its oil supply, Japan was the first among the developed countries to support the Arab countries and the Palestinians' right to establish their own state. With this move, Japan distanced itself from the US Middle East policy.

Japan's top automobile manufacturer, Toyota Motor Co Ltd, ran a quite successful advertisement in China some years back that boasted, "A car will always find its way and one will always find Toyota anywhere he goes." But in the 1970s to 1980s there was no Toyota to be found in Israel, a result of Japan's Middle East policy at that time. Japan took a heavy beating in Washington for deviating from the US course in the Middle East, thanks in part to the powerful Jewish lobby in Washington. It went all out to punish Japan on bilateral trade disputes while Tokyo could do nothing in retaliation.

The end of the Cold War brought Japan the opportunity to change its Middle East policy, lessen the pressure from the United States, and seek to become a major political power in the world. After Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, the United States launched Operation: Desert Storm with an international joint strike force. Japan contributed some $10 billion to the operation and sent its naval Self-Defense Forces to an armed conflict overseas for the first time since World War II.

The Arab-Israeli peace process after the Gulf War also provided an opportunity for Japan to improve its relations with Israel and reduce the pressure from the Jewish lobby.

In December 1994, Israeli Prime Minister Yizhak Rabin visited Japan, where he announced the decision to open the Israeli stock market to Japanese investors. The two countries also signed an agreement on economic and technological cooperation. Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama returned the honor with an official visit to Israel in September the following year. Of course, Japan never forgot to hedge its bets. Tokyo played an active part in the Arab-Israeli peace process and related multilateral negotiations. It also provided economic assistance to Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.

The most important aim of this Japanese maneuver was to pave the way for its ascension to the position of a major political power. These moves partially achieved Japan's goal. In February 1996, a Japanese peace-keeping force arrived in the Golan Heights, signifying Japan's role in Arab-Israeli affairs for the first time in history. When Junichiro Koizumi became prime minister, he brought Japan's Middle East policy back to its follow-the-US starting point. And he took a step further by sending Japanese forces to Iraq in 2003 in support of the US occupation forces. Soon afterwards, however, he discovered his policy was faced with two potential challenges.

First, after decades of efforts to develop nuclear power as an alternative source of energy, more than fifty percent of Japan's energy consumption still depended on imported oil, of which 75 percent was from the Middle East. In short, it would be suicidal for Japan to follow the United States at the expense of its relations with the Middle East oil exporting countries. On the other hand, the Koizumi Cabinet had promised the Japanese people that Japan would become a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Since there are 22 Arab nations in the United Nations, Japan simply cannot afford to ignore them.

With this in mind, Koizumi visited the Middle East in July 2006 and announced his Corridor of Peace and Prosperity Initiative while in Jordan. According to this initiative, Japan would bankroll Israel, Palestine and Jordan to build an agro-industrial park in the Jordan Valley. A public-private partnership, the park would mainly grow and process farm produce. The produce would then be sold to oil-producing countries in the Middle East via a transportation center in Jordan.

Koizumi believed the setup would not only benefit residents of the park but also improve relations between Arabs and Jews. Unfortunately, Koizumi reached the end of his political career before the Corridor of Peace and Prosperity Initiative could take off. It is up to his successor to push on. The current four-way Middle East meeting is part and parcel of the follow-up.

It is not hard to see that Japan's Middle East policy is a product of contradictions. It remains to be seen if this policy of currying favor with both sides will win understanding from Arab states without antagonizing the United States.

Shaopeng Gong is professor of international relations at the Beijing-based Foreign Affairs University's Institute of International Relations

COMMENTARY

1) From Yoav Herman of Tsukuba University on March 18, 2007:

I would recommend the Shingetsu Institute give its readers a short background of Azzam Tamimi before quoting him in order to make a point about the Japanese initiative to hold Arab-Israeli economic talks. Having read the article written by Tamimi in The Guardian, I assume that the writer of Newsletter No. 552 also read the comments of the posters on that piece, and especially on its writer. I believe that it will be more informative to quote a few of them so the members of this newsletter will have a more comprehensive view of Azzam Tamimi and his views about Israel:

From a poster who call himself 'Kaafiristani':

"One has to only watch the many videos posted on Youtube to understand Tamimi's real intentions. He masks his unadulterated hatred for all things Jewish by trying to appear as this reasonable progressive person with a liberal outlook to life --- but being the spokesman of Hamas is a giveaway. Also his oft-repeated use of the phrase i.e "long term truce" and not peace or peace treaty is indicative of his true colours -- i.e. a dyed-in-the-wool jihadi nut job!"

From a poster who call himself 'Edmundwest':

"I am just astonished that Tamimi regularly gets space in The Guardian to promulgate his poisonous views. If you must give him column space, then why not others who are equally malign? Or does he get a free pass because he is anti-American and is OK with blowing up Jews?"

From a poster who call himself 'DavidTHarryblog':

"I find it odd that The Guardian has declared its ambition to be a liberal voice, yet promotes as commentators (and disproportionately so) Islamists, whose politics are clerical-fascist. That seems to me, and to a lot of other people, to be a strange thing for a liberal paper to be doing."