c. 2007 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) Tony Blair, the British prime minister who gave up his office last week, led his Labor Party to three successive electoral victories beginning in 1997. In that same year, Blair helped save the bumbling royal House of Windsor from self-destruction with his astute crisis management following the death of Princess Diana.
Despite his achievements, he will likely be remembered as George W. Bush’s “poodle,” as one member of Parliament put it, for his ardent support of the president’s Iraq war policies. Sadly for Blair, the “poodle” image seems etched into public consciousness.
But after Blair left No. 10 Downing Street, the so-called Quartet _ the U.S., Russia, the United Nations and the European Union _ immediately designated him as special Middle East envoy. Blair will have the opportunity to exhibit his eloquence and ebullience on a turbulent international stage far different than the corridors of power in London and Washington.
Will the Briton succeed where other envoys to the region have met with limited success, at best? I wish Blair well, and hope he will not join the long list of negotiators who failed to achieve peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
Following the 1967 Six Day War, the U.N. dispatched Swedish diplomat Gunnar Jarring to the Middle East. He failed because the Arab states rejected any direct or indirect negotiations with Israel unless and until the Jewish state first withdrew unconditionally to the armistice lines that were in place when the war began.
In 1969, U.S. Secretary of State William Rogers presented a Middle East peace plan that failed to gain either Arab or Israeli support. Indeed, 70 U.S. senators and 280 House members also rejected the so-called “Rogers Plan.”
Following the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Henry Kissinger was able to arrange cease-fire agreements involving Israel, Syria and Egypt. It was a long process, and the peripatetic Kissinger sometimes flew to Jerusalem, Cairo and Damascus on the same day, to meet with Israeli and Arab leaders.
Although Kissinger’s achievements were limited, the Israeli-Syrian cease-fire has remained in place since 1974, albeit precariously. Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s historic visit to Israel in 1977 began the process that resulted in a peace treaty between the two nations.
Tragically, Sadat paid the ultimate price for his efforts: He was gunned down in 1981 by violent Islamic extremists who reject Israel’s very existence.
During President George H.W. Bush’s administration, Secretary of State James Baker tried his hand at Middle East peace negotiations. In October 1991, following the first Persian Gulf War and the Soviet Union’s collapse, the U.S. convened a peace conference in Madrid. While the results were negligible, it did force Palestinians to sit at the same table with Israelis.
But when Baker’s peace efforts stalled, he angrily lashed out at Israel and American Jews. In an ugly display of temper and sarcasm, Baker publicly announced the White House phone number that Israel should call “when (it) got serious about peace.” He also hurled the “f-word” at American Jews because “they don’t vote for us (the GOP) anyway.”
In one of his last actions as president, Bill Clinton convened a Camp David meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. A “final status” deal seemed within reach after Barak made sweeping concessions on territory, Jerusalem and Arab refugees.
But according to Clinton, Arafat rejected any agreement. The president wrote: “I regret that … Arafat missed the opportunity to bring that nation (a Palestinian state) into being.” The PLO leader called the president a great man, but Clinton told Arafat: “I am not a great man. I am a failure and you made me so.”
And then there is Dennis Ross, a superb diplomat who served under three presidents _ Ronald Reagan, the first Bush and Clinton. Ross labored 13 years for Middle East peace. But even he could not reach the goal of a just, secure and lasting peace for Israel, the world’s only Jewish state, and its Arab neighbors.
Good luck, Tony Blair. You will need it.
(Rabbi Rudin, the American Jewish Committee’s senior interreligious adviser, is the author of the recently published book “The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right’s Plans for the Rest of Us.”)
KRE/LF END RUDIN750 words
A photo of Rabbi Rudin is available via https://religionnews.com.
