Imprimir

Buenos Aires – Geneva is such a lovely city. Sitting on the border with France by a beautiful lake and surrounded by gorgeous mountains, with its elegant hotels, fine watch-shops and prominent •private banks, home to many U.N. bodies and multinational corporations, the city has just the perfect atmosphere for hosting the kind of high-level events as the Geneva Accord ceremony held this week.

Lots of world leaders expressed public support for this document, including Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev, Frederick de Klerk, Kofi Annan, Jacques Chirac, Hans-Dietrich Gensher, Tony Blair, Hosni Mubarak, King Hassan II, Jimmy Carter and Colin Powell. It would seem, at first sight, that something very important is going on here; something so positive that it merits the applause of the creme de la creme of global diplomacy.

If you take a closer look, though, you realize that the Geneva Accord is anti-democratic, counterproductive and hallucinatory. That it received such widespread elite support is a testament to the vintage superficiality of our times, where an agreement is praised so long as it ends in a handshake, no matter how ludicrous its content.

•   It’s anti-democratic: Even though the accord has the potential to affect Israel considerably, it was conceived and negotiated in secret by private citizens with no official authority to conduct foreign policy, who for two years kept the Israeli public ignorant of the content of this initiative, and who are now trying to coerce a democratically elected government into acceptance.

That these private citizens happen to be failed politicians only makes it more illegitimate. Yossi Beilin failed to make it to the Knesset, Amran Mitzna lost the premiership to Ariel Sharon by landslide and Avraham Burg lost the primary election for the Labor Party leadership.

A recent poll by Tel-Aviv University’s Tami Steinmetz Center showed that a mere 18 percent of Israelis thought that Beilin represented the national interest, while 22 percent thought so of Mitzna and 26 percent of Burg. Their disregard of the will of the Israeli people is not only an instance of fraternal condescension but an affront to democracy.

•   It’s counterproductive: The accord shrinks Israel to the indefensible 1967 borders, does not exact a Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state and leaves the question of refugees unsolved — all of which guarantees a perpetuation, not a resolution, of the conflict.

It also divides Jerusalem and leaves the Temple Mount under Palestinian sovereignty. This agreement is worse than the Road Map and the Oslo Accord. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak called this initiative «a delusion.» Sarah Honig of The Jerusalem Post said that it was an example of “the self-deception and self-destructiveness that sadly seems to be so uniquely Jewish.»

•    It’s hallucinatory: The accord does not — it cannot — bring peace. It merely creates the illusion of peace. It tells the family of nations that it is indeed possible for Israelis to meet and agree with the Palestinians. After all, Beilin can. Why wouldn’t Sharon? The Geneva delirium creates the false impression that the current Israeli administration is irresponsibly missing a chance for peace, when in fact there is none.

Julián Schvindlerman is a writer and journalist in Buenos Aires.