The prospective Israel-Hizbullah prisoner swap that has been discussed in recent weeks is perhaps more than a bilateral deal that also happens to involve Iran and Germany. Given the close relationship between Tehran and Hizbullah, Iranian involvement was not entirely unexpected. This leads one to reflect on the prospects for an improvement in Iranian-Israeli relations Iranian interests cannot rule this out even if such an option is highly improbable at present.
According to press reports, Israel seeks information on the whereabouts of air force navigator Ron Arad, the remains of three Israeli soldiers and the release of Israeli reservist and businessman Elhanan Tennenbaum. In return, Hizbullah wants the release of all Lebanese prisoners, including two officials directly or indirectly affiliated with the party, Abdul Karim Obeid and Mustafa Dirani, as well as that of Palestinian and Arab detainees.
The Iranian angle was hinted at in early August in the Tel Aviv Russian-language daily Novosti Nedeli. Citing anonymous Israeli government sources, the daily said that during Iranian-American negotiations over the possible exchange of Al-Qaeda suspects in Iran for members of the Iranian Mujahideen Khalq opposition group in Iraq, an Iranian representative raised the possibility of releasing Tennenbaum and repatriating the dead soldiers’ remains. Washington reportedly rejected the proposal, but according to Novosti Nedeli the Iranian and Israeli sides pursued their talks. Added to the mix was Tehran’s demand that four Iranian diplomats who disappeared in Lebanon in 1982 be released. Iran believes Israel is holding them.
Confirmation of an Iranian angle appeared in late September, when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that Iranians imprisoned in Europe might be part of a deal with Hizbullah. This appeared to be a reference to Iranian intelligence officer Kazem Darabi, who along with several Lebanese men was convicted by a Berlin court in April 1997 for the 1992 killings of Kurdish dissidents. The role of German mediator Ernst Urlau in the negotiations is not unprecedented. In 1996, for example, Berlin brokered the exchange of two dead Israeli soldiers for 45 prisoners and the remains of 123 Lebanese combatants. In late-1999, five Hizbullah members held by Israel were released following negotiations also involving Iran and Germany. As of Oct. 9, the status of the Hizbullah-Israeli negotiations remained undetermined, with questions being raised about Tennenbaum’s physical state and with Arad’s family trying to block Dirani’s release through a court injunction. Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz asserted on Oct. 3 that Arad was alive and that Iran was responsible for returning him to Israel. Arad’s family repeated the charge a few days later. However, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Assefi reaffirmed that Tehran had no information on the airman.
Less obscure is the current state of Iranian-Israeli relations. It seems unlikely that any deal, whether it involves Iranians or not, will have a positive impact on a very hostile relationship. During a military parade in Tehran on Sept. 22, for example, Iran’s new 1,300-kilometer-range Shihab-3 missiles bore the slogan “Israel must be wiped off the map.” At an August conference at Tehran University organized by the student committee for the Support for the Palestinian Intifada, a group headed by Hojatoleslam Ali Akbar Mohtashami-Pur, the final resolution called for “annihilation of the Zionist regime.” Speakers praised Palestinian suicide bombings in Israel, referring to them as “martyrdom operations.” Iran also hosted Support for the Palestinian Intifada conferences in April 2001 and June 2002. At the latter event representatives of Hamas, Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command heard Mohtashami-Pur refer to Israel as a “cancerous tumor.”
It is too simplistic to dismiss such statements as rhetoric meant only for internal consumption. Words have an impact on perceptions and can strengthen preconceptions. In an August interview with the French daily Le Figaro, Sharon referred specifically to the Shihab missiles and Tehran’s relationship with Hamas, Hizbullah and Islamic Jihad, adding: “In the Middle East, Iran is now (Israel’s) greatest threat.” During a September trip to India, he tried to dissuade New Delhi from transferring technology to Iran.
Iranian officials are masters of realpolitik. Tehran criticized the US attack on Taleban-led Afghanistan, but cooperated with the US military and with the post-war negotiations in Bonn. Even though it has criticized the US-led war in Iraq and the subsequent occupation, Tehran has tacitly recognized the interim Iraqi Governing Council and will participate in a multilateral donors conference in Madrid later this month. For all the Iranian chanting of “death to America,” Iran and the US hold intermittent bilateral discussions on matters of mutual concern.
Can this lead to expectations of a similar trend in Iranian-Israeli relations? Iran’s hostility to Israel has religious roots and is also a welcome source of agreement with Iran’s predominantly Arab and Sunni neighbors. These factors, plus the negligible direct benefits of relations with Israel, suggest that Iran will see little advantage in changing the status quo. Nor is Israel keen to improve its relations with Tehran. After the bombing in Haifa last Saturday that killed 19 people and wounded 60 others, Sharon’s adviser, Dore Gold, described an “axis of terror that begins in Iran.”
Such mutual perceptions play strongly against bilateral, government-to-government contacts in the near future. This could change, however, as the current generation of Iranian leaders dies off. Approximately two-thirds of the Iranian population is under the age of 30, and has no memory of such formative experiences as life under the pro-Israel monarchy, activism during the 1978-1979 revolution, or fighting in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War. They will undoubtedly sympathize with the Palestinians, but are unlikely to support the activities of groups like Hamas. Until, indeed if, such a change occurs, Iranian-Israeli contacts will continue to take place through intermediaries, even when they are of direct concern to both sides.
William Samii, a regional analyst at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Inc., writes the RFE/RL Iran Report (www.rferl.org/iran-report). The views expressed here are his own. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/10_10_03_c.asp
Student protests prompt predictions of Islamic Republic’s demise
Ten days of raucous student demonstrations across Iran in June prompted fresh predictions of the Iranian regime’s imminent demise. But by July, regime hard-liners had regained the upper hand by arresting some 4,000 people. This summer’s back-and-forth is yet another indication that in Iran a highly contentious but gradual process of political change is more likely than revolution. An increasingly complex and often tense relationship between two leading groups pushing for reform university students and the reformists who dominate Parliament as well as several ministries has profound implications for how such change will unfold in the coming year.
Since 1997 student groups with longstanding ties to leftist forces provided critical support to reformists elected to Parliament and serving in the of Interior, Culture and Islamic Guidance ministries, many of whom themselves had leftist affiliations in the past. For example, the Office for Fostering Unity (OFU), a major student organization active on over 50 campuses across Iran, was one of the most important civil society organizations helping elect Mohammad Khatami to the presidency in 1997. The alliance was further cemented in the July 1999 student riots when reformists in government protested against harsh measures meted out to students.
In the past two years, however, the reformists’ inability or unwillingness to confront the hard-liners’ onslaught against Iranians seeking political change has caused great frustration among many students. The decisive break occurred with the February 2003 local council elections. The OFU withdrew from the main reformist electoral coalition, the Dovom-e Khordad Front, contributing to the reformists’ first electoral defeat since 1997. Student disenchantment has increased with the reformists’ inability to prevent recurring crackdowns on students. Although recent parliamentary mediations led to the release of some student leaders arrested in the June demonstrations, many in the student movement lost confidence in the reformists’ will to defend their rights.
The growing separation between these two groups is having many repercussions. It has brought into sharper focus the divergent objectives of some of their members. Most reformers in Parliament and the ministries seek to reconcile the democratic and theocratic aspects of Iran’s constitution essentially, to reform the existing Islamic system of governance in a democratic direction. By contrast, some students question if the two are fundamentally compatible and would like to steer the Islamic Republic toward what would be a secular democracy.
An increasingly independent student movement has become vulnerable to hard-liners’ charges of links to foreign plots and exiled opposition groups, allegations meant to discredit the movement with the public. A more isolated student movement could become radicalized, giving hard-liners a pretext to start a massive crackdown.
The students’ disenchantment has also led some reformists to acknowledge the need to create a common platform to bring together committed democratic activists from all political persuasions, secular and religious, inside and outside of Iran. Such attention to coalition building is a healthy development, as neither the students nor the reformists in government can change Iran alone. Several recent open letters written by members of Parliament, cultural figures and political activists inside Iran and in exile suggest that a platform is indeed developing with a focus on popular will as the only source of legitimate political authority, equal rights for all citizens, and national reconciliation.
Some reformist politicians also feel new pressure to adopt a bolder strategy vis-a-vis the hard-liners to show the reform movement is not dead. In recent months, Parliament passed legislation to stop candidate screening by the Council of Guardians, a body appointed by the supreme leader that vets candidates for national elections and assesses the constitutionality and religious soundness of all laws, and to enhance the president’s power to enforce the constitution. The Council of Guardians has summarily rejected these bills. But Parliament continues to pass legislation, investigate misconduct on the part of nonelected institutions, and agitate for the release of arrested students, journalists, and activists.
Officials in reformist-dominated ministries have also shown renewed willingness to confront the directives of nonelected institutions. The interior minister recently ordered provincial governments not to cooperate with local committees established by the Council of Guardians to monitor the parliamentary elections.
Time favors reform-minded Iranians. Despite the hard-liners’ ability to obstruct reformist legislation and repress political activists, they lack the resources and popular mandate to halt the drive toward a transparent and accountable government. But establishing an effective coalition of students and reformists in government is essential to substantive change occurring sooner rather than later.
Farideh Farhi is an independent scholar and a member of the graduate faculty of political science at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. This article first appeared in the Arab Reform Bulletin September 2003 edition, published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and is reprinted with permission
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/07_10_03_c.asp