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Steinmeier's Trip to the Middle East

German Offer May Help Pave Way for Cease-Fire

By Ralf Beste in Jerusalem

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has offered Egypt his country's assistance in stopping arms smuggling into the Gaza Strip. The proposal could help Israel eventually agree to a cease-fire. It could also boost Steinmeier's domestic standing ahead of a general election in September.

At 5:28 p.m. on Saturday, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier got a taste of the war raging in Gaza. He was standing on the terrace of the border crossing terminal at Rafah, less than 200 meters from Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip.

An Egyptian general was explaining the Israeli combat operations to Steinmeier when an Israeli fighter jet came racing towards them from the right.

The roaring of the jet drew closer. In the darkening sky the plane could only be seen by its red position lights. A loud explosion ensued and a flash of lightning erupted ahead of them to the left. The shockwave from the detonation extended to the terrace and Steinmeier could feel the force of the explosion. The windows of the building rattled as a gigantic orange flame lit up the night sky, followed by a black pillar of smoke.

Steinmeier would later describe how he could feel the shockwave against his chest but he gave no sign of it at the time as he spoke to the television cameras on the terrace: "Of course we can feel and hear the fighting over there," he told reporters.

He spoke of the ambulances that had raced towards his ministerial convoy as he was heading to Rafah. They were bringing wounded people out of Gaza and into Egyptian hospitals. "The humanitarian situation is depressing," he said.

The visit to Rafah was the most dramatic leg of a weekend journey that led Steinmeier from the toil of German domestic policy into the world's hottest crisis region.

On Friday night he had held a speech in the small western town of Baunatal as part of a regional election campaign in the state of Hesse. From there he rushed to Cairo and to the Rafah border crossing, then on to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

System for Combating Smuggling

In Egypt he didn't just look at the border with Gaza but also offered to help the Egyptian government stop the smuggling of weapons into the Gaza Strip. This German contribution to a possible cease-fire sounds technical, and it is. Next week a handful of experts will travel to Egypt and explain how Germany protects itself from smuggling and illegal immigration.

Germany, Steinmeier offered, could send training staff and technical equipment to help Egypt pursue smugglers in the hinterland of the Sinai Peninsula, the Egyptian region bordering Gaza.

Smuggling into Gaza is one of the thorniest issues in solving the current crisis. Israel wants to destroy the rocket arsenals of the radical Islamist Hamas group through bombardment and ground assault. But the operation will be in vain as long as Hamas can be resupplied through its approximately 400 tunnels under Gaza's border with Egypt.

Egypt claims that it is combating the smuggling and that virtually only civilian goods are getting to Gaza through the tunnels. But neither the Israelis nor the Germans believe that.

Egypt could adopt Germany's "integrated border management" system without having to admit that it's failing to halt the weapons smuggling. And Israeli would have justification to end the assault on Gaza because it could say the Germans are helping to stop Hamas getting fresh rockets.

The Lebanon conflict of 2006 ended in a similar way. When the Israelis needed reasons to end their failed operation against Hezbollah, they leapt at the offer by European Union states to help stop the supply of weapons to southern Lebanon. The main thing was that something happened to allow the Israelis to justify their withdrawal. Since then, the German navy has been patrolling the coast of Lebanon.

Discreet Preparations

So Steinmeier's initiative could be Germany's contribution to a cease-fire, if one is reached. There's no doubt that it will enable Steinmeier to polish his international credentials, and this should help him back home where he's gearing up to fight Chancellor Angela Merkel in a September general election.

It's no secret that the Germans like to see their foreign ministers fighting for peace in the Middle East. A bit of kudos on that front could do him no harm.

Steinmeier prepared his proposal with discretion, dispatching his Middle East expert Andreas Michaelis to the region last Tuesday. Michaelis traveled to Jerusalem, Ramallah, Amman and Cairo in a three-day tour during which he met not only his counterparts but also an array of eminence grises on both sides. In Jerusalem he had talks with Amos Gilat, a close aide of Defense Minister Ehud Barak. In Cairo he visited the head of the Egyptian secret service, Omar Suleiman -- and was just leaving his office when Gilat was about to walk in.

The most important result of the talks: no one needs a major German draft for a peace plan, but the Germans could contribute towards a cease-fire by offering concrete assistance.

In Cairo, Michaelis developed a model for fighting smuggling through the Sinai Peninsula into Gaza. The lessons of Europe's Schengen agreement -- under which systematic border controls between participating countries were abolished -- showed that an integrated border management regime made up of customs officers and police can be as effective as simple border controls.

In his talks, Michaelis found out that the Egyptian police was woefully underequipped. He indicated that Germany might be prepared to provide comprehensive assistance for a broad anti-smuggling system -- and the Egyptians showed intense interest in that idea. Enough at least for Michaelis to tell his boss Steinmeier that something could be done.

Steinmeier decided on Thursday evening to make the offer to the Egyptians in person. "We want to make an offer that's as concrete as possible," he told reporters before his departure. "Egypt is the key country if we want to make progress on the road to a cease-fire."

Risky Mission

The mission was risky. On the one hand, the Israelis might see such measures as a welcome contribution, believing that enough is being done to counter the smuggling. On the other, they might discount it as irrelevant. Of course Steinmeier also has to prepare to deal with the question of whether Germany is just pretending it has the capacity to mediate in the conflict.

But the German foreign minister hedged his bets. Before flying to the Middle East, he asked Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice what they thought of the idea, and he received positive signals.

Steinmeier wasn't just the initiator, he was also driven. French President Nicolas Sarkozy had already pre-empted him in the Middle East. On Thursday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel had been hanging on to Sarkozy's coattails as they announced a joint Mideast initiative.

In order to prevent possible criticism of his effort to mediate, Steinmeier stressed in Cairo that he was merely in the region to push for the implementation of UN Resolution 1860, passed on Thursday. In New York, the Security Council had called on the conflict parties to issue an immediate cease-fire. The resolution encouraged UN member states to "intensify efforts to provide arrangements and guarantees in Gaza in order to sustain a durable cease-fire and calm." The resolution also called for measures to "prevent illicit trafficking in arms and munitions."

Would the Israelis consider Steinmeier's proposal to be an effective contribution? After his visit to Rafah, Steinmeier reboarded his aircraft at the port of Arisha. In order to avoid the combat area, his plane made a wide detour over the Mediterranean before approaching Israel's Ben Gurion Airport. At 9 p.m., he arrived in Jerusalem at the Hotel King David.

Steinmeier is tired. He's drinking bottled water. He gives a brief rundown of the day's events. "We were not only witnesses to explosions, but also to what has become a humanitarian emergency," he said. "We've been sitting here every evening horrified at the events." Then he bangs the drum for his contribution to the fight against smuggling.

It's almost as if he's practicing for Sunday, when he plans to meet the entire Israeli leadership -- President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Fighting the smuggling on the Sinai Peninsula will be "of value for the entire region and also an offer for Israel," he said.

In Steinmeier's view, the Israelis would be well advised to take advantage of the German offer, regardless how small it may be. If they didn't it would also be damaging because it would alienate other important partners of the Israelis -- the Palestinians under the Fatah of President Mahmoud Abbas, the Turks and also moderate Arab states like Jordan or Egypt. The USA also signalled on Friday that it would also like to see a cease-fire by allowing a UN Resolution to pass.

Steinmeier wanted to take advantage of the second day of his Middle East mission to move the Israelis to a cease-fire. It was to be the most difficult part of his mission, but also the least dangerous -- after all, he'd be far away from the Gaza Strip.