Thanks to US Secretary of State Colin Powell, the next show on the international agenda will be headlined by the International Quartet, starring the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and Russia. While Israel had anticipated a long postponement of peace negotiations due to a war with Iraq, Powell has circumvented that problem. Now it is time to negotiate the biggest international conundrum of all — Israel and human rights for the Palestinians.

Palestinians literally are starving in the blocked-off streets of their encircled villages. Washington must address this crisis first, and insist that food relief be provided now, without delay. All along, the European Union has been helping to meet the Palestinians’ food, budgetary and significant infrastructure needs. The Israelis, by contrast, are used to haggling for everything —which, of course, will include bargaining to allow needed food supplies into Palestine.

After backing down once before when Ariel Sharon rejected an ultimatum, however, President George W. Bush has stiffened his backbone. He has strengthened his mandate in an off-year election, which historically should have diluted his strength in Congress. Now the Republican president and his party control both houses of Congress, and have an international mandate to stop the slide toward war. The frightened world, meanwhile, has been calling insistently for peace for the Palestinians. Bush had tried, seemingly in quite good faith, to start negotiations with the “Quartet” even while the outcome of the Saddam Hussein imbroglio was not yet known. With the Iraq problem at least temporarily resolved, he sent Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield to the Middle East. Satterfield and his American team met with Quartet diplomats on Nov. 11 and 12 to finalize a plan for presentation in mid-December.

At its mid-November meeting in Jerusalem, Quartet representatives worked out the text that envisages the establishment of a provisional Palestinian state by 2003 and full statehood two years later. It is based on a vision for the Middle East put forward by Bush in a June speech.

Since Israel has fought the Quartet initiative every step of the way, it already had become clear that Washington would have to step in firmly to start things moving. Claiming Israel was too busy dealing with the expected war with Iraq, Sharon had been “blowing off” any talk on the subject of peace with the Palestinians. With that war put on hold, the Israelis, with their ever-industrious American lobby, had to find a new excuse for procrastination. They now are trying to freeze the process until after the upcoming Israeli elections.

It appears, however, that Israel’s January elections will not delay the US and the other Quartet members, which plan to go ahead whether Israel cooperates or not. After discussing the possible impact of the upcoming Israeli elections, Satterfield and his colleagues decided to proceed on schedule.

Stated Norwegian diplomat Terje Roed-Larsen, the Quartet’s UN representative: “The parties will have to decide whether to accept [the plan] or reject it. But, if they reject it, they must be aware that they will be rejecting not only the will of the Quartet but of a significant part of the international community.”

Although a non-Quartet diplomat predicted “They will return empty-handed,” British Prime Minister Tony Blair this week urged speedy progress toward solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Blair’s remarks were seen as an appeal to Bush not to freeze the process because of the Israeli elections. Meanwhile, it appears certain that Bush will brook no excuses when it comes to putting a halt to Israel’s starvation of the Palestinians.

The Bush administration is anxious to keep the Quartet plan alive and allay Arab fears. The road map calls for an initial three-month phase during which the Palestinian Authority would resume security cooperation with the United States and Israel, call for an end to armed attacks on Israelis, and install a new Cabinet and prime minister to take over from Arafat. During the same three months, Israel would be required to end its attacks in Palestinian civilian areas, ease its curbs on the travel of Palestinian officials, lift curfews and unfreeze Palestinian assets.

According to administration officials, there is a new strain between Bush and Sharon. During his October visit to Washington, Sharon said that ties between Israel and Washington had never been so close or harmonious. According to administration officials, however, Bush was angry that Sharon was undercutting efforts to get the Palestinians to turn away from Arafat and making it harder to rally Arab support for a possible war against Iraq.

Another major concern, both inside and outside the administration, is what most experts say are the worst conditions among Palestinians they have ever seen. These include malnutrition and the growing sense of isolation because of travel restrictions imposed by the Israelis.

“We are facing a situation where all of those years of progress in the Middle East are essentially going down the tubes,” one diplomat declared. Prime Minister Blair has called for a full Middle East peace conference by the end of this year.

If Bush proceeds with his new sense of resolution and makes it clear to Israel that there will be no more American funding until it accepts the Quartet’s decisions, the road map may be put to use sooner than pessimists might think.

— Richard H. Curtiss is the executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.