President Bush’s State of the Union address and the Israeli election results are a bitter double whammy for the Middle East. They are the worst of news, crushing any hopes of peace in the region. Bush’s address makes it plain that war over Iraq is moving inexorably closer. Ariel Sharon’s election victory means no change in the present bankrupt Israeli policy of confrontation with the Palestinians: there will be no peace deal, no end to Israeli violence in the occupied territories, no end to suicide bombs in Israel.
The only glimmer of light is that whatever coalition Sharon manages to pull together is bound be weak and divisive, and probably fall apart within a couple of years, maybe less. But so much blood is going to flow between now and then, so much pain, so much destruction; and all because the Israelis have chosen a leader who is hellbent on smashing the Palestinians into abject submission.
As Yasser Arafat says, the Israeli voters have made a historic mistake. It is not just that a golden opportunity for breaking the cycle of violence has been thrown away, it has happened at a time the Middle East is in a crisis of far greater consequence. Imagine if Labour had won. The Middle East would be in a completely different ball game now, and that includes what happens on Iraq. The peace process would be back on track, the Palestinians would have fresh hope of finally getting a state of their own — which would reduce the endless cycle of violence and counterviolence — and Arab, Muslim indeed international public opinion would be far less hostile to US plans for a regime change in Iraq, which in turn would pile the pressure on Saddam Hussein and make a peaceful change more likely.
The Israelis have thrown it all away. They have put their trust in a man whose promise to make Israel secure is a demonstrable lie, who is incapable of delivering anything other than more of the same: more Palestinians deaths, more Israeli deaths. Yet they blindly refuse to see it. That so many decided not to vote at all and that others voted in large number for the secularist Shinui party is part and parcel of that astounding blindness. In other circumstances Shinui may have much to commend itself with its call for change in Israel; but it is beyond belief that Israelis can shut their minds to the fact that the Palestinian question is the No. 1 issue they have to deal with, not whether the ultra orthodox Jews should have special privileges.
As for George Bush’s State of the Union address, one can only weep tears of bitter despair and wait for the war that must surely now come. Compulsive optimists may say that it was nothing more than posturing designed for domestic consumption and which does not necessarily translate into immediate action. Yes it was designed for the home audience. But there will come a point — a matter of weeks at most — when he has to be seen taking action. He could have sounded a note of conciliation, building on it later. But this was all threat — and the trouble with threats is that you have to deliver sooner or later or look the fool. Bush has painted himself into a corner. He has made it impossible for himself to climb down now.
From Israel, from Washington, a double blow to peace, a double blow to hope.
