THE meeting today, across a table in Sharm El-Sheikh, of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon represents the best chance yet for an end to almost sixty years of Palestinian agony. No one can possibly underestimate the immensity of the challenge. This could be but the first step in a long and tortuous journey and it is one fraught with danger from extremists on both sides.
The talks are being hosted by Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak and attended also by Jordan’s King Abdallah. All the participants will certainly be very conscious of the diplomatic shadow cast by the new US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Yesterday she concluded her first foreign trip by going from Israel to a meeting with President Abbas in the occupied territories. The US role will be pivotal to any advance toward peace. If die-hard Zionists, from whose ranks Ariel Sharon sprang, had felt that they could get away with maintaining the violent status quo in which they characterize themselves as the deserving victims and the Palestinians as the malevolent aggressors, they would not be talking now. Has the new Bush administration finally realized that as long as it simply sustains Israel economically and militarily, US influence in the Middle East will be seriously curtailed, even in Israel itself which long ago learned to take the American dollar and give precious little or nothing in return?
Over the last 50 years, no fewer than 16 US secretaries of state have tried with greater or lesser enthusiasm to find a solution to the Middle East problem. What makes Condoleezza Rice’s initiative different is that she has assumed office at the very moment when Washington’s hawks are fluttering uncertainly rather than soaring high. The application of brute force in Afghanistan and Iraq has not produced the anticipated sweeping successes but has instead created more problems than have been solved. No one should doubt that the new secretary of state could be as hawkish as her president. By turning back to the diplomacy, which was so neglected, in George W. Bush’s first term, she has given the administration a whole new set of doors to try.
The US pledge yesterday of $40 million to the Palestinian Authority within the next 90 days, though a fraction of the amount needed to begin rebuilding the shattered Palestinian economy and welfare and social services, is certainly welcome. Washington’s pressure probably produced the equally welcome Israeli announcement that up to 900 Palestinian detainees would soon be released from jails. The Rice visit appears to have also prompted a Sharon government rethink on the seizure of Palestinian property in Jerusalem and the West Bank, some of which Meni Mazuz, the Israeli attorney general, has now ruled illegal. What is unclear, however, is whether Rice was aware of the Israeli sleight of hand here. Mazuz has said that the 1950 Absentee Property Law does not apply and by acting with such apparent correctness, he is in fact reinforcing the very legislation that was used to dispossess Palestinians driven from their homes in 1947. The right of return or compensation for loss remains key issues for negotiation.
At the moment Israel is wearing its reasonable face. If the talks fail, it will want to blame the Palestinians and shake its head with mock sadness. It remains to be seen if Ms. Rice will be a sufficiently informed and firm umpire to ensure fair play. But it looks as if she has made a good start.
