FOR the first time since he took office, President Bush is suggesting that a Palestinian state may not be created before he leaves the White House. Last year, he set a four-year goal for achieving Palestinian statehood. He has more than three years remaining in his term but, it does not appear as if his earlier statements will become reality. The revelation, made a day after Bush hosted Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House, certainly knocks the wind out of Palestinian sails. Things had seemed to be steadily improving following the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in the summer and the maintaining, more or less, of an eight-month-old cease-fire between Palestinian activists and Israel. For Bush, though, these positive steps do not amount to a state. He did not elaborate on why he now had second thoughts about a Palestinian state becoming reality before he leaves office in January 2009. Perhaps he knows something we don’t.
Or perhaps the myriad of problems yet to be resolved — the status of Jerusalem, the right of return, political prisoners, the wall of separation, settlements — are too many to generate optimism for the early creation of a state. Whatever the reasons, Bush’s about-face is a body blow, made worse by his repeated carping — which does nothing for the peace process — that Abbas crackdown on what Bush called “armed gangs” or, in other words, Hamas. But by urging Abbas to confront and dismantle armed factions, Bush is putting too much pressure on the PA which could well create internal Palestinian strife. Abbas has condemned attacks on civilians and has made cease-fire agreements with Hamas but he cannot rein them in as the US and Israel want him to. At this stage it would simply be too difficult and too dangerous. Any such military campaign against Hamas could likely escalate into a full-scale civil war.
Of course, just because Bush does not envisage a Palestinian state while he is in office does not necessarily mean the state cannot be created before he leaves. But it is hard to imagine how a Palestinian state could happen without the wholehearted support and involvement of an American administration without uncertainties about what it was doing.
Some Palestinians are looking at the bright side. Bush’s criticism of Israel — that it needs to do more to foster peace by halting settlement expansion and construction of the barrier wall around the West Bank — and the fact that he did not publicly back Sharon’s demand that Hamas be barred from the coming parliamentary elections somewhat compensated for his departing from the concept of a fixed timetable for the creation of a Palestinian state. Those wearing rose-colored glasses would rather point to Bush’s saying that if it could not be done before his tenure ends, he would lay the foundation so that the process becomes irreversible. In that case, they reason, deadlines are not important. But they are. Target dates are important. They set up goals to be reached within certain timeframes, not to shift them at convenience. Or is it going to take forever to set up a Palestinian state?
