WASHINGTON, 18 July 2003 — If President George W. Bush doesn’t take the road map seriously, his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, couldn’t be more serious. After meeting with Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), Rice met the following day with Ariel Sharon, and brought up the obvious fact that the Israeli prime minister is taking additional chunks of West Bank land on the pretext that he needs defense positions to protect the Israelis. Rice would not let go of the subject, making it clear — perhaps for the first time — that Sharon is dealing in very bad faith. It may seem obvious to Palestinians and their supporters, who now number most of the rest of the world. It is quite possible, however, that neither Bush nor Rice had fully realized what Sharon is up to until Rice went and walked on both sides of the wall Sharon is constructing.
It is hard for Americans to realize how woefully misinformed they are. Because they believe that the Israelis have some sense of decency or shame, time after time they have been astonished at how Sharon and many of his predecessors have lied, cheated, reneged on agreements, or told the rest of the world to go jump in a lake.
Once a president or secretary of state assumes office, there is little time for carefully nuanced details. So, call it naïveté or suddenly seeing the light, but Bush and Rice clearly are trying to untangle the thickets that Israel’s friends — and particularly Sharon — have planted to make it impossible to move forward on the road map. Secretary of State Colin Powell has understood this for some time, of course. Now, however, he no longer has to fly blind, because Bush and Rice are now singing in the same key.
What changed everything was Bush’s promise to British Prime Minister Tony Blair to deal with the Middle East crisis without further delay. Blair has made it clear that only if Bush sticks with the road map and doesn’t allow Sharon to alter it, will things turn out all right. Fellow Quartet members Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations, have been on board for some time, of course.
Bush may be honestly naïve, but Ariel Sharon is not. The Israeli prime minister still believes that he can sweet-talk Bush out of any doubts he may have. On his coming visit, if it occurs, the US will have to convince Sharon that this is a very serious crisis and that Bush won’t put up with any more pettifoggery.
In response Sharon, predictably, will assume a deep defensive posture. He could manufacture a new Cabinet crisis, and perhaps even new Israeli elections, if necessary. There may be more of the desperately imaginative tricks the Israelis pull off so smoothly. For Israel, the question is how to delay and stall indefinitely in the hope that Bush finally will become so concerned about a second term that he will postpone a confrontation until after he is safely re-elected.
The clock, however, just keeps ticking. Blair needs results on the peace road map now, as do the other long-suffering members of the Quartet — not to mention the Palestinians.
There are factors that bode well for Bush’s hope to move the road map along even in the run up to the 2004 elections. For one thing, election politics have not worked out as some Bush campaign strategists forecast. For one thing, the famous “Jewish vote” remains virtually immovable. Most American Jews plan to vote Democratic as they always do, regardless of what the Jewish neoconservatives say.
Muslim and Arab Americans, who largely voted for Bush in 2000, have been deeply disappointed with the president so far. Already, however, there are the barely perceptible signs that Karl Rove, Bush’s election-year guru, is making positive moves — but this time Muslim and Arab Americans will have to see the results of their “bloc vote” for Bush before they work as hard as they did in 2000. Those results will be visible so long as Bush, Powell and Rice do exactly what they seem to be doing right now.
It’s ironic that, in its first year, the Bush administration seemed unwilling to get into the nitty-gritty of foreign affairs, specifically the Palestine problem. Then came 9/11, and later Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction that Bush and his neocon allies really seemed determined to find. All of that is water under the bridge at this point, however, with the world once again focused on dealing with Israel and giving a fair shake to the Palestinians.
Surprisingly, Americans by and large are willing to do what is necessary to solve the Palestine problem. Most do understand that Palestine is important, at least for world stability. No matter how the polls are worded, Americans are ready to solve that problem if Bush shows some leadership on the subject.
A Zogby International poll commissioned by the Council for the National Interest interviewed 800 adults chosen at random nationwide from June 27 to July 2, 2003. The results showed that 56 percent of Americans strongly support or somewhat support a Palestinian state. On the other hand, the poll found that 30 percent somewhat or strongly oppose a Palestinian state, with 14 percent not sure. Therefore nearly two-thirds of the respondents supported a Palestinian state.
Surprisingly, many American Jews have reached similar conclusions. Peace Now and the Tikkun Community’s Rabbi Michael Lerner say it’s time to end the problem in a way that is fair to both sides — or at least that both sides can live with. In short, the Israel lobby isn’t going to have as much clout as it had in the past in obscuring the real issue.
Sharon has done a number of things clearly aimed at dividing the Palestinians. One was to be very parsimonious in the number of Palestinian prisoners he will allow to be freed and reunited with their families. Sharon has indicated that only 300 out of some 7,000 Palestinians would be released for now. Then, presumably after some pushing from the Bush administration, Sharon agreed to free an additional 300.
Wisely, the Palestinians did not get bogged down totally on the issue of numbers. Nor is Bush likely to dilly-dally over these details. It is almost certain, however, that the president is not going to give any more serious money to the Israelis until the road map procedure is well under way.
Meanwhile, Yasser Arafat, Abu Mazen and other senior Palestinian leaders should be prevailing upon Hamas and Islamic Jihad to commit to six months without terrorist attacks, rather than the agreed-to three months, before any Palestinian ultimatums are produced.
Since the post-Aqaba cycle of violence initiated by Israel’s killing of two Hamas members, the rash of suicide bombings largely has stopped. The Palestinians should forcefully end the bombings by the two or three marginal groups that have not agreed to a cease-fire. This will demonstrate that the Palestinians are adhering to their part of the Aqaba agreement — and it will be very clear that it is Ariel Sharon who is not honoring the road map’s provisions.
The truth of the matter is that the Israelis probably do not have the power — or will — to return any of the stolen Palestinian lands. Typically, when Israeli soldiers have taken down any of the Jewish “outposts,” the settlers simply have created new ones.
Sharon cannot forever continue these claim-jumping tactics. Meanwhile, all Americans will begin to understand that the problem is not with the Palestinians, but rather with the Israelis.
— Richard H. Curtiss is executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
