Recent comments by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to the effect that he will take US objections into account before deciding whether to carry out Israel’s threat to remove Palestinian President Yasser Arafat shows that the hunting season for the Palestinian leader is still not over. Israel is still seriously considering Arafat’s removal, one way or the other. As for the US, which says it does not support Arafat’s elimination or exile, such statements are the most transient of political commodities. As evidence, portents of the future came with the US veto of the UN Security Council resolution demanding that Israel cease any threat to Arafat.
Sharon and George Bush can think whatever they want of Arafat. The fact remains that he is the elected Palestinian leader. The preposterous call to remove him suggests that nihilism has taken hold of Israel. The Israelis and Americans should deal with Arafat and benefit from his historical legitimacy to reach a sustainable peace. Instead, they have murder on their minds.
In comments to the Yediot Ahronot newspaper, Sharon also indicated that he had bowed to US pressure to reroute the West Bank wall Israel is building to stop what it claims are Palestinian bombers from reaching its cities. But in reality there has been no bowing on Sharon’s part nor any noticeable increase in American pressure over the issue. Giving substance to the American disengagement has been the decision by both sides to agree not to agree on the final location of the barrier, viewed by the Palestinians as the greatest threat to any viable Palestinian state in the future. The Israeli government wants it to envelop settlements like Ariel and Kadumim some 20 kilometers inside the West Bank. The United States does not want to dice the contiguity of Palestinian land “as if it is trying to prejudge the outcome of a peace agreement.” So says National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. But there is a compromise: Israel will continue working on the main barrier while erecting separate fences around Ariel and Kadumim, deferring their linkage to the main barrier to a time less sensitive for American foreign policy. It is clear that whatever the cost of the barrier, the money is so far not being deducted from American loan guarantees, as Washington had previously warned.
There is no exceptional pressure by the United States on Israel to reach a solution. The new Palestinian Premier Ahmed Qorei, however, must fulfill three American conditions to win Washington’s approval: He must show he is independent of Yasser Arafat; all Palestinian security forces must be under his control; and he must be committed to ending what Washington describes as terrorism.
Short of this, there will be little US engagement — and if there is, it will be more to Israel’s benefit.
