Clear Terms, Murky Future
Mr. Bush declared the price of statehood for 4.5 million Palestinians, and it will be high: the removal of Yasir Arafat as the Palestinian leader.

Once that occurs, and "with intensive effort by all," Mr. Bush said, an agreement to create such a state, with an elected leadership, a rule of law, and an open economy "could be reached within three years from now, and I and my country will actively lead toward that goal."

With this address, Mr. Bush opened a new period of American diplomacy in the Middle East that immediately raised the question of whether it can succeed, since it defers indefinitely the political negotiations that Palestinians, backed by Arab leaders, have been demanding to end Israel's occupation of the West Bank and to reach a final settlement on statehood. An important question is whether Mr. Arafat, whom Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel would like to exile and Mr. Bush would like to remove from office, will have any incentive to cooperate with this new American policy.

The policy is still short on the details of how a cease-fire could be put in place — how the Israeli Army might be coaxed out of the West Bank or how Palestinian security institutions might be rebuilt to prevent suicide bombings. Those are important factors in creating conditions for a political process that could move forward.

For all the risks in a policy that sends a sharp message to Mr. Arafat that he is irrelevant, the recent track record of splitting differences in the Middle East has been a dismal failure. "Everything is shoved down the road so, and it was so conditional," said Richard W. Murphy, a onetime assistant secretary or state for the Middle East who served Democratic and Republican administrations. He added that Mr. Bush could face a "dilemma" if — in defiance of American pressure to remove the icon of their national movement — Palestinians re-elect Mr. Arafat at the first opportunity, which is expected to be next spring.

A significant risk is that while Mr. Bush waits for Palestinians to live up to the benchmarks he set forth from the Rose Garden of the White House, the violence will simply continue, or even intensify.

It was also unclear how changing the Palestinian leadership would actually proceed after the United States and European countries helped Palestinians carry out local and national elections over the next year, or how those elections would be carried out at all if violence and Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories continued.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/25/international/middleeast/25ASSE.html