Wednesday, March 26, 2003

Can You Get to Palestine From Here?
Now a new war is under way, just a Scud-shot away from the conflict here. And right before the fighting began, Mr. Bush appeared in the White House Rose Garden to announce that he was "personally committed" to a diplomatic "road map" toward peace and a Palestinian state in just three years.

This time, the analysts and political leaders say, he really means it.

The reasoning is that President Bush cannot hope to stabilize the region, much less democratize Arab states, so long as the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians endures as a propaganda tool for the likes of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. After the war with Iraq, Arab leaders will demand that President Bush "prove what he can do for peace," Dennis Ross, the former Clinton administration negotiator, wrote last week in The Wall Street Journal.

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, trying to shore up his political base, desperately sought President Bush's new commitment, and trumpeted it when it came, even as he acknowledged that some might doubt American resolve. "The U.S. is now committed — and, I believe, genuinely — to the road map for peace," he told the House of Commons last week.

The road map is a seven-page document drafted by the so-called Quartet — the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan — on Dec. 20 of last year. It calls for dramatic action by both sides to produce a Palestinian state with provisional borders as early as this year. That would be followed in 2005 by a resolution of the underlying disputes, an acceptance of Israel by Arab nations and a sovereign Palestinian state.

Particularly given the international auspices of the peace plan, Mr. Blair finds the logic for determined engagement compelling. "I do not believe there is any other issue with the same power to reunite the world community than progress on the issues of Israel and Palestine," he said.

But there is a flaw in all this analysis: The Bush administration has never accepted it. It has never regarded peace between Israelis and Palestinians as a goal as central to American interests as, say, getting rid of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has repeatedly rejected any notion that the administration is not fully committed to pushing ahead. But since Sept. 11, 2001, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has rarely been more than a nagging subtext of the Bush administration's declared war on terrorism. The administration has resolutely resisted making it the text, and linking the resolution of this conflict to its wider war. That is partly because connecting the two could be seen as an admission that American policy on the issue is a legitimate source of Arab anger at the United States.

The administration clearly recognizes there is a problem here, and it may truly want to help. But with rebuilding Iraq, confronting North Korea and addressing the American economy already on its agenda, this conflict may never rise to the level of a top priority, certainly not enough of one to justify the political risks involved in dragging the antagonists along the route outlined by the road map — particularly during the coming presidential election year.

It would be much easier, some experts say, for the White House simply to create the impression that it is trying.

It is striking how little stock the adversaries here, along with the administration's Quartet partners, are putting in Mr. Bush's new commitment. "Who is he kidding?" asked Dr. Ali B. Jarbawi, a political scientist at Bir Zeit University in Ramallah. "We know he is not going to enforce it."

They recall the mission of Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, the administration's special envoy, around the time of the Afghan war. Mr. Powell said that General Zinni would stay in the region "for as long as it takes." But the violence continued, and about a year ago, the general vanished.

For Palestinians and Israelis the acid test is what Mr. Bush meant when he said, in referring to the road map, that "we will expect and welcome contributions from Israel and the Palestinians to this document that will advance true peace."

The State Department has told its Quartet allies that Mr. Bush was not referring to changes to the substance of the plan, but only to debate over how it should be carried out. But when it comes to Middle East peace, implementation is substance.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/23/weekinreview/23BENN.html?pagewanted=all&position=top

No comments:

Post a Comment

con·cept