Associated Press – November 28, 2007
WASHINGTON – So far so good. But can Israel and the Palestinians conclude a peace agreement mostly on their own?
Time is running out for President Bush to make good on his promise of a Palestinian state.
“It is not going to be possible in 2008 unless he is going to roll up his sleeves and make it happen. I don’t sense that,” said Martin Indyk, who worked with President Clinton in an unsuccessful sleeves-rolled-up effort to make peace in 2000, his last year in the White House, between Israel and Syria and Israel and the Palestinians.
Similarly, Edward Djerejian, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and to Syria, said in an interview that “the American president has to be strongly involved in this effort.”
“The U.S. cannot be a passive onlooker,” said Djerejian, who is director of the Baker Institute at Rice University. “At the end of the day, the Israelis and the Palestinians have to strike the deal. But the U.S. has an essential role to play.”
Clearly, the main accomplishment at the talks at Annapolis, Md., was the decision to relaunch negotiations between the two sides.
“They delivered on what they promised,” said Aaron David Miller, longtime U.S. negotiator now at the Wilson Center. “They launched a process of negotiations. Under the circumstances, this came out about as well as it ever could have come out.”
The talks had their bright side in other ways as well. On top of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas agreeing to open discussions Dec. 12 and to keep meeting biweekly on both short-range and long-range goals, the Arabs, including Syria, turned out in force to register their mostly silent approval of a settlement with the Jewish state.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, even applauded after Olmert spoke, according to a member of the U.S. delegation. “The Arab-Israeli conflict has caused too much pain and suffering and too many lives have been lost,” Saud said in a statement.
But down the rocky road ahead, the same core issues that blocked success in U.S. mediation between Israel and the Palestinians, which began with a peace conference in Madrid in 1991, stand stubbornly in the way. They include the future of Jerusalem and Palestinian demands to return refugees to Israel.
In fact, one development looming ever-larger is the division within the Palestinians between Abbas’ relatively moderate stance and the refusal of Hamas to accept Israel’s existence.
“The harsh reality (is) that Hamas is shut out of the process while poised to violently derail the entire effort,” said Haim Malka, deputy director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.
“It is based on wishful thinking that so-called moderate Palestinian forces will be strong enough to overpower hard-liners and enforce a final agreement,” he said in a statement.
And yet, Malka said, “a majority of Palestinians and Israelis want to end the daily cycle of violence.”
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, with frequent trips to the region, played the key role for the Bush administration in bringing Israel and the Palestinian Authority to Annapolis and the decision to relaunch peacemaking efforts.
Unless Bush changes course after seven years of personal detachment, the president will now leave it up to Israel and the Palestinians to find a solution to their problems. The United States intends, at this point at least, to try to generate international support for peacemaking while letting Israel and the Palestinians decide how to proceed.
Indyk is skeptical of this hands-off approach.
“There is a distance for them to travel,” he said. “I don’t think it is possible without the president being deeply involved.”
EDITOR’S NOTE – Barry Schweid has covered U.S. Mideast diplomacy for The Associated Press since 1973.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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posted November 28, 2007 at 5:26 pm
“There is a distance for them to travel,” he said. “I don’t think it is possible without the president being deeply involved.”
It’s hard to imagine GWB remaining deeply involved with anything, unless maybe it led to more wealth for him and others who are wealthy.
But it sure is vital to the future of the world he and his daughters will live in so I’ll retain hope for now.
As for Hamas and their supporters, produce a settlement that’s gives Palestinians a fair result and some powerful authority that would back it up, and I predict the support for destroying Israel would fade away. But I think it would have to be convincing and I admit I can’t imagine how this will be carried out since the only superpower operating in the area has no credibility with them, and deservedly so.
But, given that WMD’s of one sort or another are getting easier and easier to produce, Israel should not want to contemplate a future cheek by jowl with a lot of people who hate them for taking their land and their futures, as is the case now. So both sides do have very good reason for coming to an agreement.
posted November 28, 2007 at 5:55 pm
“W” is making a LAST ditch effort to try and improve his legacy, which is going to stay miserable, no matter what he does. I agree with the above poster, “W” won’t keep his efforts up. He’s made his token effort, getting the 2 leaders to meet. Personally, I don’t think anything will come from this. Do wish something positive would but how long has this been going on???
posted November 28, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Well, if you think about it, how deeply involved should the President be in this? I think if anything, his presidency has shown that we cannot become too involved in trying to work out other peoples’ disputes, because trying to force an outside will on others—even if it’s something positive, like trying to force the Israelis and Palestinians to tolerate each other—cannot really work. Though obviously, with his influence (both sides need our help, after all), he cannot remain totally detached. So I’m kind of positing a question, how much is too much or too little?
And we’ve managed to get other Arab countries to acknowledge that yes, there actually are people on that little isthmus that are going to stay around for a while. Still cautiously optimistic over here.
God bless.
posted November 28, 2007 at 10:45 pm
The US is heavily involved and has been for many decades. We send billions of dollars a year to Israel, much in the form of armaments. We protect Israel in the UN from attacks they don’t deserve and from attacks they do deserve. And we sometimes send a bit of money to the Palestinians.
But the plight of the Palestinians, and our involvement in it, is one of the big recruiting tools for anti-US terrorists.
It’s way past time that was removed. They deserve a fair settlement and we can’t afford for them not to have one. And though Israel profits from their inability to protect their land now, in the long term it may suffer horribly due to the hatred it’s generated.
So while Bush has shown incredible ineptitude in his dealings, his continual policy of ignoring the Israel-Palestine issue since he took office has not worked at all either; let us hope he and his State Department can do something important right.