| |
A roadmap for Israel, with a detour via
Damascus
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - Will it be the roadmap to
Israeli-Palestinian peace or the road to Damascus that
will next grab the attention of US President George W
Bush's administration in the wake of its convincing
conquest of Iraq?
While senior officials,
including Bush himself as recently as Monday after
meeting in Belfast with British Prime Minister Tony
Blair, have insisted that getting an Israeli-Palestinian
peace process back on track will be the top regional
priority after the Iraq war, speculation that
administration hawks have their eyes set on Syria
suggests a possible detour.
It is clear that
Washington's European and Arab allies, as well as
Secretary of State Colin Powell, are concerned that Bush
follow through on his pledges to launch the
implementation of the roadmap that was worked out late
last year by the so-called "quartet" - the United
Nations, the European Union, Russia and the United
States.
Blair and Powell see such a move not
only as a way of mending ties between the US and Europe
that were badly strained by Bush's refusal to seek UN
authorization for the invasion, but also as an essential
step to bolstering pro-Western Arab governments which
quietly supported the war despite the overwhelming
opposition of their publics.
"Arabs don't expect
the US to muster another armada to militarily force
Israel to end its occupation, but they do expect
Washington to use its political, economic and diplomatic
muscle to implement the roadmap to Palestinian-Israeli
peace, which aims for adjacent Palestinian and Israeli
states enjoying equal security and national rights,"
wrote Jordanian journalist Rami Khouri in Thursday's Los
Angeles Times.
"More American lassitude in the
face of Israel's colonization of occupied Palestinian
lands would only strengthen Arab critics who accuse the
US of a duplicitous double standard that mainly serves
pro-Israeli interests," he added.
Indeed, State
Department and Central Intelligence Agency advisers
argue that Washington's failure to move on the
Israeli-Palestinian front will only stoke the anger and
sense of humiliation that is now rolling across the Arab
world as a result of the US victory.
But despite
Bush's assurances to Blair, there remains considerable
doubt in Washington that the president is prepared to go
much beyond officially publishing the road map, a step
that his quartet partners had first urged more than four
months ago.
Acting largely at the behest of
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Bush opposed
publication until now, arguing first that it would have
improperly influenced the January 28 Israeli elections
and then interfered with the resolution of the Iraq
crisis.
The road map is a detailed plan for
concurrent and parallel steps to be taken by Israel and
the Palestinians, designed to halt Palestinian attacks
on Israelis and improve security while requiring Israel
to withdraw its troops from Palestinian areas, dismantle
illegal settlements and eventually freeze all settlement
activity.
After recognition of a provisional
Palestinian state in which decisive power would be
exercised by the new prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, as
opposed to its president, Yasser Arafat, both sides
would then negotiate a final border, the status of
Jerusalem, the settlements and the refugee question,
with the aim of creating an independent and viable
Palestinian state alongside Israel by 2005.
Most
analysts consider that timetable hopelessly optimistic
at this point, and some, such as Uri Avnery of Israel's
Gush Shalom, or Peace Bloc, have argued that the plan
contains so many stages on which all members of the
quartet must agree and places so many obligations on the
Palestinians compared to the Israelis that it amounts to
"much ado about nothing".
Others are somewhat
more optimistic. "It's the wrong document for the wrong
reasons at the wrong time, but it's the only game in
town," said Yossi Alpher, a special adviser to former
Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, at a Capitol Hill
briefing on Wednesday. Still, he thinks that Abbas'
recent appointment and a serious commitment by Bush
could propel the process forward.
But that
commitment still remains very much in doubt. In the
immediate aftermath of the Iraq war, Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and their
top aides have clearly strengthened their position
vis-a-vis Powell. They are also closely identified with
the views of Sharon, and even the more extreme factions
of the Likud Party, which have already rejected key
elements of the road map.
Not only have the
hawks generally been silent about the road map itself,
but they also appear to be trying to change the subject
to possible new targets of US military might, especially
Syria, and, to a lesser extent, Iran.
Rumsfeld
on Wednesday accused Damascus of aiding senior Iraqi
officials to escape, a follow-up to charges last week
that Syria was committing "hostile acts" against
Washington by allegedly supplying military equipment,
such as night-vision goggles, to the Iraqis.
On
Thursday, his increasingly influential and outspoken
deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, told Congress, "The Syrians are
behaving badly. They need to be reminded of that, and if
they continue, then we need to think about what our
policy is with respect to a country that harbors
terrorists or harbors war criminals, or was in recent
times shipping things to Iraq."
While few
analysts believe that the administration wants to attack
Damascus if it does not comply with US demands -
although reports circulated on Thursday that the
Pentagon is drawing up contingency plans - the hawks are
arguing within the administration that the regional
balance of power has shifted decisively in favor of
Washington and Israel as a result of the Iraq war.
"They are saying, 'Why should we immediately get
all involved in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations,
especially with the Europeans and the UN, before the
Syrians, Hezbollah [in Lebanon], and Iran have time to
fully absorb the real meaning of our victory'?" said one
former senior official. "It's part of their 'shock and
awe' strategy, only it's directed beyond Iraq."
The hawks also have strong support in Congress,
where the so-called Israel lobby, in the form of the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has been
flexing its muscles over the past several weeks.
It is lining up support from both the Republican
and Democratic leadership in the House of
Representatives to break with the road map's plan for
Israelis and Palestinians to take parallel steps, and
instead require the Palestinians to enforce a total halt
on attacks on Israelis and implement more far-reaching
political and economic reforms before Israel is obliged
to begin withdrawing its forces or even dismantling
illegal settlements. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has
even asked Bush to repudiate the quartet altogether.
While Bush cannot afford to go that far, DeLay's
words were clearly a shot across the bow by a strong
party leader who sees the administration's staunch
support for Sharon to date as a major opportunity to woo
Jewish votes and political organizations and funding
from the Democrats in 2004, an opportunity that is also
recognized by Bush's own political guru, Karl Rove.
(Inter Press Service)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
