WASHINGTON -
The death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat will test
whether US President George W Bush intends to maintain
his staunch support for Israel's right-wing government
at the risk of further alienating the US's European
allies and Muslim public opinion.
It will also
provide an early insight into whether the hardline
coalition that has dominated US foreign policy since
September 11, 2001 - aggressive nationalists,
neo-conservatives who support Israel's governing Likud
Party, and the Christian Right, which supports Israel
for mainly theological reasons - will retain or even
expand its influence in the president's second term.
Meanwhile, as Arafat neared death at a Paris
military hospital Wednesday, Bush told reporters he saw
an "opening for peace" in the Palestinian leader's
passing, most analysts here believe the balance of
forces within the administration still favors the
hardliners, and that Washington will not do anything to
upset Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plans to
unilaterally withdraw settlers from the Gaza Strip while
consolidating Israel's hold on the West Bank.
Thus, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who, in
advance of his two-day summit with Bush here at the end
of this week had declared that restoring the
Israeli-Palestinian peace "is the single most pressing
political change in our world today", is expected to get
a polite hearing, however his appeals for Washington to
adopt a more even-handed position are almost certain to
be turned aside.
"Given that the administration
and a huge majority in Congress have explicitly endorsed
the Sharon plan, the prospects for a major change in US
policy of the kind Blair will be urging are pretty
bleak," said Stephen Zunes, a Middle East expert at the
University of San Francisco.
In addition, the
anticipated departure from the administration of
Secretary of State Colin Powell will only strengthen the
position of administration hardliners, particularly
pro-Likud neo-cons in the National Security Council,
particularly Near East director Elliott Abrams, in Vice
President Dick Cheney's office and in the civilian
leadership of the Pentagon.
Arafat, who was
former president Bill Clinton's most frequent foreign
visitor after he and late Israeli prime minister Yitzhak
Rabin shook hands at the signing of the Oslo accords on
the White House lawn in September 1993, was vilified as
a supporter of terrorism by Bush and his most
influential advisers.
At one point, Cheney
confided to Israel's defense minister that he thought
the Palestinian leader, who was elected president of the
Palestinian Authority by nearly 90% of Palestinians in
one of the freest elections ever held in the Arab world,
should be "hung".
When Sharon moved to
permanently confine Arafat to a small compound in
Ramallah three years ago, the administration insisted
only that the Israeli forces not arrest or harm him
physically. Shortly afterward, in June 2002, Washington
announced it would no longer deal with Arafat at all,
but only with "moderate" leaders who could oversee new
elections, exert control of all Palestinian security
forces, and halt all terrorist attacks against Israelis,
both in Israel and in the occupied territories.
But despite steps taken by Arafat's US-approved
prime minister Mahmoud Abbas to comply with those
conditions, the Bush administration failed to press
Sharon to reciprocate by, for example, releasing
hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, gradually withdrawing
the Israeli Defense Force from occupied towns, or
dismantling illegal Israeli outposts on the West Bank.
All of these steps were required by a new "Road
Map" put forward by the European Union, the United
Nations, Russia and the US in early 2003 to restore a
credible peace process.
"Despite his promises to
do these things, Sharon failed to deliver," said Henry
Siegman, a Middle East specialist at the Council on
Foreign Relations who played a key role under Clinton in
the Oslo peace process. "And despite Bush's promise to
press Sharon to keep these promises, he also failed to
deliver. Sharon gave Abu Mazen [Abbas] nothing."
As a result, Abbas, who now succeeds Arafat as
chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization,
resigned as prime minister in September 2003,
effectively dashing hopes for a revived peace process
but permitting Sharon to insist that, with Arafat still
in control, he had no "Palestinian partner" with whom he
could negotiate.
Blair, as one of the prime
movers of the Road Map, clearly intends to press Bush on
using his influence with Sharon to put the plan - which
incorporates Bush's 2002 demands on the Palestinians but
also requires Israel to freeze settlement activity,
dismantle illegal outposts and take other reciprocal
steps - back on track, particularly now that Arafat has
passed from the scene and "moderate" leaders, especially
Abbas and his successor as prime minister, Ahmed Qurei,
appear to make up the core of a collective leadership
that intends to hold elections early next year.
"Bush should work with Israel to allow
Palestinian moderates to show results to their people
that will enhance their stature, mostly through
re-packaging steps that Israel is already willing to
make," such as following through on its unilateral
withdrawal from Gaza, said Debra DeLee, president of
Americans for Peace Now, a predominantly Jewish group
that supported the Oslo process.
The problem,
however, is that in an exchange of letters with Sharon
over the latter's Gaza plan last April, Bush not only
endorsed the Israeli leader's unilateral course, but
also took positions on settlements, territorial
compromises and the right of Palestinian refugees to
return to their homes that, according to both Oslo and
the Road Map, must be left to direct negotiations
between Israel and the Palestinians.
"The
critical question will be whether Sharon will continue
to act unilaterally, insisting that he does not yet have
a Palestinian partner for peace so that he can continue
to deepen Israel's hold on the West Bank, or enter into
serious negotiations with a new Palestinian leadership,"
according to Siegman.
"The answer to this
question will depend on how seriously the United States
will become engaged and insist that the new Palestinian
leadership be helped by Israel and be given the
credibility it needs to fight terror and to pursue a
non-violent approach to Palestinian goals," he added.
"Nothing will happen unless the Israelis and the
United States make it happen," Shibley Telhami, a Middle
East expert at the Brookings Institution, said Thursday.
He noted that Sharon and his supporters in the Bush
administration will argue that the ability of
Palestinian moderates to enforce their will remains
uncertain and that any major new diplomatic effort by
Washington is premature, at best.
Still,
Arafat's death makes it more difficult for the
administration to argue it should not be more deeply
involved, since it has now been deprived of its main
excuse - Arafat's presence - for not becoming engaged.
"As long as Arafat was in power, the question
was whether there was a Palestinian partner for peace,"
according to Siegman. "If he is replaced by a
Palestinian leadership that opposes violence, the
question will become: is there an Israeli partner for
peace, and what is the United States doing to make sure
there is?"
