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May
1, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
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Iain
Boal
A May Day Message to the FCC: "We
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Killings at Al Fallujah, City of Mosques
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Leupp
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Cassel
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Handleman
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Bush's War Web Log 4/26
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Higgs
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Susan Block
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St. Clair
Patriot Gore: the Fatal Flaws in
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Mariner
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Nashashibi
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May 2,
2003
Roadmap or Roadblock?
Betting
on Abu-Mazen...To Lose
By BRADLEY BURSTON
The "road map" has been unfurled at
last, its destination a independent Palestine by 2005. So why
are so many Israeli government hawks walking around with smiles
on their faces? The war in Iraq may be one big reason, the newfound
sense among rightists that the Middle East can be made over by
force of will, force of arms, and force of example. Another possibility
is rooted in the gambling instincts of George Bush and Ariel
Sharon, who may well be betting heavily on new Palestinian Prime
Minister Abu Mazen - to lose.
The road map, a now-rare diplomatic collaboration
of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United
Nations, was formally presented Wednesday to the eleventh prime
minister of Israel and the first prime minister of the Palestinian
Authority. On the face of it, rightists in Israeli officialdom
should be anxious. The Bush administration, with a robust push
from Britain's Tony Blair, has pledged to vigorously pursue Israeli-Palestinian
peace through cooperation and mutual compromise. The plan speaks
of a phased approach, leading with political and procedural reform
of the Palestinian Authority and PA efforts to quell attacks
on Israelis, to be matched by broad Israeli military withdrawals
from areas re-occupied during the Intifada, and the institution
of a freeze on new settlement activity - this last a concept
particularly odious to hardline Israeli officials.
So why are these people smiling? The
mood elevation stems from clear channels of communication with
Washington, and the signals they are receiving from the White
House and Capitol Hill, argues Haaretz commentator Akiva Eldar:
"The message that they are getting now, is that the Rumsfeld-Richard
Perle school of thought is now in charge, people who were against
the Oslo peace process, people who don't trust the Palestinians,
people who feel that after what they did in Iraq, the Palestinians
must now go after and crack down hard on the Islamists, the radicals,
the terrorists - something the Palestinians may be unable to
accomplish," Eldar says, adding of the neoconservative-oriented
U.S. officials, "These are people who are against any conciliation."
In their interpretation of the road map, Sharon need not make
a single move until the Palestinian Authority has demonstrated
that it is putting up a significant battle against the militants
in its midst. Moreover, "they know that Sharon has raised
the required threshhold to so high a level that it is unrealistic
to believe any Palestinian could reach it."
Israel is soon to hand Abu Mazen's security
authorities its lists of wanted militants, along with a demand
that the fugitives be put behind bars for lengthy terms - a sharp
contrast from Arafat's rule, during which the PA Chairman's men
leaked the lists to give fugitives time to go underground rather
than be seized. Those wanted men who actually were taken into
custody were, in many cases, released before long - a system
Israel was swift to dub the revolving door.
But hawks can allow themselves to breath
easy in the face of possible future demands for concessions,
Eldar maintains.
"They have every reason to expect
that the vicious circle of terrorism, retaliation, and targeted
killings will simply go on," he says, adding that newly
appointed senior PA security official Muhammad Dahlan lacks the
power to break the cycle even in his native Gaza, where the PA
police apparatus was not wholly pulverized by Israel, as it was
in the West Bank.
As if to prove their point, Sheikh Ahmed
Yassin, the fierce, wheelchair-bound spiritual leader of Hamas,
lost no time Wednesday in dismissing the road map and vowing
no let-up in attacks by the militant Islamic group, which has
sworn to blast the Jewish state entirely off the map of the Middle
East.
"The road map aims to assure security
for Israel at the expense of the security of our people,"
Yassin said in Gaza City. "It is a plan to liquidate the
Palestinian cause. It is rejected by us."
There is also ample reason to believe
that the process of instituting PA reforms - sabotaged by Arafat
at every turn - has itself already done significant damage to
Abu Mazen's standing and his ability to seek an end to terror
attacks.
True to form, Arafat clearly relished
the repercussions of opposing Abu Mazen as long as possible in
the near-operatic wrangling over a new cabinet. Arafat's refusal
brought him rafts of telephone calls from world figures, and
direct arm-twisting from a personal envoy of Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak. Like a recalcitrant child for whom scolding and
cajoling is better than no attention at all, Arafat had re-established
his own relevancy, if only for a night, and at Abu Mazen's expense.
In the eyes of many Palestinians, the international intervention
sapped the new prime minister's credibility as an independent
leader. The American administration, ever mindful of a do-or-die
election next year, wants no part of being embarrassed by Abu
Mazen's PA, as previous administrations were embarassed by Arafat's,
Eldar says. Washington also has little trust that Abu Mazen has
the strength to deliver on the issues that count, just as the
White House has scant interest in demanding that Israel make
concessions like wholesale troop pullbacks, only to be hit by
fresh waves of suicide bombings. In sum, Sharon is betting on
Abu Mazen to fail.
What's in it for Sharon? Eldar believes
that the Israeli leader quietly but genuinely believes what Israeli
ultra-hawks like Likud cabinet minister Uzi Landau and American
neocons like Richard Perle are pleased to say out loud: that
everything connected with Oslo must go - up to and including
the whole of the Palestinian Authority. Because the road map
is at heart a return to many of the aspects of Oslo and its offshoot
the Peres-Abu Ala plan, even with a similar cast of characters,
the hawks reject its very basis. As in U.S. neocon recommendations
to then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996, "They
reject the principle of land for peace. They believe that Israeli-Palestinian
military cooperation doesn't work. They believe in peace by force,
by regime change. They believe that the victory in Iraq proved
that they were right, that the way to deal with terrorism is
simply by force."
At the end of the day, "If 'Bush
comes to shove' and the administration must decide whether to
crack down on Sharon or on Abu Mazen, it's very clear what they
are going to do." What, then, is Sharon's solution to the
conflict? A senior security official recently told Eldar of a
conversation with Sharon, in which the prime minister said Israel
must stick to its guns for the next 30 years, at which time alternative
technologies will reduce the need for oil, thus sapping Arab
influence on Europe and the world. Many in the Bush administration
have a similar position, believing that if you have enough power
and will, there is no need to concede. Eldar says that the Israeli
stand-pat faction has been much encouraged by the growing list
of U.S. senators and members of Congress that support the Sharon
formula, a whole-hearted acceptance of the vaguely worded "Bush
vision" enunciated in a June speech, alongside grimly qualified
reservations over the road map.
"All Sharon has to do, at this point,
is to hold on until the beginning of the election year,"
Eldar concludes. For his part, Bush, ever mindful of the Jewish
vote, can also discreetly bet on Abu Mazen to lose. If the scenario
plays out as neocons hope, he can appear to have a peace process
going, but will have no need to pressure Israel into concessions.
"Then Bush can turn around and tell
the Europeans, the Egyptians and the Saudis, 'I did my job. I've
accepted the road map, I've turned my back on the Israeli demands
for revisions to the plan, now it's up to you to deliver your
Palestinian friends.'" In any case, Eldar says, "someone
will always provide him with a terrorist attack, so he can say,
'What do you expect me to do now?'"
Bradley Burston
writes for Ha'aretz.
Today's
Features
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Santorum: That's Latin for Asshole
Iain
Boal
A May Day Message to the FCC: "We
Are Many; They are Few"
Diana
Johnstone
About Cuba
Sam
Hamod
Killings at Al Fallujah, City of Mosques
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Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Intelligence Fiasco
Lee Sustar
Greed Air: Airline Workers Agree to Pay Cuts, While Bosses Stuff
Their Pockets
Peter
Linebaugh
May Day at Kut and Kenthal
Stew Albert
Straight Shooters
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 5/01
Website
of the Day
South Bay Mobilization
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