Thursday, November 22, 2001 Kislev 7, 5762 Israel Time: 16:03 (GMT+2)
You're holding the baby, Colin, try not to drop it
The State Department got the message - if Colin Powell buries himself, the president will come to the funeral, if he succeeds, the president will take the salute.
By Akiva Eldar
Maybe it was just coincidence that Colin Powell chose the McConnell Center for Political Leadership at the University of Louisville to unveil his Middle East vision. Or perhaps not.
The Secretary of State devoted the first few minutes of his speech to lauding the virtues of Kentucky's Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, who sat swelling with pride behind him on the dais. Powell did not mention that McConnell is one of the fiercest opponents of the PLO and the Oslo agreements. He was one leader of the legislative initiative that aimed to punish the Palestinians. A few days before Powell's speech, he, together with Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein, published AIPAC's most recent initiative against the Palestinian Authority.
Powell's speech was sown and grown in a hostile environment. In Congress, they are thinking about the close race expected in the coming elections to the House of Representatives, and for a third of the Senate seats in about a year. This is no time to upset Jewish fundraisers. President George Bush voted with his feet on the issue of personal involvement in the Middle East when he fled from Yasser Arafat during his visit to New York. To give something to the furious Saudis, Bush stole from Powell what should have been the cherry on the top of his Louisville policy speech - the declaration of support "Palestine."
The Pentagon pressured Bush up to the last minute to tell Powell to forget the whole thing and not bother revamping and softening his speech. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz brought back the approach that Israel is a friendly aircraft carrier and Arafat is a hostile terrorist. In addition, Powell himself admitted that in agreeing to Ariel Sharon's "seven days of absolute quiet" had tied the hands of the United States.
French President Jacques Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair tried to convince Bush to be satisfied with the moderate steps Arafat has taken to curb violence (the main reason Sharon is so angry with the Europeans). They warned Bush that if he did not deal now with the serious situation in the territories, in a few months' he would have to deal with a far more serious situation maybe sucking in the entire region.
Bush vacillated for a long time between the two camps, until he finally decided that if Powell wants so badly to take the flak, he would not stand in his way. He decided: "It's your baby, Colin." The State Department got the message - if the Secretary of State buries himself, the president will come to the funeral, if he succeeds, the president will be happy to take the salute.
Shape up, soldiers
The result was a wishy-washy speech, a special envoy dispatched by the Secretary of State (Anthony Zinni), rather than a presidential envoy like Dennis Ross, the fixed position that if there is no quiet, there will be no talks, and minimalist diplomatic expectations.
General Zinni will not hand out orders to make peace, he will not place Sharon or Arafat under arrest for refusing an order. His mandate is not to arrange a meeting between Sharon and Arafat, but rather to get through to both of them in peace. The Americans have concluded his play will not produce a final settlement.
But we should recall that no one expected to squeeze a drop of concession from a dried-up old lemon like Yitzhak Shamir - yet ultimately Bush senior and Baker dragged him off to the Madrid peace conference. No one believed Benjamin Netanyahu would shake Arafat's hand and sign a Wye agreement. That is why there is hope Zinni will at least manage to convince Arafat to be a little less nice to the Hamas, and Sharon to be a little more nice to Arafat. The incentive Zinni will bring Arafat is skipping over the extended cooling-off period in the Mitchell Report so as to move directly from cease-fire to "confidence-building."
The tools the Americans want to use are easing the closure, returning Palestinian workers to work in Israel, releasing the Palestinian Authority's money, and perhaps freeing some prisoners. They are taking into account that Sharon still has in his pocket another 6-7 percent of withdrawal on the West Bank that does not require dismantling any settlements. And, no less important, handing over of these territories to the Palestinians will not endanger Sharon's political standing. After all, the settlers blame Netanyahu for the same dastardly deed.
These old tools are intended to revamp the status of peace among the intifada-supporting Palestinians. A new tool has been added - the U.S.-Europe-Russia-UN alignment that is supposed to close in the sides from four directions. The prevalent view among Palestinian leaders is they have to make to with what they have at this point. All that is left is to convince the boss that, if at the end of the process, Zinni is going to join the long list of frustrated envoys writing articles for the New York Times, it would be preferable for Sharon to come out the bad guy this time.
Not home alone
Since last week, Professor Sari Nusseibeh is no longer a loner. Another senior-level Palestinian official has joined in withdrawing from the right of return. This time, the words came right from Yasser Abed Rabbo, the Palestinian minister of information, an official Palestinian Authority spokesman and professional politician - not an academic who occasionally dabbles in politics. This is what he said last Tuesday at a debate held at the Brookings Institution in Washington with the participation of former minister Yossi Beilin and former ambassador Martin Indyk. Abed Rabbo described the mechanism needed to resolve the refugee problem, which was discussed a year ago at the Taba talks.
"We asked for the principle of the right of return, but the implementation of it, it should be discussed in a very practical and even pragmatic way, without affecting or without - yes, without affecting - the Jewish nature of the state of Israel. We said it. This was our position. And I'm not saying this today."
Abed Rabbo enumerated five ways to resolve the refugee problem - returning to Israel, returning to the Palestinian state, settling them in the countries where they now live, moving them to a third country of their choice, and settling them in areas that would be handed over to the Palestinians in the context of a land swap.
Dr. Jerome Segal of the University of Maryland was not satisfied with a description of the proposal discussed at Taba and wanted to hear what Abed Rabbo had to say on the matter of the right of return. "I'm just wondering if you'd be prepared to just simply state straight out today, as the PLO spokesman, that the position of the PLO with respect to right of return is that its implementation must be done in such a way as to not adversely affect the Jewish nature of the state of Israel," he said
Abed Rabbo responded: "I said it in these same words, but you said it in more eloquent English. I said it with my poor English." After a short pause, Abed Rabbo continued on a more personal, emotional note. "You want me, as a Palestinian who was born in Jaffa, to forget my personal thing, my attachment as a person to the place of my birth? I will not do that. But you want me, as a serious politician responsible for the future of my people, and as a person who wants, really, to put an end to these agonies, to take a position which hurts me - I should take it. I will do that. This is the difference."
Abed Rabbo accused the Israeli right of brainwashing the world with fantastic stories of a Palestinian plot to destroy the Jewish state by inundating it with a million and a half refugees. He and friends such as Nusseibeh understand that until the Israelis are convinced that the Green Line is the red line, Benjamin Netanyahu will remain the only threat to Ariel Sharon's government. That will perhaps happen after Arafat himself says the words - and not through a spokesman or envoy - "I recognize the Jewish identity of Israel." |
