Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (33001)	6/25/2002 11:42:22 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

LB, Here's Barry Rubin's analysis of Bush's speech. Called "An offer they can refuse," he agrees with you that Bush's speech is a way "to get us off the hook with the PLO." ANALYSIS: An offer they can refuse By BARRY RUBIN President George W. Bush's long-awaited Middle East policy speech tried to balance both side's requirements with the realities of the situation, and present some new ideas. As a peace plan it won't work but the proposal does fit with the Bush administration's needs and the current impossibility of progress. Basically, the Camp David and Clinton plans told the Palestinians: Make some concessions and get everything else you want. This plan says: You don't have to make any concessions now but you will get less. Unfortunately, the Palestinian position is: We want everything, now, and without any compromises. Bush called on Palestinians to stop using terrorism and end their current war against Israel. He urged the holding of Palestinian elections linked to an Israeli withdrawal to positions held before the fighting began. What is most new are two points. First, he conditions US support for a Palestinian state on the creation of new Palestinian leaders, institutions, and security arrangements with Israel. Second, he proposes a stage in which a Palestinian state is created to be followed by another stage in which its borders and sovereignty will be defined. What does a "new and different Palestinian leadership" mean? Bush defines it as going beyond just reelecting Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Yasir Arafat and a slate of Fatah officials. He explained, "Reform must be more than cosmetic changes or a veiled attempt to preserve the status quo." This seemed to rule out the kind of minor alterations that Arafat would favor. The projected timetable sees an interim state possible within anywhere between one and a half to three years. While this proposal has certain risks for Israel, it is unlikely to ever be realized and will provoke far more opposition among the Palestinians. First, of course, it challenges the power of Arafat and the current elite who will fight tooth-and-nail against it. They will tell Palestinians that this is unwarranted interference in their internal affairs. How dare the United States tell them how to govern themselves. And Bush's ideas will be so distorted that by the time they arrive at the doorstep of the Palestinian masses they will seem to be the worst type of imperialistic opposition to their aspirations. Most Palestinians, and especially Islamists and leftist groups like the PFLP and DFLP, will see this as a trap to force them to accept the 40 percent of the West Bank they now control as a permanent solution. Second, it will be seen as a pull-back from the Camp David and Clinton plans which offered instant and full statehood as part of a peace plan. The idea that the Palestinians would not have to make any concessions on borders, Jerusalem and refugees in order to get an "interim state" is the kind of argument that sounds good in Washington but will not play in Ramallah. Opinion there, after all, is that the Palestinians should get full statehood, right now, without any concessions whatsoever. Indeed, the idea of postponing certain issues in order to get statehood faster was already rejected by the Palestinian leadership at Camp David. Third, the plan assumes that the Palestinians want statehood so badly that they will end violence to get it. But, again, if that were true there would already have been a deal. Finally, this is not the kind of plan where Arafat could take the concessions offered and ignore the price to be paid in order to get them. Of course, a more imaginative leadership would grab the plan, hold elections, adopt a constitution, and then say, ok, where's our state? But then such a leadership would have accepted the Camp David or Clinton plans. Does this mean Bush was mistaken? Not at all. He needed to produce a plan that changed the terms of reference and showed he was working on the issue. He has now put the ball into the Palestinians' court in terms which they should be able to accept but will not. jpost.com