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

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (33033)	6/25/2002 6:13:11 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

The WJS is very positive about Bush's speech. I don't hold out any hope that the Palestinians will do anything because of it, but at least it draws a line in the sand of what we expect if Islam wants cooperation. REVIEW & OUTLOOK Democracy for Palestinians Bush's bold plan for Mideast peace. Tuesday, June 25, 2002 12:01 a.m. So much for all those leaks about President Bush endorsing a new, interim Palestinian state. The long-awaited speech Mr. Bush actually delivered yesterday was far more daring, and potentially a major leap forward in U.S. Middle East diplomacy. The fear among many, including us, was that after several vicious weeks of suicide bombings, Mr. Bush would seem to be rewarding Palestinian terror. Some in the State Department were pushing a speech that would have done precisely that. But instead the President broke from the tired Saudi-State diplomacy and made the Palestinians a far more radical offer: U.S. recognition and aid, but only after they've elected new leaders who reject terrorism in deed and word and build institutions worthy of a state. "Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership, so that a Palestinian state can be born. I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders not compromised by terror," Mr. Bush said. "When the Palestinian people have new leaders, new institutions, and new security arrangements with their neighbors, the United States of America will support the creation of a Palestinian state." It's important to understand how radical this idea of democracy is for Palestine. For years the U.S. and Israel both winked at the brutality of Arab leaders, in the Faustian hope that they would provide "stability" and "peace." This was the flaw at the heart of the Oslo peace process, in which the U.S. sub-contracted with Yasser Arafat to stop attacks against Israel. But this was impossible as long as Mr. Arafat and other Palestinian leaders derived all of their political legitimacy from the struggle against Israel. Yesterday Mr. Bush said this day is over. "Today the elected Palestinian legislature has no authority, and power is concentrated in the hands of an unaccountable few," he said, adding that, "Palestinian authorities are encouraging, not opposing, terrorism. This is unacceptable." In short, if Palestinians want the world to recognize them as a state, then they need to behave like a civilized one. That means democratic institutions, with leaders who win their legitimacy through the ballot box. It means functioning courts, not summary executions of collaborators. And it also means what Mr. Bush called "an externally supervised effort to rebuild and reform the Palestinian security services." Perhaps the best part of the speech was the name Mr. Bush never mentioned: Yasser Arafat. By ignoring him, the President was signaling to ordinary Palestinians that their old ways and old leaders will not bring them the freedom they seek. "For decades you've been treated as pawns in the Middle East conflict," Mr. Bush said. "If liberty can blossom in the rocky soil of the West Bank and Gaza, it will inspire millions of men and women around the globe." We have no illusions that such new leaders or liberty will blossom easily, and we doubt Mr. Bush does either. Ideally brave Palestinians will take it upon themselves to see that elections are held, and that they are free and fair. Having watched Israel's free-wheeling democracy for years, they may be better prepared than American elites weaned on Mr. Arafat give them credit for. This goes especially for a U.S. State Department that considers its main allies in the region to be Arab dictatorships, especially Saudi Arabia. The Saudis will not be thrilled with the establishment of a democracy in another Arab land, especially one that would be an example to their own citizens. And while yesterday Mr. Bush laid down formidable conditions for a Palestinian state, the diplomatic temptation will be to water them down over time. To turn Mr. Bush's speech into reality, the U.S. will have to insist on elections that are real. This will mean resisting the Saudis, the Europeans and especially the State Department. We've worried recently that Mr. Bush was losing his way in the Middle East, allowing himself to get bogged down in Palestine instead of focusing on the war on terror. But yesterday's speech lifted him out of that morass and put him firmly on the side of a new and very different Middle East, one with democracy at its core. It's a message we think will have surprising resonance in the Arab world, not least among the people of Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia.