{
No
major changes in Bush's Mideast policy
by Ike Seamans
Friday, Dec. 10, 2004
With his convincing reelection, President Bush feels that he has a mandate for his policies, including those in the Middle East (which have largely fallen flat). Many Israelis share his exuberance.
''Yes, they are generally pleased,'' political analyst Yossi Alpher tells me. ''They perceive him as pro-Israel, supporting a tough response to terrorism.'' However, Alpher, the former director of Tel Aviv University's Jaffe Strategic Studies Center, is skeptical about an intriguing theory making the rounds: that in his second term, Bush will aggressively tackle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On his website -- www.bitterlemons.com -- Alpher disagrees: ``Nothing he has done or said in the past four years reflects such a predisposition. Since 9/11, President Bush, for better or worse, has revolutionized American Middle East strategy.''
Pursuing an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement is no longer this country's top priority in the world's most explosive arena. It is a distant third behind the Iraq quagmire and Iran's nuclear threat. While this may perplex Israelis, it exasperates Arabs. They view everything through the distorted prism of the quixotic Israeli-Palestinian struggle and America's alleged favoritism of the Jewish state while professing no hope for regional peace until this agonizing contretemps is expunged. To Bush and his neoconservative advisors, that must wait. They scorn the Middle East as a corrupt hotbed of Islamic fanaticism that must be reformed, perhaps militarily, through sweeping -- and unwelcomed -- democratic change.
Palestinians prayed for Bush's defeat, but not because they supported John Kerry. ``Bush went beyond the ordinary U.S. bias toward Israel and against the Palestinians,'' contends Ghassan Khatib, the Palestinian Authority's minister of labor. ``This administration has sunk to new levels in its lack of sensitivity.''
When I was in the territories last summer, I met many Palestinians. I was shocked and dismayed by the unprecedented, virulent hatred aimed at the president. It is fueled by the abrupt disappearance at the first signs of failure of his ballyhooed ''road map'' for peace, compounded by what they charge is meek acquiescence to perceived prejudicial initiatives fomented by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (the only person hated more than Bush). American credibility is virtually nonexistent among Palestinians, most of whom are convinced that neither they nor the Israelis are capable of resolving their significant differences without iron-fisted U.S. intervention.
''As the patron of the peace process, the current administration has demonstrated no concern or interest in solving the conflict,'' Hatem Abdel
Khader, a respected moderate member of the Palestinian parliament said. ``We've heard Americans are such good salesmen they can sell air conditioners at the North Pole. So why can't they sell us peace?''
Bush's plans remain a mystery. The president has never appointed a skilled envoy to work 24/7 on a solution, unlike his father and President Clinton, whose point man for more than 12 years was former Ambassador Dennis Ross. With new Palestinian leadership emerging and Israel willing to listen, Ross, now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, is cautiously optimistic, but Bush must be more actively involved. ''Only the U.S. can actually broker any advances between Israelis and Palestinians,'' he believes. ``This is an historic moment, but it won't last,''
Terrorists know that, too. Hamas, Islamic Jihad and their infamous band of brothers are patiently waiting in the wings, confident that missed opportunities and egocentric ineptitude on all sides will once again catapult them to center stage to resume their starring roles as terminators of the peace process.