Setback for peace
Bush-Sharon agreement will not end the violence

Friday, April 16, 2004

The change in the American approach, now to acquiesce in Israel's settlements on the West Bank, constitutes a sharp turn in U.S. policy. President Bush announced the move Wednesday during the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to Washington.

It represented the administration's abandonment of the road map approach to resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian issue that Mr. Bush developed in coordination with the United Nations, the European Union and Russia and announced himself.

Mr. Sharon's stated intention to withdraw Israel's forces and most of its settlements from Gaza, the other territory along with the West Bank intended for the Palestinians in the road map plan, would constitute a net gain for the Palestinians from their present situation. But several problems remain even with the Gaza part of the measure.

First, Mr. Sharon still has to face a referendum May 2 within his own Likud party on withdrawal from Gaza. He is uncertain of the party's support, his position in internal Israeli politics weakened by a corruption scandal.

Second, it is not clear that all 20 Israeli settlements in Gaza, with a population of about 8,000, would be withdrawn.

Third, although Mr. Sharon says Israeli troops would be pulled from Gaza under his plan, there would be nothing to stop them from returning should Israel deem it important to its security.

The most important part of the new deal is that, with the withdrawal of settlements from Gaza, the Israelis will no longer consider themselves engaged by the road map plan. Most importantly, as they see it, they would be free of any obligation to remove their 230 settlements from the West Bank.

That position is basically what Mr. Bush agreed to with Mr. Sharon on Wednesday.

The objective of all reasonable, realistic parties interested in achieving a sustainable peace in the Middle East has been -- and is -- secure, recognized Israeli and Palestinian states.

It is starkly clear that the United States' signing on to a Sharon effort to get the Palestinians to settle for Gaza, the poorest piece of real estate in the package, just isn't going to work. It will not put an end to fighting between Israelis and Palestinians. It will not help bring peace to the region.

In its acceptance of a bilateral U.S.-Israeli resolution of the extremely sensitive issue of territory -- with the Palestinians absent from the table -- and in its abandonment of the workable road map approach, the administration only sets the scene for more Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Against the already-tense background of U.S.-Arab and Muslim relations brought about by the Iraq war and occupation, Mr. Bush's change of policy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is purely and simply a catastrophe in terms of prospects for long-term peace, and for the situation of the United States in the Middle East. Why did he do it?

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