A better climate for peace

By James Carroll
January 11, 2005

THE WEEKEND election of Mahmoud Abbas as president of the Palestinian Authority opens, in a common image, a "window of opportunity" for progress in the Middle East. In Abbas the Israelis have the negotiating partner they did not have in Yasser Arafat. By voting overwhelmingly for a candidate who has forthrightly rejected violence, Palestinians have put their desire for negotiations on full display. This development alone is reason for hope, and in the convoluted Middle East, hope is always a political act. But it is a mistake to focus too narrowly on the election of Mahmoud Abbas as the source of such hope, because Palestinians acting alone cannot change the dynamic of war. There are many windows in the house of peace.

In fact, there is a remarkable convergence of opportunities just now, developments in Israel and around the globe having significant implications for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. A constellation of signs of the times, including tragedy in Asia and an unjust war in Iraq, defines this moment as uniquely ripe. In addition to the election of Mahmoud Abbas, here are other openings not to be missed:

This week, Israel initiates a new governing coalition, with Likud, Labor, and United Torah Judaism joined together as partners expressly committed to go forward with Israeli disengagement from Gaza.

That withdrawal of Jewish settlements, presided over by the man who sponsored the settlement movement in the first place, finally makes real the principle of land for peace. As of last week, Ariel Sharon made it plain that he will not be deterred from the Gaza pullout, and the new government is with him.

Consequent escalation of threats from Jewish settlers, like belligerent rhetoric from Palestinian diehards, makes clear that rejectionists on both sides could plunge Israel-Palestine into a war of all against all. When such chaos looms as a real possibility, both populations rally to stop it. That is happening now.

The image of exactly that kind of chaos in Iraq shows Israelis and Palestinians what is at stake. Iraq in political free fall or Iraq under radical Islamist leadership becomes a harbinger and warning -- and a whole new reason for Israelis and Palestinians to find alternatives to violence.

But Iraq also motivates other Arab nations to help resolve the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Recent positive overtures from Epypt and Jordan (and reactions to fresh terrorist assaults in Saudi Arabia) show that Arab leaders, too, have urgent interest in resolving to the region's most inflaming conflict.

Even more so, President Bush. His second term is a fresh start, with new personnel at the State Department. Washington's wholly owned disaster in Iraq finally makes progress between Palestinians and Israelis urgent for the up-to-now detached Bush. Indeed, movement toward peace in Jerusalem is Bush's only hope of rescue from the anti-Muslim holy war into which he was so naively sucked by Osama bin Laden.

Pulling back from that "war of civilization" is possible now because after his reelection, Bush no longer draws political benefit from America's obsession with 9/11. Washington can stop stoking feelings of fear and victimhood. Tom Ridge is gone, and so, apparently, are the color-coded alerts.

Indeed, the post 9/11 embrace of war as a solution to political problems has been universally revealed as rank stupidity. A chastened America can thus resume its role as sponsor of negotiation between Israel and Palestinians, even as, in Iraq, it prepares to look among the "insurgents" for a negotiating partner of its own.

The tsunami in Asia, a tragedy of world-historic proportions, can replace 9/11 in Americans' consciousness -- and conscience -- as the era's defining event. Like mythic floods of old, this one can be the occasion of a fresh start. A vast population of people in need, many of them Muslims, is changing the way Americans see the world. The time of "us-against-them" can end.

Majorities of Israelis and Palestinians already agree on the broad outlines of resolution -- a two-state solution, with firm guarantees for Israeli security, dismantling of almost all Jewish settlements, compromise over Jerusalem, and agreed compensation for Palestinian "return" claims. Each side understands that the only solution to its problem is a solution to the other's. Washington can be the assertive third party helping to nudge the conflict toward such resolution, but it remains for Israelis and Palestinians themselves to move through the multiple openings with which this new year has surprised the world.