U.S. needs deeper role in Gaza

by Naftali Bendavid
July 27, 2005

WASHINGTON -- U.S. officials hope the upcoming Israeli pullout from the Gaza Strip will be a boon to the United States, increasing stability in a volatile area and putting the region back on the path toward peace.

But with the Aug. 17 withdrawal nearing, crucial agreements on security and economic cooperation have yet to be finalized, and analysts and some participants are beginning to voice alarm about what that means not only
for the pullout itself but also for long-term hopes of a peaceful, prosperous Gaza.

Some analysts say the Bush administration has not done enough to pressure the Israelis and Palestinians to make tough compromises. In making a hastily arranged visit to the Middle East last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice seemed tacitly to concede the urgent need for more U.S. involvement.

"The U.S. role has been far too passive--underfunded and, more important, understaffed," said Samuel Lewis, ambassador to Israel for eight years under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. "I'm shocked and very disappointed that the administration has not invested much more diplomatic and military-advisory and CIA ability to try to do that."

With a surge of violence clouding the pullout, little time remains to bring the parties together, say those involved in previous Middle East peace efforts.

"By not seizing the opportunity, what we will see is not an immediate reversion to conflict, but a slow descent back into hell," said Martin Indyk, ambassador to Israel under President Bill Clinton. "Six months from now the disillusionment will set in again, and we will see a third intifada possibly. It's not too late, but absent high-level American engagement it's more likely than not that that's where we'll end up."

The U.S. clearly does not want another violence-plagued pocket in the Middle East. But U.S. and Israeli officials dispute the pessimistic view.

"I think the American contribution has been invaluable. They have been very, very effective," said Daniel Ayalon, Israel's ambassador to the U.S. "But the Americans can only do so much. . . . They cannot replace the parties themselves."

State Department spokesman Edgar Vasquez agreed.

"We definitely remain optimistic," he said. " . . . Our discussions regarding disengagement from Gaza and parts of the West Bank are ongoing."

Yet Israeli settlers dismantled a significant number of their greenhouses in recent weeks while negotiations lagged on transferring them to the Palestinians. An agreement was reported Sunday for the settlers to receive World Bank compensation for leaving intact those greenhouses that had not been razed.

An agreement has not yet been nailed down on paying Palestinians to remove the rubble of settlers' houses.

On the vital issue of how Palestinians will travel from Gaza to the West Bank, the Israelis are offering to escort specially approved vehicles, but the Palestinians consider this inadequate. While Israel has consented to a new Gaza seaport, it has blocked the reopening of the airport, to the Palestinians' fury.

Before leaving the region, Rice declared that Gaza "cannot be a sealed or isolated area" after the pullout.

Delay criticized

Dennis Ross, the former longtime U.S. point person in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, criticized the delay in addressing such issues.

"This effort to coordinate should have started not too long after [Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas] was elected," Ross said. "It's only begun in earnest in the past six weeks."

Nabil Abu Znaid, who represents the Palestinian Authority in the United States, blames the U.S. for not leaning on Israel.

"I think the U.S. can do more," Abu Znaid said. "They are not really talking to the Palestinian Authority. They are doing it from the Israeli side, and the Palestinians, we are kept in the dark."

Still, as the Israelis note, they have been dealing with an upsurge in violence, with the militant group Hamas seemingly trying to promote the image that it is driving the Israelis from Gaza. And Israel has reacted sharply to violence in Gaza, often closing the border.

"As long as Israel keeps closing up Gaza, and there are endless numbers of days in which no products and no people can go in and out, there is no chance for Gaza to become economically viable," said Stephen Cohen, a scholar at the Israel Policy Forum, which backs U.S. efforts to bring peace to the Mideast.

This highlights perhaps the greatest paradox of the withdrawal: Israel sees many of the measures necessary for long-term economic success--especially a free flow of people across Gaza's borders--as creating a short-term threat to Israel's security.

"We must be assured that somebody is responsible for keeping out terrorists . . . and munitions and weapons," Ayalon said. "If the mechanism will be found--a credible one, an effective one--then we would be very happy. Certainly we would like to see an economically prosperous Gaza."

All involved acknowledge that it's hard to lay the groundwork for a thriving economy when security is lacking. Israelis blame Abbas and the Palestinian Authority for not dismantling Hamas. The Palestinians say Israel has not given them the ability to do so.

Bush has dispatched two special representatives to work on the Gaza withdrawal: Lt. Gen. William Ward, focusing on security matters, and former World Bank chief James Wolfensohn, handling economic issues.

Wolfensohn in particular has received high marks. But there remains a feeling in some quarters that the U.S. is not doing enough on finer-grain issues.

U.S. persuasion

Both Sharon and Abbas have constituencies deeply opposed to reconciliation, and only U.S. power and persuasion can get them to compromise on an array of issues, analysts say.

"It's risky politics--they have to confront their base, or their extremists," said Indyk, who now directs the Saban Center for Middle East Studies at the Brookings Institution. "To get them to do that, they need the warm embrace of the United States and a noodge from the United States."

When Bush took office, the failure of Clinton's Middle East peace effort was still fresh, and Bush has been determined not to repeat his predecessor's approach of getting too deeply involved. But some say the time has now come to plunge in.

There is great mistrust. Israelis feel they are making a unilateral sacrifice by withdrawing, and getting no credit from the Palestinians.

"It's really tearing the country apart, and we hope to get it over with as soon as possible," Ayalon said. "It's a national trauma. It's uprooting Jewish communities who have been there legally."

>From the Palestinian perspective, Israel occupied and impoverished their land for 40 years and is providing no help in building a functioning society.

"There is no plan, there is nothing on the ground," Abu Znaid said. "So people will go to more political and social problems, crime."

Such sentiments cause some to worry that the Gaza withdrawal, rather than a step toward stability, could end up being just one more source of tension in the Middle East. And time is growing short, they say.

"We're at 11:50 now. Midnight is coming," said Mark Rosenblum, founder and policy director of Americans for Peace Now, a group that supports Israel's peace movement. "And I think this has to be treated as an SOS, and I don't know if Bush has yet treated this as an SOS."