An Uncertain Road Map

Tuesday, June 25, 2002

"PRESIDENT BUSH'S forceful speech on the Middle East yesterday contained good and badly needed messages for all sides." That's what we wrote 2 1/2 months ago, when Mr. Bush delivered blunt advice with regard to the deteriorating Mideast conflict. But the speech was disappointing in its results -- in part, obviously, because the conflict isn't easy to solve, but in part because the administration didn't follow up. Senior officials in Washington disagreed over the best course of action, and even Mr. Bush himself seemed to disagree with aspects of his speech. In particular, he seemed lukewarm in subsequent weeks to his own admonition to Israel to end its military offensive in the West Bank and ease controls on the Palestinian population.

Now Mr. Bush has delivered another much-touted speech, and it's not clear how the consequences of this one will be any more fruitful. This one has the advantage at least of seeming to better reflect the president's own world view. He placed most of the onus on the Palestinians: The clear message was they shouldn't expect anything -- not a state, not a provisional state, not an Israeli withdrawal -- until they get rid of Yasser Arafat as their leader and clean up their collective act. His recipe for reform -- an end to corruption, multiparty local elections, an independent judiciary -- is admirable, if you discount the oddness of Mr. Bush asking other Arab nations who need the same medicine to help oversee the cure.

But Palestinian officials who said they needed some incentive to pursue such reform and to control terrorism didn't get the encouragement they were looking for. Yes, Mr. Bush said, he would support a provisional Palestinian state -- but not until "the Palestinian people have new leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements with their neighbors." Yes, Israeli forces should withdraw to positions they held before this second uprising began -- but only "as we make progress towards security." And the president said he would expect Israel "to respond and work toward a final status agreement," but again only "as new Palestinian institutions and new leaders emerge."

Such a one-sided approach might be appropriate if Israel's government were committed to the two-state vision that Mr. Bush claimed as his own yesterday. After all, the president is right that Mr. Arafat has shown a willingness to use terrorism -- the unacceptable murder of innocent civilians -- to further political goals, and that such terror should not be rewarded. But Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has made clear that he sees a two-state solution many years distant at best. His government has shown no inclination to modify the settlement policy that makes an ultimate agreement ever more difficult.

Mr. Bush remains unwilling to address that side of the equation with any vigor. He gave little substance yesterday to what, if the Palestinians do reform, he would support with respect to such difficult issues as borders, contiguity and Jerusalem. And he did not spell out in any detail what he would do to push the process forward; there was no mention of Secretary of State Powell's multinational conference. Mr. Bush's call for new Palestinian leadership and institutions is on target; but if he does not fill in those blank spaces, the danger is that yesterday's address will go into the archives as just another recitation of worthy goals, and the violence will continue and escalate.