What has to happen for Middle East peace

Nothing better symbolizes how hard it will be to resurrect a Mideast peace process than the Israeli shutdown of the office of Sari Nusseibeh, a leading Palestinian moderate.

Nusseibeh was the force behind a recent petition in Palestinian newspapers. In that petition, several dozen moderates urged their compatriots to stop suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. This courageous move broke a Palestinian taboo against public criticism of this atrocious practice, which has destroyed Israeli trust in peace talks.

Breaking such taboos is nothing new for Nusseibeh, scion of one of Jerusalem's most distinguished Muslim families, president of Al Quds University, and the Palestinian Liberation Organization's representative in Jerusalem. He recently argued in public that Palestinians must give up their claim to a right of return to pre-1967 Israel. (Yasir Arafat's insistence on the right of return helped scuttle the Camp David peace talks.)

Over the last several months Nusseibeh was working on a new Middle East peace proposal with Ami Ayalon, former head of Israel's Shin Bet security service who, some Israelis believe, may one day emerge as an Israeli prime minister. In fact, Nusseibeh was attending meetings on the proposal in Greece on July 8 - the day Israeli police carted computer disks and files out of his office and bolted the door.

So why would Israel go after such a voice of moderation, at a time when its military is struggling and failing to stop suicide bombers? And why, just when President Bush is urging Palestinians to dump Arafat and elect peaceful, democratic leaders, would public security minister Uzi Landau shut Nusseibeh down?

Landau's purported reason was that Nusseibeh - as Arafat's Jerusalem representative - presented a threat to Israel's future sovereignty over Jerusalem. An intellectual who backs peaceful coexistence is a threat to Jerusalem? Please.

One can only conclude that Landau's real rationale (with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's acquiescence) is that moderates like Nusseibeh are irrelevant. They may want to end suicide bombings and get back to peace talks, but they also want two states along 1967 lines with some modifications. Sharon has made clear that he envisions only a long-term interim solution in which Palestinians have limited control over small pieces of West Bank land.

So it is of little concern to Landau whether he humiliates Nusseibeh.

"Palestinians say, 'Look at what happened to Sari, the moderate,' " says Mahdi Abdul Hadi, another moderate who heads a Jerusalem think tank called Passia. "This is an insult to Sari and makes him very much weaker. His petition [on suicide bombers] is a dead issue now."

In fact, both Israel and the Bush administration need to strengthen moderates, such as Nusseibeh, who could be partners in future peace negotiations. Sharon's strategy of ending terrorism by full military reoccupation isn't working. He can't keep 700,000 Palestinians under curfew forever. As for the Bush strategy, there's little hope that Palestinians will elect better leaders than Arafat - leaders who will negotiate with vision and abandon violence - if the Sharon government treats them all with the same disdain.

The issue is bigger than Sari Nusseibeh. He is not a potential successor to Arafat - he's too intellectual, without a sufficient popular base. But there are other promising reformers on the Palestinian legislative council and in nongovernmental organizations who have been trying for years to sideline Arafat, but haven't had sufficient power. Right now they are leading debates on the West Bank about creating a prime ministerial form of government that would push President Arafat into ceremonial status.

If the Bush administration wants to help these reformers, it needs to do more than berate Arafat. It needs to pressure Sharon, not undercut their efforts.

Example: Last January, another reformer, Mustafa Barghouthi, was arrested in Jerusalem on a charge as specious as the one against Nusseibeh. Then Barghouthi was beaten up by Israeli troops on the Jerusalem-West Bank border - in front of a visiting group of European parliamentarians. Such treatment doesn't boost the status of reformers among bitter, skeptical Palestinians. It boosts the status of militia leaders who say that force is the only answer.

If democratic change is what Israel wants, what George Bush wants, then Palestinian moderates must be encouraged - not beaten or humiliated. And a political climate must be created in which their power can grow.

Contact Trudy Rubin at 215-854-5832 or trubiN@phillynews.com.