Bradley Burston’s article, printed below, provides the more optimistic view of the current situation, viz. a real change has taken place. The key, unfortunately, lies with Bush & Co. More on that tomorrow.
Background/ Sharon, Bush gamble on Abbas – this time, to win
By Bradley Burston, Haaretz Correspondent
Men unaccustomed to losing tend to make poor gamblers.
Say what you will about Ariel Sharon, though, he is no stranger to loss.
In fact, Sharon’s checkered history of great gambles, some vindicated, others disastrous, may serve him as a guide in the latest of his wagers: betting that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas will succeed in a risky venture of his own, staking his rule on a cessation of four years of hostilities.
This time around, George Bush appears to be taking that bet as well.
It has been nearly two years since Bush joined Sharon and Abbas in a summit hosted by King Abdullah in the Red Sea resort of Aqaba. A triumph of scenery over substance, the closing ceremonies were long on ends and short on means. Perhaps more imporantly, Sharon and Abbas barely mentioned each other in their addresses.
At the time, it appeared to some that Sharon and Bush, each for his own reasons, were betting on Abbas to fail. Sharon, who had yet to announce a substantial initiative toward changing the Mideast equation, had much to gain at the time from a politically advantageous if painful status quo.
To the surprise and relief of Israelis, who had feared that Saddam Hussein would make them the target of what was feared to be years of non-coventional weapons development, the young war in Iraq had gone well for the Americans.
At home, Sharon, who had little desire to set out on the newly-dedicated road map for Middle East peace, made it clear that Israeli steps would be taken only after, and only if, Abbas complied with clauses specifying concrete reforms in the Arafat-designed Palestinian Authority, and curbs on terror attacks against Israelis.
Sharon could depend on then-PA chairman Yasser Arafat to undermine any reforms Abbas might undertake. He could also trust the powerful Hamas leaders Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi to literally blow to pieces any chance for PA security control over the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
For the first-term Bush – facing an uncertain electoral future and the specter of his father’s having declared victory in an Iraq war only to concede defeat in a subsequent election – there were also advantages in having Abbas fail.
With an impotent PA, Bush could reasonably court the Jewish electorate both left and right, at once pushing for a peace process without having to press Israel for concessions.
Now, however, with Rantisi and Yassin dead at Sharon’s hand and Arafat a fading and decidedly tarnished memory, the re-elected Bush and the pre-disengagement Sharon have given strong signs that they have put their political capital on Abbas – this time to win.
Against all odds, Abbas, joining the world league of the underestimated, has survived the flamboyance, wiles, power and weaponry of Arafat, Yassin and Rantisi, to be the one Palestinian making headway in the cause of independence.
Departing sharply from their June 2003 line in Aqaba, Sharon government leaders and military brass have lauded Abbas’ efforts to quell the violence and bring about a mutual end to hostilities.
The Sharm summit has put Sharon and Abbas at the opposite end of the Red Sea, and, in fact, closer than might have been imagined.
Sharon, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and army chief Moshe Ya’alon have actively lobbied for far-reaching confidence-building measures, to the pointed consternation of Shin Bet Director Avi Dichter and the two Likud ministers, Silvan Shalom and Benjamin Netanyahu, attempting to follow Sharon’s route to the top, which, in the Likud lexicon, is another way of saying: To pass, pass on the right.
Bush may also have much to gain this time around from a successful Abbas administration. If calm in the territories and PA reforms – matched by Israeli peace moves – translate into a peace process, the American way out of Iraq may be lit by the suddenly renewed prospect of Palestinian statehood.
For Abbas, much may depend on the Arab perception of victory and defeat.
At Aqaba in mid-2003, Sharon refrained from diplomatic gestures, lest they be interpreted by Palestinians and the wider world as a victory for terrorism.
But by the end of that year, with the Arafat-crippled PA in tatters, Sharon announced a “unilateral security measure” which he called disengagement, a vaguely worded proposal that he said would involve “relocation” of settlements.
Overnight, Sharon had begun reframing the debate on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides. Israeli hawks said that if the Palestinians viewed the disengagement as a triumph, the destruction of Israel by stages would be the ultimate outcome.
But if the 1973 war is a measure, it may be argued that Arabs cannot make peace with Israel without a perceived military victory over the Jewish state.
Perhaps it is this circumstance that has allowed voices to mount on the Palestinian side for an end to hostilities, with commanders of terror cells going on television, unmasked, to speak of their fatigue and their desire to return to family life.
According to Haaretz Palestinian Affairs analyst Danny Rubinstein, “the Israeli explanations that it is a ‘disengagement’ and not a withdrawal, and certainly not a retreat, do not interest the Palestinians. As far as they are concerned, the army is going to quit the entire Gaza Strip and the State of Israel will be uprooting the settlements.
“Throughout all the years of the peace process, that has never happened. All the complicated negotiations, all the summits and all the diplomatic talks never achieved for the Palestinians what the armed struggle and resistance achieved: a disengagement.”
In a recent column, Rubinstein argues that it is still too soon to determine if Abbas is fated to become the “Palestinian Sadat.”
However, the time may be at hand, Rubinstein says. Significantly, in contrast to 2003, “the attitude of Israel and the U.S. toward the Palestinian leadership has changed. The international approach that is sympathetic to Abu Mazen [Abbas] has changed the mood of intifada fatigue into something more relevant.
Abu Mazen’s lack of charisma and weakness is now an advantage, Rubinstein concludes. “He is free of the burden of the need to be a national symbol like his predecessor, and he can allow himself to be pragmatic, practical and logical. But his chances of success, of course, do not depend only on him, but also on us.”
