When Bush comes to shove, he'll hug

Ha'aretz ^ | Thursday, May 15, 2003 Iyyar 13, 5763 | By Aluf Benn

[Phil V.]

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_{Last update - 02:27 15/05/2003}

When Bush comes to shove, he'll hug

_{By Aluf Benn}

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon believes his meeting with President George Bush next week will be as successful as the seven previous ones. There are indications this will be so.

For the first time, Sharon and his entourage have been invited to dinner at the White House after the formal working session. American officials this week said the administration understands Israel's comments on the road map very well. It agrees to 12 of the 14 amendments and assumes a creative solution can be found for the two remaining. The prime minister's aides expect the final version of the road map to include the Israeli comments.

Colin Powell and David Satterfield, the envoy who remained for follow-up talks after the secretary of state's visit, told every Israeli they met that President Bush is determined to be personally involved in solving the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. The war in Iraq ended in victory and now it's time to implement the presidential vision of "the Palestinian flag, raised above a free, independent state," as Bush said in his speech last Friday.

His listeners had difficulty being convinced after more than two years of the Americans keeping out of the crisis. But those who listened to Bush in private conversations got the impression that he takes the "two-state vision" seriously. The president speaks of freedom and liberation for the Palestinians, and after reading the road map he said it corresponded with the principles of his speech of June 24. He seems to believe the Palestinian state will indeed by established.

How is that to be done? It is hard to demand withdrawals and concessions from Israel, while the terrorism persists. On the other side Abu Mazen's dubious government is floundering. The administration accepts Israel's approach that security comes first. Therefore the test of Bush's seriousness will be his handling of the settlements. Powell promised in an interview with Udi Segal on Channel Two that "President Bush is committed to his vision of June 24, and he expects to speak to the prime minister in very open, straightforward, honest, candid terms" about the settlements.

He noted "there is a question in the minds of Palestinians and questions in the minds of many people around the world as to whether or not one can actually bring into being a viable Palestinian state without doing something about the settlement activity and the outposts and the settlements that are there."

Powell graded the difficulties. He believes it is easier to deal with the outposts than with freezing the construction in the settlements, and a freeze is simpler than dealing with the existing settlements.

This is also the test of Sharon, who insists on maintaining the outposts and continuing the construction to accommodate the "natural growth" in the veteran settlements, without maintaining they contribute to security and preventing terrorism.

Bush can either demand that Sharon take real steps to stop the settlement project in the territories, or merely raise the issue for the protocol and listen to long explanations from the prime minister, as Powell did in Jerusalem. The administration can show Sharon satellite photographs of the building progress in the settlements during his term in office, in violation of Israel's promises. The Americans have shown such photographs to Israeli officials in the past.

And he could make do with the demand that the new inspection team's mandate include supervising the restriction on building in the settlements. Such inspection will make it easier for Sharon in the political showdown, should he suddenly decide to turn his back on his lifetime project.

But Sharon is not at all flustered. He is convinced the settlement issue is not on the agenda and that security must be dealt with first. He knows well that every time the White House's foreign affairs section sought to pressure Israel, its men ran into the more powerful political advisers. They are thinking only of Bush's race for another term next year and of the Jewish voters in Florida, and are therefore careful not to annoy the American Jewish community.

Bush has proved his ability to take diplomatic and military risks, but domestically, he is cautious. After his crushing victory in Iraq and this week's terrorist attack in Riyadh, he is no longer feeling the pressure from Tony Blair and the Saudis. Therefore it seems that this time too, he will prefer understandings and hugs with Sharon over controversy and confrontation.

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[Phil V.]

w w w . h a a r e t z d a i l y . c o m

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_{Last update - 02:26 14/05/2003}

From determination to wimpiness

_{By Gideon Samet}

The Sharon government had an impressive diplomatic achievement this week. In the hands of the seemingly clumsy leader, actually a Speedy Gonzales, it appears the entire diplomatic structure built by the president of the American superpower with staunch pledges for peace is collapsing.

One small sign of this was a weekend address when George Bush - still chewing the rhetorical gravel of the vision named for him - suddenly made no mention of the road map meant to fulfill his vision.

But there is further evidence piling up from every direction showing that, even before Sharon opens his mouth, the administration has no appetite to eat the political stew that it had cooked up.

And this is certainly the case after Sharon speaks, like in the interview he gave in yesterday's Jerusalem Post. With political rudeness, the minute Colin Powell left, the prime minister said Jews will continue living in Shiloh and Beit El under Israeli sovereignty. That, of course, was the absolute opposite of one of those supposedly moderate remarks that he tossed out in a Haaretz interview a month ago.

In his conversations with Powell, Sharon did not feel any special need to explain his opposition to gestures. Hearing a polite reminder about a settlement freeze, Sharon asked, actually mocking Powell, if he was recommending abortions. The somewhat impressive step under these circumstances - removing a number of outposts - didn't even come up. The administration doesn't want to quarrel. Certainly not a secretary of state isolated at the conservative top.

Because Powell knows what Sharon knows: In the thin atmosphere where the presidential vision is floating, there's no real desire to push for an Israeli-Palestinian deal. In their conversations, Powell spoke clearly, but well understood that the visit was an idle move before Sharon's trip to the White House. The secretary rejected Sharon's position that the gestures from both sides have to be "serial." They have to be parallel, without conditions. He tried to tempt Sharon on the matter of the right of return. If you make an announcement that Israel will not accept the right of return in any agreement, he told the prime minister, America will back you up. But mostly, he filled his mission with reiterated messages that the president is "determined" to move the process forward.

But the reasons that turned Powell's jaunt into something so wimpy will continue to play a role in the Sharon-Bush meeting. The reasons have been listed many times, and the passing time only sharpens them: The president's aversion to any tension with the Jewish voters, the skepticism in his surroundings about the benefits of nurturing a radical national movement in a Muslim region full of dictators.

Because of these reasons and their ilk, Martin Indyk, a former senior administration official and ambassador to Israel, asked ironically, why didn't Bush pick up the phone to Sharon to make clear that the secretary's visit must be a success, accompanied therefore by steps of compromise?

Sharon's opposition to any such moves was so sourly evident that only a very specific American position could accept it. Which position? The one that has long assumed that the American strategy does not abide by pressure on Israel and shoving a Palestinian state down its throat.

In the huge spin before the war, Bush clearly showed that he knows how to stick tenaciously to a goal, while constantly changing the texts that explain it. Thus, the elimination of weapons of mass destruction as the reason for the war quickly gave way to getting rid of a tyrant. In our case, the exact opposite has happened. The presidential text has become more determined in its language, but the deed - the manner in which the vision is executed - is what is changing, fading and evaporating.

This progression of events in the history of the Bush peace initiative - from determination to wimpiness - is not only Sharon's achievement. The prime minister's success would not have been possible without a willing ear in Washington ready to pick up the message. It's the undoubted consensus among American commentators that the main thing on the president's mind now is his re-election. So, there aren't many opportunities left to find out if the Bush vision is worth more than the hot air blown into it. Sharon's trip to him next week might be the last such chance.

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