U.S., Israel Have Conflicting Priorities

JEDDAH, Apr 07, 2003 -- Since the start of the war against Iraq and even prior to it, the United States has not failed to mention the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Secretary of State Colin Powell said recently that Washington was ready to "engage in a very, very comprehensive and forceful way."
This came after President George Bush said he was "strongly committed" to implementing his vision for peace in the Middle East and promised that the "road map" for peace between the Palestinians and Israel would be published "soon."

The Bush administration's concentration on the Palestinian problem, even as it fights a war with Iraq, is based on the simple fact that it was the main focus of Arab anger against America until the Iraq war began and will probably continue long after the guns fall silent in Iraq.

However, Israel has different priorities. For evidence, one need look no further than Israeli intent for the road map which was created by an international quartet of the European Union, United Nations, Russia and the United States. Israel has suggested more than a dozen changes to it, encouraged by Bush's earlier suggestion that when the road map is eventually published, the Israelis can propose modifications.

Israel also does not want to move from one phase of the plan to the next without full implementation of previous phases. It wants the US alone to supervise the implementation of clauses on security and wants to strip Yasser Arafat of any real influence.

The plan is not about amendments but about a hopeful future. The Quartet demands that the road map set out a process which aims to freeze construction of further Jewish settlements, return land occupied since September 2000, and create a Palestinian state by 2005. But the demand that Israel withdraw from occupied territory is something Prime Minister Ariel Sharon refuses to agree to.

Tel Aviv has defined illegal settlement outposts as an "internal Israeli issue," and refused to commit Israel to a freeze in activity at other settlements. And nothing in the files of the Bush administration remotely indicates it will do anything to reject such an Israeli refusal.

Sharon said some time ago that the Quartet's proposals are dead, the reaction a sure sign that he wants nothing to do with giving the Palestinians a state of their own. He is also concerned that the British government is taking an increasingly tough line on Israel, which he fears may rub off on Washington. British Prime Minister Tony Blair wants action on the road map. Just before, and during, the Iraq war Blair persuaded Bush to announce that he would publish the road map soon. And UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has said it was hypocritical for the West to demand Iraqi compliance with UN Security Council resolutions while appearing to hesitate over resolutions concerning the Palestinian conflict, adding that he himself was guilty of double standard and understood concern in the Arab world about what he called the "injustice against the Palestinians."

Blair declared last week that the promise to take action on the road map given before the Iraq war was not simply a statement made in the context of military action in Iraq, then forgotten. He gave his word this would not be its fate.

Unfortunately, as far as the Bush administration is concerned, Blair might as well be talking to himself. If, after the war, attention does indeed turn to the Arab-Israeli conflict, Blair may find that Sharon has more influence in Washington than he has.



© Arab News, 2003. Distributed in partnership with Globalvision News Network (http://www.gvnews.net). All rights reserved.