By Douglas M. Bloomfield
George W. Bush moved into the White House determined to avoid getting mired in the Arab-Israeli peace process, which had caused consternation to so many of his predecessors, particularly his father and Bill Clinton.
Whether Bush or Sen. John Kerry is inaugurated president next Jan. 20, there will be no such comforting delusion. As much as he may want to stay out of that conflict, the president won’t have that luxury.
That is just one of the lessons current and future presidents can learn from the past 11 years, from the time hopes soared after the White House handshake between the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat until they crashed in the ruins of the second Palestinian intifada.
Some critical lessons learned will serve the next administration well:
Accountability
Bush quickly learned what took Clinton and successive Israeli prime ministers years to understand: Arafat might be the symbol of Palestinian aspirations, but he was not really interested in peace, just the process.
Despite his rhetoric, Arafat never accepted the notion of a two-state solution and remains unwilling to abandon violence as a negotiating option.
Clinton’s greatest mistake was his failure to hold Arafat accountable for his commitments. Frequent White House invitations only encouraged Arafat’s behavior, giving him little incentive to change.
Clinton had a willing partner in Rabin, but not in Arafat, a fact the American and Israeli leaders were too slow to acknowledge.
The Israelis were more interested in getting out of the West Bank and Gaza, signing a peace agreement that would end the conflict, and, most importantly, solving the security problems emanating from the territories.
By the time they all realized that Arafat was unwilling or unable to deliver, it was too late to reverse course and salvage a peace process that depended on his good intentions.
Bush, who rightly refused to deal with Arafat, has demanded the old terrorist be replaced with new Palestinian leaders without blood on their hands. Saying that and making it happen are two different things, but there are signs that the Palestinian people and some leaders are growing weary of Arafat’s failed leadership.
That also puts the burden on the next administration to find and encourage Palestinian leaders with which it and the Israelis can work.
Friendly persuasion
In contrast to his father, who sought to cut aid to Israel and challenged the patriotism of its U.S. supporters, this President Bush has warmly embraced Israel and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. There has been none of the angry public confrontations and nasty leaks that were all too common in the past.
Many argue that the reason relations with Sharon have gone so smoothly is because Bush has been overly indulgent and has failed to hold Sharon to his commitments (road map, settlements, illegal outposts, treatment of Palestinians), and that Sharon has used the presidential election to deflect any American pressure to be more forthcoming.
However, Bush’s friendly persuasion has produced some tangible results. Sharon has altered the route of the security fence, been more accommodating in his Gaza disengagement plan, committed to the precedent-making removal of four West Bank settlements and moved the mainstream of the Likud closer to the political center.
If domestic politics have made Bush overly indulgent, that will change after Nov. 3, no matter who wins the day before. If Bush wins, no one knows whether he will consider that payback time or an opportunity for a new start.
He has committed himself to Palestinian statehood in 2005, and he can be expected to give that goal more attention after the pressures of the election season are past. But he can’t do it alone.
Needing friends
Another important lesson is the need for allies; and right now the Bush administration doesn’t have enough in Western Europe. Some European leaders are so estranged from this administration because of the Iraq quagmire that they’ve been happy to sit on the sidelines and carp.
They’ve complained endlessly about Washington not doing enough to press Israel to be more flexible in dealing with the Palestinians; but they’ve done nothing but kvetch when they should have been working on their Arab friends to focus on a genuine peace process.
The Europeans have squandered their credibility with Israel, but they still have strong ties to the Palestinians and the Arab world.
President Bush or President Kerry will have to begin mending fences with those traditional allies very quickly. The public spitting matches and traded insults of the past few years have benefitted no one.
The Europeans are going to have to share the heavy lifting in the peace process. They’re also going to have to deal with the perception that they are overly indulgent of resurgent anti-Semitism and that they prefer pursuing their commercial interests to fighting terrorism.
Persistence
There has been an endless parade of forgettable and ineffective U.S. envoys to the Middle East during the Bush administration. The next administration will need a secretary of state who is not loathe to travel and is willing to put in face time with regional and world leaders.
It will also need a high level special envoy who is seen as having clout and speaking for the president. Middle East leaders are used to dealing with the people at the top, and sending second tier envoys tells them the president doesn’t care very much.
And when a president says he’s going to “ride herd” on the negotiations, he’s got to do it.
The next administration will not be able to avoid taking the lead in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict even if it wants to. It will have to work harder to bring about new and responsible Palestinian leaders; remain a reliable but not overly-indulgent friend of Israel and rebuild old alliances to share the burden of peace making.
Piece of cake.
Douglas M. Bloomfield is a Washington, D.C.-based syndicated columnist and a former chief lobbyist for AIPAC.
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