If George W. Bush wants to see his vision for Middle East peace come to fruition, will he have to vote Democratic in November?
After years of talk and no action, the lame duck president now says he is ready to work on realizing his vision of creating a democratic Palestinian state to live alongside Israel in peace.
However, he’s having trouble convincing admirers and critics that he is serious. A big problem is that those who don’t welcome his new approach are among his most ardent supporters here and in Israel.
To them, this is an unwelcome change from benign neglect to meddling and pressure. Many hardliners felt Bush’s greatest appeal was that he left Israel alone, free of demands to pursue compromises with the Palestinians.
That may or may not have changed late last November when he convened a meeting at Annapolis to try to resuscitate Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
The subsequent pace of talks and listless U.S. prodding suggest no one is rushing to meet Bush’s original one-year deadline.
Bush himself has been in retreat since leaving Annapolis, downscaling his rhetoric from “one year” to “I believe it’s going to happen” to hoping for a document that merely “defines a Palestinian state” by the end of his term.
Deputy Prime Minister Hiam Ramon, the Israeli government’s chief test pilot for trial balloons, seemed to confirm that recently when he said the best one can hope for is a “declaration of principles” to give the next president.
Enough problems
On the campaign trail, no one seemed to notice or care. In fact, the peace process has not been an issue in the presidential campaign and none of the three finalists has seen any need to raise it.
Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, has said peace “must remain a priority” but he has been cool to the Annapolis process and unenthusiastic about trying to negotiate with the weak and bifurcated Palestinian Authority.
More critically, McCain is sensitive to the opposition to Bush’s new approach from Republican evangelical and Jewish voters and contributors. McCain has enough problems winning the support of the religious right without risking alienating them over something that isn’t likely to come up this fall.
The Democratic finalists, Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, aren’t talking about it either, although they and a majority of Jewish voters in their base have told pollsters they would support a more activist U.S. role in pursuing peace.
But neither feels inclined to back the vision of a president they doubt is serious, nor to inject the issue into the campaigns unless forced, and there’s no sign of that.
It’s a no-win situation, said a Democratic operative. The rejectionist right is trying to label Clinton and Obama anti-Israel or worse, and the candidates are not looking to draw any more fire.
A Democratic president might be more disposed than McCain to pursue Bush’s vision, albeit under a different imprimatur. A source familiar with Obama’s thinking said the senator isn’t expected to publish any proposals before November, but would be developing a plan that “might not look different in description from Bush’s approach but very different in implementation.”
All three leading candidates have said the right things and have voting records and endorsements attesting to pro-Israel credentials.
The next president will need months to get a national security team in place, and to develop a Middle East policy. By then there could be new leaders in Israel and the Palestinian Authority less interested in making peace, plus wars on the Lebanon and Gaza fronts.
Meanwhile peace talks meander along. More and more, it looks like Bush’s decision to pursue a more active U.S. peacemaking role was just for show — like so much of his administration.
That could compound the tragedy of an administration that has added to worldwide doubts about America’s intentions by promising so much and delivering so little.
Douglas M. Bloomfield is a Washington, D.C.-based syndicated columnist and a former chief lobbyist for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
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