2005-05-28 bush-abbas

By Ira Sharkansky

Panic in Israel. President George W. Bush said during his appearance with Mahmoud Abbas that Israel can change its borders from the 1949 armistice lines only with the agreement of the Palestinian Authority. Bush also said that a Palestinian State must have a contiguous presence on the West Bank and an assured connection with Gaza.

What about President Bush's commitment to Ariel Sharon, that the United States expects any agreement to recognize the demographic changes created by major settlement blocs in the West Bank?

It took less than 24 hours for the Americans to clarify. The President had stated the formal American position: boundary changes require agreements, and cannot be done unilaterally. The Administration stands by its comments to Sharon, that it would not be practical to overlook changes in the territories since 1967.

Panic in Palestine: the Americans are not doing enough to pressure Israel into making concessions.

This is the more important expression heard from the summits of Israel and Palestine. Unfortunately—even pathetically—it reveals a continuation of Palestinian reliance on others to do their work. It is they who have to make a deal with Israel. The Arabs will not do the work for them. The United States will not do the work for them. The UN, Europe, and Third World countries will express support but do no serious work.

President Bush's demands pose no great difficulty for Israel. Sharon and others propose to hold onto major West Bank settlements, and the Palestinians can aspire to the rest. There could be contiguity within the West Bank. For someone familiar with the Gerrymandered Congressional Districts of the United States, the boundaries of Palestine will be able to pass the test. They may not look neat in twisting here and there to avoid Jewish clusters, but they can be contiguous. No problem in constructing a dedicated rail line between Gaza and the West Bank.

The serious problem lies within the Palestinian leaderships and their various organizations. They must recognize that they cannot aspire to much more than what they have not frittered away via intransigence and violence since 1967. No one else seems likely to assure the return of 1948 and 1967 refugees to Israel, or a return of Israel to 1967 or 1949 or 1947 boundaries. A portion of East Jerusalem for Palestine, or a portion of Jerusalem's eastern suburbs is a detail that an Israeli government may concede if all else goes well.

Meanwhile, not all is well in the Jewish Holy Land. Final plans are a long way from complete for the withdrawal of Jewish settlements in Gaza. Government officials blame the settlers. Some settlers are playing chicken, hoping that their intransigence with keep disengagement from happening. Other settlers are willing to leave, but blame the government for not offering them enough.

None of the serious parties are in shape to run an election campaign. Likud is divided over the disengagement. Ariel Sharon might not be renominated by the party convention as party leader. Labor leaders are fighting among themselves in preparation for primaries to choose a leader. The television cameras were running at a recent committee meeting when one leading figure called another "zero," and shouted that his colleague "shut up his mouth." Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak are the leading candidates for party leadership. Neither is likely to overcome intense opposition within the party in order to run a decent campaign. Middle-ranking parties Shinui, SHAS, and the National Religious Party are either split, showing declines in their polls, and/or suffering from internal acrimony among their Knesset members.

I am not aware of an "uncertainty index" calculated for Israel or any other country. It is time to construct one. For us, it seems likely to be close to 100 on a scale of 0-100. For the Palestinians, perhaps 150 on a scale of 0-100.

Sharkansky is a member of the political science department at Hebrew University in Jerusalem