Pause to learn the lessons

by Ghassan Khatib

It's not a secret that the Palestinians in particular, perhaps the Arabs in general, were interested in seeing the end of the Bush era. This is not necessarily because they had a particular interest or any rational desire to see Senator John Kerry in his place but rather is a result of the bitter experience Palestinians have had after four years of President George W. Bush.

The fundamental difference between the Bush presidency and previous American administrations is the ideological flavor of this administration and the effect of that on Washington's approach to the Middle East.

The Palestinians are used to an American bias toward Israel; it's neither new, nor was it expected to be any different when Bush first came to power. But Bush and his administration went beyond just the ordinary US bias toward Israel and against the Palestinians--its traditional military, political and economic support for Israel. This administration sunk to new levels in its lack of sensitivity to specific stipulations of international legality and relevant resolutions of the United Nations Security Council that used to govern at least the official American position on the conflict.

The most obvious example of this deviation from accepted international standards was Bush's assurances to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in response to the latter's so-called Gaza disengagement plan back in April. The positions outlined in the president's letter to Sharon on borders, refugees and settlements were a clear departure from previous constants of American administrations, from international legality and, perhaps more astonishingly, even from this administration's own roadmap plan.

The other source of Palestinian unease about the Bush administration is the linkage that it made between terrorist activities and Palestinian efforts, including the use of violence, to end the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and the violence that occupation has wrought upon the Palestinian people. This attitude apparently led the American administration to refrain from assuming any role to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This, in turn, contributed dramatically to encourage Israel--which happens to be under a politically and ideologically extremist leadership--to proceed with a strategy of trying to impose a solution through force. In other words, this non-engagement left Palestinians at the mercy of the Israeli military machine, which resulted in the deterioration in the security, political and economic situations that we face today.

The next four years of Bush may not necessarily be a continuity of the first term. The elections might give the administration pause to look back at its previous four years with a critical eye. Any such evaluation should lead them to conclude that there has been a distinct failure in American Middle East policy vis-a-vis the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, apparent from the obvious deterioration of the situation and from the fact that Palestinians and Israelis are now much further from peace than before. More importantly, from Washington's perspective, the interests of the US are badly served by the policy of the past four years. The credibility of the US is at its lowest ever in the Middle East and an unavoidable and major factor in that is America's handling of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Another reason for a possible change of direction from the American administration is that it is now freed from the constraints of seeking another term. There is no doubt that in his first term, especially in the second half of that term, Bush was mainly focused on re-election and his political behavior was tailored accordingly. And it is not a secret that the pro-Israel lobby and Jewish-American factor is an important one in this regard.

In order to help the administration in the new term improve its performance in the Middle East there is a need for an active European engagement with the United States to encourage the administration to be more forthcoming and to invest some significant political capital in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. There is also a need for a more pro-active and united Arab diplomatic strategy of the kind that can use the strategic importance of the Arab world to further Arab causes, including the Palestinian one.

- Published 8/11/2004 (c) bitterlemons.org. Used with permission.

Ghassan Khatib is coeditor of bitterlemons.org and bitterlemons-international.org. He is the Palestinian Authority minister of labor, acting minister of planning and has been a political analyst and media contact for many years.