WASHINGTON — A parade of Arab and Muslim leaders is passing through Washington, promising support for the U.S.-led effort against terrorist kingpin Osama bin Laden — but also urging the administration to press harder for a cease-fire and new negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
There were strong indications this week that administration policymakers are headed in just that direction, although exactly how far they are prepared to go is far from clear.
On Tuesday President Bush, breaking with the policies of his Republican predecessors but echoing former President Clinton, endorsed the creation of a Palestinian state.
That idea, he told reporters, “has always been a part of a vision, so long as the right of Israel to exist is respected. We are working diligently with both sides to encourage a reduction of violence so that meaningful discussions can take place.” That came a day after reports that the administration was preparing a major new Israeli-Palestinian initiative in the days before the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington but that it was put on hold in the wake of the terrorism crisis. News reports indicated that Secretary of State Colin Powell had been planning to announce the administration’s support of a Palestinian state at the U.N. General Assembly meeting Sept. 24. There also were indications that Bush planned to hold his first meeting with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at the United Nations. But the organization canceled the session after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Washington insiders say the administration has still not decided whether to revive that plan, or exactly what its details might be. State Department sources emphasized that the debate over the level and direction of U.S. involvement in negotiations is continuing.
And they said any meeting between Bush and Arafat depends on a significant reduction in violence — something that seemed more unlikely after this week’s Palestinian raid on a Jewish settlement in Gaza and Israel’s seizure of Palestinian-controlled land as a security buffer.
In the meantime, pro-Israel leaders were quick to criticize the president’s nod to Palestinian statehood.
In a statement, leaders of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, said supporters of a new initiative that includes a Bush-Arafat meeting are “undermining America’s war against terrorism. They are encouraging the president to reward, rather than punish those that harbor and support terrorism.”
But the administration faces mounting pressure from the Arab and Muslim nations who want Israel and the Palestinians to reach a peace agreement. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was expected to hear that message repeatedly during his four-nation Mideast swing this week.
Last week, Jordan’s King Abdullah II was in town for the official signing of a new U.S.-Jordan free trade pact, and to offer a combination of support and advice for the U.S. anti-terror effort.
“We’re here to give our full, unequivocal support to you and to the people of America,” the monarch said. “And we will stand by you in these very difficult times.”
Washington sources say Jordan already has started sharing intelligence with U.S. officials on terror groups and their worldwide connections.
But Abdullah also told State Department officials there is a direct connection between the extent of Jordan’s cooperation and the continuation of U.S. efforts to bring about a lasting Israeli-Palestinian cease-fire. Unless Washington pushes hard for new negotiations, he warned, it will be more difficult to bring Arab and Moslem nations into the anti-terror coalition.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, stressing strong Jordanian support for the U.S. effort, conceded that the administration recognizes “what the king and others have told us, that [the Israeli-Palestinian conflict] has a bearing on how we go forward with the problem of terrorism.”
A similar message — made more urgent by the crumpling of the latest cease-fire — came from visiting Turkish, Qatar, Saudi and Egyptian delegations.
Most observers say the administration, while increasing the pressure on both sides to end the violence, is not tilting against Israel in the interests of its anti-terror coalition.
“They are making it clear they won’t let Egypt or the others dictate the terms of their participation,” said David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a pro-Israel think tank.
Rumsfeld and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, he said, have indicated that the administration is pursuing a number of different coalitions, not a single overarching one. “Missions will define the coalitions,” he said, “and not coalitions defining the mission.”
He said that ultimately, the U.S. effort could be good for Israel.
“If the U.S. really reshuffles the deck regionally in a way that radicalism is routed — like it was in 1991 — then it really might open up some important opportunities,” he said.
But he warned that fluid events and surging emotions among the American people make predictions risky.
“What happens in step two will depend very much on how step one goes,” he said. “This is just the first act in the opera.”
Meanwhile, Israel is upset that the United States has not frozen the assests of Hamas and Hezbollah.
Over the weekend, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called Powell and urged him to add Mideast terror groups to the administration’s list of targets in the anti-terror battle.
But top Jewish leaders say that while they will urge inclusion of those groups in private contacts with administration officials, they will not publicly chastise the administration or try to generate a backlash in Congress.
Last week, the White House froze the assets of 27 terror organizations. Despite earlier promises to wage a genuinely worldwide war against terror, the list included only groups allegedly associated with bin Laden. Conspicuously absent were groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
“We’ve heard from a lot of people who are very upset with this decision,” said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. “But Hamas and Hezbollah are already on the State Department list of terrorist organizations; there are already restrictions on them.”
And, he said, this is just the first step in what the administration promises will be a long and multi-front war.
At the same time, Jewish leaders are quietly expressing displeasure that legislation that would have imposed sanctions on the Palestinian Authority unless it reins in violence may be stopped in its tracks because of the new foreign policy emergency.
A sanctions measure passed the House as part of the foreign operations bill; Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) were set to push similar language in the Senate.
But the State Department, always opposed to the measure, has cranked up the pressure since the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Last week Powell wrote to Feinstein and McConnell, warning that while the administration will continue working for Israeli-Palestinian peace, it now has other overarching priorities.
New sanctions on the Palestinian Authority, he said, would be “counterproductive” in the effort to build a broad anti-terror coalition, and he urged the lawmakers not to “tie the president’s hands.”
Feinstein has agreed to temporarily put aside the measure, although Capitol Hill sources say it is possible the anti-Palestinian Authority language will return as a free-standing bill.