jerusalem | After Mahmoud Abbas’ recent meeting in Washington with President Bush, differences have begun to emerge between the United States and Israel over how to move forward on the Palestinian track.
The Palestinian Authority president managed to convince Bush that getting Palestinian terrorist groups to join the political process makes more sense than confronting them head-on, as demanded by the “road map” peace plan.
The Americans also came away from the visit convinced that Israel is not doing enough to help Abbas consolidate his leadership position or to jump-start the stagnant Palestinian economy.
It was unclear at press time how the Wednesday, Oct. 26 suicide bombing in the Northern Israeli town of Hadera would affect U.S. attitudes towards the Palestinians or how Israel would respond. The bombing killed five people in addition to the bomber, and wounded at least 21.
Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the deadliest attack in Israel in more than three months, with the Iranian-backed group saying it was in retaliation for the killing of a top militant leader by Israeli troops earlier this week.
The United States and Israel agree that the Palestinians must end terrorism before there can be significant Israeli-Palestinian progress. Where they differ is over how to achieve this common goal.
The dispute boils down to accommodation versus confrontation. In other words, should the Palestinian Authority try to reach a political arrangement with armed groups like Hamas or use force to disarm them?
Abbas argues that the way to tame the radicals is to allow them to participate in Palestinian legislative elections scheduled for Jan. 25, 2006. That way, he says, they’ll become part of the system and less of a threat to its main policy thrusts.
Abbas insists that Israeli demands to prevent Hamas from running in the elections as long as it maintains its armed wing only play into the militants’ hands. The Americans agree and have made it abundantly clear that they have no intention of opposing Hamas’ participation in the vote, even though they don’t like the idea of armed groups taking part in what is meant to be a free, democratic process.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government has little faith in the accommodation strategy. Given the American position, however, Israeli officials say they won’t do anything to stop Hamas from running in the election.
“It’s not in Israel’s interest to intervene,” Justice Minister Tzipi Livni declared in an Israel Radio interview over the weekend.
Ideally, Livni would like to see the international community tell Hamas that disarming is the price of running in the elections, forcing Hamas to choose between guns and legal participation.
But she knows that’s not very likely, and that ultimately Israel, like the United States, will leave the question of Hamas’ participation up to the Palestinians.
That was one of the main achievements in Washington for Abbas, who claims that his strategy is working. He notes that Hamas has already agreed to a cease-fire and to a ban on the public display of its weapons, and says the process of domesticating the militants can be continued after the election, when a democratically elected legislature will have the moral authority to disarm them.
For Israel, the dilemma is how to trust Abbas without leaving itself open to more terrorism. After a mid-October drive-by shooting spree in which three young Israelis were killed in the West Bank, Israel reimposed security restrictions it had lifted in an earlier goodwill gesture — a common cycle over the past decade in which Israeli concessions only leave it more vulnerable to attack.
James Wolfensohn, economic envoy of the international “Quartet” driving the peace process, believes the key to a better future lies in the economic transformation of Gaza. He has convinced Bush that prosperity is the best way to weaken and co-opt the terrorists.
Despite the growing criticism of Israel, however, the United States remains wedded to the notion that the process won’t move forward significantly unless the Palestinians stop terrorism. In his Oct. 20 news conference with Abbas, Bush declared that “the way forward must begin by confronting the threat that armed gangs pose to a genuinely democratic Palestine,” adding that the Palestinian Authority must “earn the confidence of its neighbors by rejecting and fighting terrorism.”
Following the Abbas visit, Sharon chose to ignore the criticism of Israel and emphasize the demands the United States is making of the Palestinians.”The pressure continues to be on the Palestinians to fight terror as a first step,’ a Sharon spokesman said.
With no secret channel, and with both Israel and the United States continuing to insist on an end to terrorism as a precondition for peacemaking, prospects for progress are hazy. With America’s blessing and Israel’s reluctant acquiescence, much is riding on the success of Abbas’ policy.