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M.J. Rosenberg is Director of Policy Analysis for , a long time Capitol Hill staffer and former editor of AIPAC's Near East Report.
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By M.J. Rosenberg
December 10, 2004
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's victory last night at the Likud Central Committee means that he has a clear mandate to bring the Labor Party into his government and to proceed with the Gaza withdrawal. Sharon is now free to take advantage of the various opportunities for achieving peace that have arisen in the post-Arafat era.
Those opportunities have seemed to appear one after another in the past few weeks: in Egypt, Jordan, the EU and the US, and even Syria. President Mubarak of Egypt has decided that perhaps Sharon is someone with whom he can do business. He released an Israeli prisoner long held in an Egyptian jail and has indicated willingness not only to assist in securing Egypt's border with Gaza but to help broker a full-fledged Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
Throughout this week reports emanated from Cairo that some breakthrough was in the air and, with Sharon's victory in the Likud committee vote last night, we may soon see just how far Mubarak will go. The signs are good. At the very least, Egypt may succeed in brokering a Hamas/PA agreement under which Hamas would agree to end attacks on Israel and to permit the PA to proceed with negotiations toward a final status agreement.
The Jordanians are on board. King Abdullah was in Washington this week to encourage President Bush to push hard to implement the roadmap. He urged the President to release $20 million in direct aid to the Palestinians as a sign of American good faith. Bush went ahead and sent the money which he coupled with a renewed call for a Palestinian state living side-by-side with Israel. There is a growing sense in Europe that Bush is serious about moving on the Israeli-Palestinian front which is fueling EU interest in the Roadmap it helped develop but on which it had basically given up.
Prime Minister Blair rarely misses an opportunity to press Bush. With his own re-election campaign looming -- and still suffering a serious loss in popularity over his support for the Iraq war -- Blair needs to see some Israeli-Palestinian movement. In the UK, as throughout Europe, the status quo is viewed as disastrous.
Even the Syrians are getting into the act. President Assad hosted a high-level group of moderate Palestinians in Damascus (previously the Syrians had boycotted Palestinians who supported negotiations with Israel) and says that he is ready to negotiate with Sharon with no preconditions. If Assad goes ahead and closes the terrorist offices in Damascus, Israeli-Syrian negotiations (which almost produced an agreement just a few years ago) will likely be resumed.
And then there are the Palestinians who are, with the Israelis, the central players. They have moved rather seamlessly from the Arafat to the post-Arafat era. Elections are scheduled for January 9th and, so far, so good. Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) looks like the front-runner which, if his lead holds, would indicate that the Palestinians are opting for negotiations and accommodation with Israel rather than the failed policy of intifada. Public opinion polls show a clear majority of Palestinians favor negotiations with Israel over continued confrontation (which neatly match the clear majority of Israelis who would give up the territories for peace with the Palestinians).
Young Palestinians, traditionally the most militant, also seem ready for a new chapter in Palestinian life. That is what I heard the other day in an e-mail I received yesterday from Fadi Elsalameen, a 20-year old Palestinian who is from the Hebron area.
He wrote me about the mixed feelings he experienced at Yasir Arafat's funeral. He had met Arafat and, like all Palestinians his age, had known no other leader. He believes Arafat put his people on the map but that the past is past. "We young Palestinians are faced with uncertainty. Our people feel lost and beat and our elders are sad to think that their children and grandchildren will share their same destiny -- never to live in peace in an independent Palestinian state."
To avoid that fate "people are ready to move on." And, for him, that means moving toward pragmatism and supporting Abu Mazen -- even if, for the young, Abu Mazen typifies the old guard. "The formal succession process is less important than the changes that are now possible in Palestinian politics -- changes that include the shift from politics based on individuals and the cult of personality to institutions. We need a leader that we can respect and hold accountable, who will introduce the change from governance based on centralized and arbitrary authority to governance that is good, transparent, and accountable."
Fadi's hope is for "peace and reform." Not surprisingly Fadi does not love the Israelis. He told me on several occasions that in Hebron "you don't meet the good Israelis from Tel Aviv or Haifa or wherever but the very worst of Israeli society: the Hebron settlers from Brooklyn. They live to torment us, to humiliate us. But I don't even consider them Israelis, just settlers. I have met enough real Israelis to know we can have peace with them. I don't have to love them and they don't have to love us. Respect is all that is required and the understanding that both peoples have the right to live in security on their own land."
But he has no illusions about the Palestinians being able to accomplish that goal alone. The Palestinian future "will have to be shaped by the combined efforts of Palestinian, Israeli, and American leaderships. We Palestinians must rise to the occasion. Israelis must act to ease Palestinian conditions so that a new legitimate leadership can be elected. And Americans on the other hand, must seize the opportunity and invest serious efforts with heavy backing from President Bush himself to bring a fair and honest solution to the table." He also wants the Arab states to play a role.
I asked Fadi if his views are representative of what Americans like to call the "Palestinian street." He believes they are. The Palestinians want change. And they think that this is the moment for it.
Israelis feel much the same way. Sharon's triumph last night opens the possibility that Fadi's hopes, along with those of so many other Palestinians and Israelis, may be realized. It does not guarantee better times, but, think of it this way: if Sharon had failed, if new elections had been called for and Gaza withdrawal had been shelved, the post-Arafat window of opportunity would have slammed shut. The window is still open. It's a start, a significant start.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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