Monday, Sep 08, 2003
The resignation of Mahmoud Abbas as Palestinian prime minister looks set to speed up the resumed cycle of violence between Israelis and Palestinians. Along with Israel's failed attempt to assassinate Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the Hamas leader, it could signal a return to fighting on the scale of spring last year, when the government of Ariel Sharon militarily retook West Bank towns. The internationally underwritten road-map, intended to give the Palestinians a state and the Israelis security, has run out of road.
The road-map was a flawed blueprint for peace, unlikely to get anywhere unless the US applied serious pressure to its Israeli ally. It did not, so Mr Abbas stood no chance: of winning his battle for supremacy with Yassir Arafat, the veteran Palestinian leader; of persuading his people he was not a stooge of America and Israel; and, above all, of demonstrating that it was possible to reverse Israel's occupation of Palestinian land by peaceful means.
His only achievement in 100 days in office was getting Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the Islamist rejectionists, and militias loyal to his own Fatah faction to agree to a truce. The Sharon government made clear it was not party to the ceasefire, which went up in a fireball with the August 19 suicide bombing in Jerusalem. It is possible the Islamist groups would have returned to their attacks on Israeli civilians anyway. But Mr Sharon's aggressive tactics made that far more likely.
President George W. Bush recognised this. In June, he criticised an Israeli assassination attempt on Abdel-Aziz Rantisi, a Hamas leader. In July, he said the so-called security fence Israel is building - which is gouging out further swathes of Palestinian land - was "a problem". In practice, however, Washington put a lot of pressure on Mr Abbas to confront the Islamists, and almost none on Mr Sharon to curb Israeli attacks and expansion of the occupation. Little wonder then that Mr Abbas was undermined.
Mr Arafat was partly responsible, but his meddling in the security services was by no means decisive. The prime minister never had any popular standing. Nor was he ever going to acquire any unless Israel and the US enabled him to demonstrate that moderation and engagement translate into concrete gains such as progressive Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian land and, most important, the realistic possibility of a viable state.
Israel under Mr Sharon is not offering this, and nor is the US under Mr Bush really pressing him to. That is a tragedy for the Palestinians - and for the Israelis, too, who will not get security and their rightful recognition until the Palestinians get justice. This is also a much bigger international problem than Washington's desultory diplomacy would suggest. Unless the US is prepared to engage more, and more even-handedly, in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it will find it even harder to attain its other regional goals in Iraq and in fighting Islamist terror.
Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2003. Privacy policy.
