In the wake of the successful war to end Saddam Hussein's rule in Iraq, the American government has now turned its attention to promoting peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.
With the European Union and Russia, it has proposed a "road map" laying out a path to an independent Palestinian state. Secretary of State Colin Powell toured the Mideast this week, holding highly publicized meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the newly appointed prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to encourage them to take the first steps that the road map prescribes.
The chances for progress toward an Israeli-Palestinian settlement, however, depend on two other parties to the conflict: the Israeli public and the president of the Palestinian Authority and longtime Palestinian strongman, Yasser Arafat. The Israeli public must approve any concessions Israel makes to the Palestinians, but will not do so as long as Arafat remains in power. And here, recent developments are not encouraging.
Because Israel is a democracy - unlike all the Arab countries - no Israeli government can take any major step without public support. This means that the endlessly debated question of whether Sharon is genuinely committed to the eventual creation of a Palestinian state is beside the point. Polls show that a large majority of Israelis would like to end the conflict with the Palestinians, are willing to allow the establishment of such a state and would relinquish territory now controlled by Israel to make this possible if the Palestinians are, for their part, ready to accept and live peacefully beside Israel.
If Israelis decide Sharon is obstructing such a development they will vote him out of office, just as they have evicted, via the ballot box, four prime ministers since 1992, in each case because of dissatisfaction with the way he was managing the country's relations with the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world.
What, then, will persuade the Israeli public that the Palestinians are prepared to end the conflict? A serious effort to put a stop to terror against Israel is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one. The end of Arafat's almost 40-year reign as the Palestinian leader will also be required.
Although forced to accept the appointment of Abbas, Arafat remains the president of the Palestinian Authority, retaining control of several of the armed forces he established in the West Bank and Gaza, members of which have been actively involved in terrorism. He has already begun to try to undermine the new prime minister.
Arafat is an unacceptable Palestinian leader to Israelis because he has used his position, despite the solemn commitment to peace that he made in the Oslo accords of 1993, to wage war against Israel. Indeed, over three decades he has compiled a formidable track record of mendacity and violence. He has started wars, after declaring his peaceful intentions, in three different countries. He attacked the Jordanian monarchy in 1970 and was defeated and expelled, along with his followers, to Lebanon. There he waged another war, against indigenous Lebanese groups, until the Israelis evicted him in 1982. Brought back to Gaza and the West Bank in 1993, he unleashed yet a third war against Israel in response to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's unprecedented offer of territory and statehood in 2000.
Whatever declarations of his desire for peace and coexistence with Israel Arafat now makes, therefore, Israelis will not believe him. Nor will they trust the Palestinians to keep whatever commitments they may make as long as Arafat holds any power.
The Bush administration has rightly refused to have anything to do with Arafat, but European governments, including Prime Minister Tony Blair's in Great Britain, as well as the Arab regimes, continue to treat him as a legitimate and important political figure. When Secretary Powell stopped in Cairo on his recent trip, the Egyptian foreign minister declared that he continued to regard Arafat "as the leader of the Palestinian people."
The European and Arab governments have begun to urge the United States, beginning with President George W. Bush's meeting with Sharon next week, to put pressure on Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians. In fact, the most effective use of American diplomatic efforts on this issue would be to persuade the Europeans and Arabs to use their influence with the Palestinians to encourage Arafat's ouster. Unless and until he is gone, and with or without a road map or any other peace plan, no progress toward an Israeli-Palestinian settlement will take place.
Michael Mandelbaum, author of "The Ideas That Conquered the World," is a senior fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations and professor of American foreign policy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
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