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| Author: | Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations |
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February 6, 2005
Miami Herald
Let's seize opportunity while we can
It has been a long time since the words opportunity and Middle East appeared in the same sentence. But now they are. Even better, this optimism may have some basis in reality. One important reason for this change in attitude is, of course, Yasser Arafat's disappearance from the scene. Like the Thane of Cawdor in Shakespeare's Macbeth, "Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it."
Arafat never grew beyond the man who appeared at the United Nations decades ago with both an olive branch and a gun. His unwillingness to jettison terror and choose diplomacy proved his undoing, as he lost legitimacy in the eyes of both Israel and the United States. The result was the failure to create a Palestinian state.
But it is not simply Arafat's passing that provides cause for optimism. We now have a Palestinian leadership legitimized by elections, one that appears to be opposed to using terrorism as a tool to achieve political aims. Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) has a good record of questioning the wisdom of the intifada that has taken too many lives and caused only misery and destruction on all sides.
Changes in Israel are also contributing to the mood swing. There is a growing awareness in Israel that the current situation -- one of open-ended Israeli occupation of lands mostly populated by Palestinians -- is inconsistent with Israel's determination to remain a secure, prosperous, Jewish and democratic state.
The formation of a new Israeli government, one more centrist in its composition and support, is another positive development. Israel is now led by a prime minister who has the ability to make historic choices and a government inclined to support him.
But opportunity is just that. Middle East history is replete with examples of missed and lost chances to make peace. The challenge now is to break this pattern and turn today's opportunity into reality.
Govern responsibly
This requires that the promised Israeli disengagement from Gaza and parts of the West Bank succeed. But "success" entails more than departing Israelis. It also requires that Palestinians demonstrate that they can govern responsibly and that they can put an end to terrorist violence emanating from Palestinian soil.
What happens in Gaza after Israel leaves will have a profound impact on Israeli politics. If Gaza turns into a lawless failed state, one that is a base for attacks on Israelis, it will be difficult to persuade Israel to withdraw from other areas that it now occupies. But if Palestinians in Gaza demonstrate that they can rule themselves and be a good neighbor, a key justification for Israel's continuing occupation elsewhere will weaken.
Palestinians will need help if things are to turn out right in Gaza. The United States, Europe and Arab states such as Egypt, along with Russia and the United Nations, all have a responsibility to assist Abbas. Palestinians need financial and technical help to build up a unified and capable security establishment, to revive a moribund economy and to build a modern, transparent political system.
Domestic challenges
It is also important that the Gaza withdrawal be a beginning, not an end, to the political process. There must be a link between what takes place in Gaza and a comprehensive settlement to the Palestinian question if Abbas is to persuade a majority of his people that diplomacy and compromise deliver more than violence and confrontation.
Here, too, there is an important role for America to play. In fact, the United States has already begun to do what is required. In a September 2004 letter to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, President Bush reassured Israelis that it was "unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949." The framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue "will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel."
These promises meant a great deal to Sharon as he faced domestic political challenges. What is needed now is a parallel letter from Bush to Abbas. Such a letter could spell out the U.S. commitment to a viable, contiguous, sovereign and independent Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines, with compensation provided by Israel wherever territorial adjustments are agreed.
Territorial return
In return, Palestinians would need to pledge to reject the use of violence and terror once and for all. The United States should not, however, make the establishment of a full Palestinian democracy a prerequisite for territorial return and peace. To delay negotiations until Palestinian democracy matured would only persuade Palestinians that diplomacy was a ruse and give many a reason to turn to violence.
After more than a half-century of Israeli-Palestinian conflict, translating opportunity into reality will be difficult enough without introducing new requirements that, however desirable, are not essential.
Richard Haass, a former director of policy planning in the State Department, is president of the Council on Foreign Relations.
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