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Brown was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor for cfr.org, on January 10, 2005.

Did the elections turn out as expected?

Yes, Abu Mazen won as expected. He seems to have won with about the percentage of the vote that most people thought he would get [roughly 65 percent]. There seems to have been a decent turnout and the process, in general, seems to have gone fairly smoothly, although there were glitches having to do with voter registration in Jerusalem.

What will happen now?

Abu Mazen will take office as soon as the results are certified and the Palestinian Legislative Council [PLC] session can be called to swear him in. He will then serve as president under the Palestinian Basic Law [amended in March 2003] which gives him perhaps fewer tools than Arafat had when he was Palestinian president.

Why is that?

The basic law was amended under both domestic and international pressure to transfer a lot of authority from the president to the prime minister. Abu Mazen was the first prime minister under that system. When Arafat was president, he managed to work around the law and, in some cases, probably break the law as well. His actions made it still very much a presidential system despite what it was supposed to be on paper.

Who is the prime minister now?

The prime minister right now is Abu Ala [also known as Ahmed Qurei], who was the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council since it was formed [in 1996] until he became prime minister.

He became prime minister when Abu Mazen quit in 2003?

Exactly.

Did Abu Mazen quit because he didn’t have enough authority?

Abu Mazen gave three reasons for his resignation, and I think we should take him at his word. One was certainly internal- that there were challenges to his authority internally and that the authority he had been promised wasn’t there. He also criticized the Israelis for undercutting him and the Americans and the international community for not giving him the backing that he needed.

Since Arafat’s death and in the run-up to the election, there has been a great deal of expectation built up for long-term peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Are people getting set up for another disappointment?

Perhaps. This certainly is the most optimistic period since Abu Mazen became prime minister [in May 2003] and it looked as if the road map was getting under way. So it does look, in comparison to any time over the past five years, fairly good. But I think there is an awful lot that has to happen internally among the Palestinians, [and] internally among the Israelis, before things really get under way. And then there is, of course, the problem that the two sides are still very far apart on what a negotiated settlement should look like.

Let’s start first with the problems internally on the Palestinian side.

The elections for president are just the beginning of a process. Rawhi Fattouh, the acting president who took over after Arafat died, issued a decree, as one of his last acts as acting president, calling for elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council- or parliament- in July. That means Palestinians, as soon as they’ve wrapped up one election campaign, are about to get another one under way. The election for parliament will be extremely significant. The Palestinians haven’t had PLC elections since 1996; there have been all kinds of changes in Palestinian society since then. And because of the political reforms [related to] the creation of the prime minister’s position, the parliament becomes potentially much more significant in terms of its oversight over the executive branch. Then there is the additional complication- and perhaps opportunity as well- that the Islamists, for the first time, seem to be thinking about running in these parliamentary elections.

Are you saying that Hamas, the main Islamist party, which boycotted the presidential elections, has indicated it will run in the parliamentary elections?

They haven’t said so, but last month, when Abu Mazen was trying to negotiate with the Islamists, the Islamists’ position was that they would be willing to consider participation, but they wanted presidential and parliamentary elections to be held at the same time. Abu Mazen didn’t give in, so they had presidential elections first. Right now, Hamas seems to be suggesting they would at least seriously consider entering the parliamentary elections.

If parliament is dominated by supporters of Abu Mazen, you would think negotiations with Israel could proceed. But if Hamas has a very strong voice, there is a problem. Is that right?

It’s even a little bit more complicated than that. Right now, Fatah, which is Abu Mazen’s party [and former president Arafat’s party] seems to be doing very well in the polls. So it would seem likely, whether Hamas participated or not, that you will still have a Fatah majority in the Legislative Council. The problem is that Fatah is not at all organized or disciplined as a political party, so it’s not clear that even if Abu Mazen had a majority, or his party had a majority, he would be able to work all that easily with the Legislative Council.

Now if Hamas does go in, then you’re looking at a significant number of seats, probably a minority, but still, perhaps, a significant number of seats for Hamas deputies. That certainly would complicate negotiations, because it’s going to be a Legislative Council that is looking over the shoulder of the government and perhaps criticizing it and making it more difficult, and so on. However, if Hamas enters the Legislative Council, it also signals, in a sense, that they accept the legitimacy of the council and the possibility that they may be outvoted. So it may make it more difficult to come to an agreement, but if an agreement were reached, it may be a little bit easier to make it stick.

In the interim, between January and July, is it possible that Abu Mazen can meet with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and get the ball rolling, or does he have to appoint a foreign minister before talks can begin?

What will probably happen is that the existing Palestinian cabinet will resign and it will be re-formed by Abu Mazen. He’s already said that he’d already like to invite Abu Ala back as prime minister. So we’re likely to see an awful lot of continuity in terms of Palestinian leadership. The Israelis have also said they would like to get the ball rolling again, and there is obviously an awful lot of international interest. So I would expect to have some kind of renewed Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy. The Israelis have their own internal problems which they’re sorting out, and the current Israeli government doesn’t necessarily seem interested in a permanent solution- or they haven’t given much indication that they are. So, if negotiations did start, they might get rocky fairly quickly.

Sharon is pushing hard for the withdrawal of Israelis from the Gaza, about 8,500 settlers. There is great opposition within Gaza and within the right wing of Sharon’s Likud Party. He’s now working out a coalition with the left-leaning Labor Party. Where do you think Sharon is going in the next six months?

It’s unclear. His basic problem is that he’s got a large majority of Israeli public opinion behind him, but he’s got a very split right-wing camp. So he’s having to rely much more on- perhaps more than he would like- the left wing of the political spectrum of the Knesset [Israeli parliament]. The big question regarding Sharon is whether or not the Gaza redeployment is a tactical maneuver to forestall a permanent settlement with the Palestinians, or, perhaps, a first step on the way toward reviving talks for permanent settlement. The Labor Party and the left would obviously prefer the latter; everything in Sharon’s record indicates it’s much more the former. He may have difficulty, even if he forms his coalition successfully, in keeping it together or keeping it from running away too far with the redeployment [of Israeli forces out of the Gaza Strip] and renewal of talks with Palestinians.

When is the redeployment due to begin?

I think it’s late spring.

This will be a very tense time in Israel, I suppose.

It’s already begun to be. You’ve already seen a sort of radicalization of rhetoric in parts of the Israeli society.

The United States, in the past, has been a major broker in peace talks. The Bush administration has not been a major broker up to now. It has said all the correct things leading up to the elections, but has the United States shown its hand yet?

No, it hasn’t. It’s endorsed the elections and it has made clear that it supports the process the Palestinians are engaged in- and the road map, which it endorsed a while ago, is still on the table. So there is some suggestion of some increase in American interest. The real test, I think, is not whether the United States gets involved; most people think that it will. The question is whether it will have a sustained involvement. If, for instance, things start to break down, will the United States begin to lose interest?

People will be very interested to hear what U.S. Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice says in her confirmation hearings that begin next week. So far, there is no designated U.S. Mideast peace negotiator, is that right?

Yes. It’s not clear who is going to be handling it. The expectation is that we will even have a new assistant secretary of state [for near East affairs]. So, you’ve got some sort of transition in the American leadership and not simply at the top level of secretary of state. There are a lot of questions of personnel that have to be answered. The British have tried to push the process forward a little bit by calling a conference in London for this March, but it has quickly become clear that it is a conference to discuss reform in the Palestinian Authority, rather than the peace process directly. That was a development that angered the Palestinians a little.

Let’s talk about the road map. Two years ago it received a lot of attention. Is it still a live document?

It’s live in one sense: it is the last authoritative statement both sides have basically signed onto. There are reservations all over. The Israelis had some formal reservations. The Palestinians made clear that they interpreted their commitment a little bit differently than others might, but it’s still there as a sort of a starting point. That said, it’s clearly a dated document. It has all kinds of timelines and schedules, so we’re already a significant portion of the way through the road map timetable without having done more than formally launch a process. At a minimum, the road map would have to be radically updated.

Is there Palestinian public support for the idea of a two-state solution? Hamas has often been quoted as saying it is for the destruction of Israel. Is there a consensus on a two-state solution that has evolved out of the Oslo Accords?

I think there is a consensus solution, but there’s certainly not unanimity. The consensus solution would be what the Palestinians sometimes call their fixed principles, what might be interpreted as their red lines. What they want is a Palestinian state on the territories occupied in 1967 by Israel, with East Jerusalem as its capital and a just solution to the Palestinian refugee crisis. Sometimes they base that on what they call international legitimacy, and sometimes they’ll refer to U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194, which was passed immediately after the 1948 war.

There is an awful lot of support [for a two-state solution]. Palestinians who oppose that will tend to talk about that solution not being workable, rather than not being desirable. You’ve got a little bit of dissent on the left by people who say, “We’d like to go for a single-state solution, a bi-national state.” You’ve also got some dissent among the Islamists. The Islamists, at some point, have hinted that they’d be willing to accept Israel on an interim basis, but they’ve done so in such guarded terms, and with so many qualifications and equivocations, that it’s hardly going to convince the Israelis.

Bottom line, what would you judge to be the outlook for progress toward a two-state peace? On a scale of one to ten?

I would guess a six. I’m not wildy optimistic, but I’m more optimistic now than at any other time in the recent past. Abu Mazen has one thing that Arafat didn’t. His outlook of what a solution looks like isn’t that different, but he’s got an ability to talk to an international audience and even to an Israeli audience, something Arafat didn’t have, or never used. I think he’s got an ability to push things forward. You’ve also got a United States that has called, for so long, for Palestinian elections. Now that it’s got them, it will come under considerable pressure to follow through. You’ve got an Israeli public that is, I think, interested in a resolution to this. So you have a lot of basis there for some kind of progress. You still have weak leaders on the Israeli and Palestinian sides. That’s why I would only give it a six, but it’s still much better than a year ago.