Bush Plan Tough for Palestinians

AP | 6/24/02 | TOM RAUM

[kattracks]

WASHINGTON, Jun 24, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- There was little in President Bush's Middle East policy speech to cheer the Arabs.

He set strict benchmarks as the price of U.S. support for Palestinian statehood, including the replacement of Yasser Arafat as their leader and the creation of what few nations in the Middle East can boast: full democracy.

Those conditions will be difficult, if not impossible, for Palestinians to meet in the three-year time frame suggested by the president, analysts suggested after Bush outlined his evolving policy for the region in a Rose Garden speech Monday.

Bush didn't mention the Palestinian leader by name, but he didn't have to. "Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leader so that a Palestinian state can be born," Bush declared.

That blunt condemnation of Arafat, the Palestinian movement's leader since the Six-Day War in 1967, partly obscured the fact that Bush is the first U.S. president to expressly support a Palestinian state.

Even so, Bush's vision of an independent Palestine alongside a secure Israel seemed as elusive as ever. A hoped-for international peace conference this summer appeared to be on hold.

Michael O'Hanlon, a foreign policy analyst at the Brookings Institution, said Bush had made a "tough tactical choice" in categorically ruling out a role for Arafat.

"I personally would judge foreign leaders by their actions, not by their names. And I would tend to allow for the possibility of Arafat to be the peacemaker if it turns out that he ultimately accepts the terms along the lines of what Bush was proposing," O'Hanlon said.

Bush did renew a call for Israel to withdraw its troops and tanks from Palestinian areas and to stop building settlements there. But the main thrust was that Arafat must go.

Not surprisingly, that call was warmly received in Israel and among the Israelis' congressional allies. Rep. Tom Lantos of California, senior Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, called it "a rational vision."

Arab representatives slammed the policy Bush enunciated

"The speech and the plan he laid out make it appear as if Palestinians are themselves to blame for their own suffering," said James Zogby, president of the Washington-based Arab-American Institute. Bush's policy "is a faulty assessment of the reality" and undercuts efforts at peace, Zogby said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office endorsed Bush's approach, saying in a statement that "when the Palestinian Authority undergoes genuine reforms and a new leadership takes its place at its head ... it will be possible to discuss ways of moving forward by diplomatic means."

Conditions on the ground could hardly have been less favorable for a new peace initiative.

Israeli troops and tanks moved back into more than a half-dozen Palestinian cities over the weekend and on Monday encircled Arafat's badly damaged headquarters in Ramallah. Israel also mounted an aggressive attack in the Gaza strip against the militant group Hamas.

Bush had planned to give the speech last week, but it was delayed by back-to-back suicide bombings that killed two dozen Israelis. The timing of the attacks seemed aimed at thwarting U.S. attempts at peacemaking.

The president decided to go ahead Monday because to do otherwise "is in effect rewarding the terrorists," a senior administration official said in a briefing to reporters on condition of anonymity. The official said the situation in the Middle East had become intolerable.

Bush also wanted to explain his policy ahead of his meeting this week in western Canada with leaders of the seven other major industrial democracies and Russia.

Judith Kipper, director of Middle East studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Bush did not spell out an active enough role for the United States toward bringing peace. "A speech is fine. But words are not what we need now. We need a sustained, proactive American mediation. Calling for getting rid of Arafat is not going to help the cause," Kipper said.

While Americans' sympathies generally rest with Israel, the public also favors a Palestinian state and supports an activist U.S. role, said pollster Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Center.

"The public sees a linkage between events in the Mideast and discontent there with our war on terrorism," Kohut said. "The public wants the United States to play a role in achieving a peace."

Republican pollster Frank Luntz agrees. "Americans absolutely want the United States involved, so American lives aren't lost in the future. They will support anything that brings peace to the Mideast."

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EDITOR'S NOTE - Tom Raum has covered national and international affairs for The Associated Press since 1973.

By TOM RAUM Associated Press Writer

Copyright 2002 Associated Press, All rights reserved

[Post Toasties]

The GWB plan may be 'tough' for the Palestinians, but not as tough as it's going to be for them if they pass it up.

[goldstategop]

We can already hear the sniveling look at their belly buttons peace at any price crowd whining at how the President's plan asks too much of the Palestinians. Sheesh. All he asked is they grow up and behave like adults. Apparently, even that is too much for their enablers among the Arabs, the Israeli Extreme Left, and the Eurotrash. Its a measure of Bush's conviction he is doing the right thing that his plan gets slammed by Israel's adversaries. He's not doing the Palestinians any big favors. If they keep saying NO they'll find out when he's no longer President that they wish they had said YES. By then there may no longer be any territory to negotiate about for a Palestinian state and that suits this American just fine. I still haven't forgotten how they cheered the destruction of the Twin Towers on 911.