Israel's fate does not depend on whether a trip to the United States is successful, Menachem Begin used to say, in the days of the peace process with Egypt. Once, he even called into his office Samuel Lewis, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, and gave him an earful. "Are we a vassal of yours?" he famously asked.
But when Anwar Sadat and Begin landed at Andrews Air Force Base on September 5, 1978, on their way to the Camp David summit, Sadat praised America's involvement. Begin also applauded the U.S. administration as he disembarked from the plane. "The day will come and we will say 'habemus pacem' [Latin for "we have peace"] at Camp David," he said. Later, Begin's aides would join the journalists in singing "Habemus Pacem Aleichem" to the tune of "Heveinu Shalom Aleichem."
Unlike President Carter, a devout Christian from the South who was not a supporter of Israel, and who applied atomic pressure on Begin to give up all of Sinai and its settlements and made him sign a document recognizing the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, President Bush is a fan - even a groupie - of Israel.
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First Ariel Sharon, and then Ehud Olmert, established close personal ties with him. They embraced Bush's vision of two states for two peoples, and adopted his road map. But the failure of the war in Iraq, the Iranian nuclear threat, the rise of fundamentalist Islam, the spread of global terror, and the growing strength of Hamas in Gaza - all these have dragged Bush down to rock bottom in the U.S. public opinion polls.
Bush's road map has tangled up everything in a knot with its sequential demands: Before commencing permanent status talks, the Palestinians are supposed to halt terror and dismantle the terror organizations, and Israel is supposed to evacuate outposts in the territories. These demands have set the proverbial dog running in circles, chasing its own tail. Sly foxes like Sharon and Olmert have embraced the road map on the supposition that the Palestinians are not capable of ending terror.
Condoleezza Rice is the one who urged Bush to cut this Gordian knot with an international conference attended by the Quartet, the moderate Arab countries, and anyone supportive of peace in the Middle East. The conference thus created sponsorship for the two-states-for-two-peoples solution, a return to 1967 borders, and the creation of settlement blocs based on territorial exchange. Israel, which has always been traumatized by the idea of an imposed solution, received a promise from Bush that the Annapolis summit would only sponsor the talks, and not twist Israel's arm.
The summit in its current configuration, with Syria represented by a deputy minister (half coffee/half tea) has divided the world into good guys and bad guys, and isolated Iran and Hamas. For Bush, that is already a major accomplishment, says Americologist Zvi Rafiah.
As far as the talks themselves are concerned, it is still up to the Palestinians to prove that they're on the side of the good guys. The presence of the moderate Arab states is meant to back up Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. That is important not only for Abbas, but also for Israel.
We have never had a president like George W. Bush, and chances are we will never have another. If we reach an agreement, we are not only clinching a deal with Mahmoud Abbas, but with the whole of the moderate Arab world. On the other hand, Israel could find itself under pressure and sanctions from the whole of the international community if it fails to open up and engage in a serious discussion of core issues, as Olmert promised to do a few weeks ago.
It is doubtful that America's next president will be as friendly and supportive as Bush, who can be trusted not to pressure us on issues that compromise Israel's security and survival. So whatever can be achieved we must try to achieve now, while Bush is still at the helm. We are not going to be able to fool all of the people all of the time.
Israel will have to be more flexible in implementing the road map. We will have to give up the sequential order, for example - the idea of first wiping out terror and only then embarking on final-status talks. These two things will have to be done simultaneously.
At the moment, the fact that part of the Arab world has cut itself off from Hamas in Gaza is an impressive preliminary achievement. Olmert's administration is facing its most important challenge yet. Now that Syria has joined, the Annapolis summit is forging a new regional map, with the sons of light pitted against the sons of darkness.
All credit for this remarkable gathering goes to Bush. It's his baby. But the opportunity is all ours - an opportunity that we dare not pass up.
Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, offers real-time breaking news, opinions and analysis from Israel and the Middle East. Haaretz.com provides extensive and in-depth coverage of Israel, the Jewish World and the Middle East, including defense, diplomacy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the peace process, Israeli politics, Jerusalem affairs, international relations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli business world and Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora.
