Between a vision and a mirage

Early in the morning, even before Ehud Olmert had time to sit in the guest armchair in the White House, several of his traveling companions found time to leaf through the article by famous Middle East scholar Fuad Ajami in The New York Times; some of them nodded their heads sadly. "It's always tempting to look for salvation in disaster," wrote Ajami, referring to the plan to "isolate" Gaza from the West Bank, "but in this case it's sheer fantasy."

In the oppressive heat that greeted Olmert in Washington, this mirage fit in naturally. It was the fuel that set his visit in motion, but it is doubtful whether it can survive the summer.

No experienced commentator or expert believes it is possible to separate the fate of the West Bank from that of Gaza in the format now being discussed. Diplomats who went to speak to their sources all returned with the same impression: Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas probably will soon be speaking to Hamas once again. In the worst case, as a Western source explained this week, Hamas will puncture the balloon that the Americans are floating with one well-aimed bullet. To the head of the Palestinian chairman.

The things said this week to the television cameras were only a pretense, which is hiding a great deal of serious concern. What moderates and what state, what vision and what democracy? It's all an act: President George W. Bush continues to call Abbas "the president of all the Palestinians," Olmert arouses bursts of laughter among bored journalists when he declares without batting an eyelash that "the road map is not dead," and even Abbas is paying his debt to the gang of pretenders when he states he "will not relinquish" Gaza.

"Of course, all Palestinian leaders will continue to declare the indivisibility of the Palestinian homeland," wrote Martin Indyk, former U.S. ambassador and current head of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, this week. But that is not what they're saying in private talks. Abbas, at this point, has relinquished Gaza and its problems and has turned them over to the ministrations of the rest of the world.

Not that he had a choice, not that the world has solutions to offer. Maybe in the autumn.

Bush has many doubts about Abbas and about the chances of reviving the Palestinian Authority. But Bush has patience, and he already has decided that the struggle over the image of the Palestinian future is only a piece of a large and complicated puzzle. Two days ago, for good reason, he once again drew the line: from Iraq to Lebanon to Palestine. Abbas, according to Bush, is not only a pragmatic Palestinian leader who is facing an exhausting campaign to rehabilitate his people, he is also one of the dams whose job it is to check the spread of extremism in the Middle East.

We should listen to Bush attentively: His true vision is not the establishment of a Palestinian state but the establishment of the right Palestinian state. Nor has his understanding of the causes and the results of the dispute changed: It is not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that fuels the extremists, but the extremists who are adding fuel to the conflict. And they will not stop until they are defeated - in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Palestine, in Iran, in Syria and in Afghanistan.

Bush has apparently long since stopped having gloomy thoughts about his public approval rating. He is thinking in terms of a generation or two, of how the region will look 50 years from now. That is a bird's-eye view of the situation, but it dangerously ignores the problems of the present, the daily life of the Palestinians who are fleeing to the Erez crossing, who don't have 50 years, or even 50 minutes, to wait. But they will apparently have to wait nevertheless.

In the U.S. administration they hear the criticism of the president's behavior in the Palestinian arena, and sometimes snicker at its underlying contradictions. Is Bush to blame for the fact that he accepted the opinion of Ariel Sharon and supported the disengagement from Gaza without negotiations with the PA, or perhaps he is to blame for the fact that he rejected Sharon's view and allowed Hamas to participate in the elections? Bush sees no reason to rummage through all these past decisions. After all, the future is already here, wearing a black hood and wielding a rifle.