Subscribe to Print Edition | Fri., May 16, 2008 Iyyar 11, 5768 | | Israel Time: 15:19 (EST+7)
Haaretz israel news English
web haaretz.com
  Back to Homepage
Rosner's Domain
Diplomacy
Defense Jewish World Opinion National
Print Edition
Advertising
Books Peres Conference Business Real Estate Easy Start Travel Week's End Anglo File
Last update - 02:16 12/05/2008
Bush should stay home
By Akiva Eldar
Tags: Palestinians, Israel 

If George Bush were a true friend of Israel, he would seize the investigation against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as an excuse to stay home tomorrow. Unless he has a rabbit in his hat, this will be the third time in the past half year that the U.S. president shows the Palestinians and the entire Arab world that they are wasting their time by trying to end the occupation by peaceful means. Not only have matters not improved since he troubled dozens of leaders from around the world to come to Annapolis in late November, 2007; since then, the occupation has been progressing, while the vision of two states has been receding. The number of new buildings erected in the settlements in the last few months rivals only the number of roadblocks that have been added since Bush last visited Jerusalem, in January.

Bush is an accomplice to an offense far worse than all of the criminal offenses of which Olmert is suspected combined. Every speech made by the president is one more bit of exposure of the nakedness of the Palestinian circles who tied their collective fate to the Annapolis declaration, which pledged to "make every effort to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008." In light of the stasis in the negotiations, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) seems likely to resign even before Olmert does.

The failed gamble of the United States also undermines the standing of leaders in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Every fruitless visit by Bush to Israeli Jerusalem pushes the Arab League further and further away from its own peace initiative of March 2002, and provides more ammunition to Iran and Syria in their struggle for hegemony in the Middle East, over and above the moderate Sunni axis. Gaza and Lebanon are just the beginning.
Advertisement
If Bush cared about Israel remaining a Jewish country, he would not have let Abbas leave the White House last month bruised and battered. The Palestinian president told him that when the Palestinian delegates to the talks saw the Israeli positions, they thought Olmert and Tzipi Livni were playing a joke on them. In addition to all of the "settlement clusters," including, of course, the territorial "fingers" of Ariel, Ma'aleh Adumin and Givat Ze'ev, the Israelis demanded to remain in control of the entire Jordan Valley, almost to the outskirts of Nablus, while leaving intact all of the Jewish settlements in that area - all in all, some 600 square kilometers, amounting to about 10 percent of the territories. Israel also demanded that all of Jerusalem, including the Holy Basin surrounding the Old City and the Old City itself, would remain under Israeli sovereignty; Palestine would be given control only over the Temple Mount, which is held by the Muslim Waqf authorities in any case; not a single refugee would be allowed back under a Palestinian right of return, and Israel would not acknowledge any responsibility for the fate of the 1948 refugees.

Either Bush does not understand or he does not care what will happen here in the coming months if someone does not succeed in bringing the negotiations back to the Clinton-Taba outline. Abu Mazen's close circle is pushing him to end the talks and abandon the two-state solution. Moreover, he is being urged to dissolve the Palestinian Authority immediately, which would wipe what remains of the Oslo makeup off Israel's face. At the last convention of the PLO's executive committee and in a meeting with reporters, Abu Mazen handed out copies of an article by Adnan Abu Ouda, born in Nablus and formerly a minister in the Jordanian government, calling for the unilateral dismantling of the Palestinian Authority.

A paper recently released by the Reut Institute, in Tel Aviv, presents a compilation of evidence that the foundations are being laid for a Palestinian demand for a single state and for a return to the armed struggle against Israel. The paper also suggests that even among the leaders of Israel's Arab population, there is dwindling support for the two-state solution and a turn instead toward embracing the idea of a bi-national state.

"I am willing to make decisions that will entail painful compromises," Olmert declared at a state dinner for Bush in January, adding, "We have no interest in delaying matters. We don't want to procrastinate with the negotiations, lest changes for the worse take place on the Palestinian front. And we certainly don't want to delay the negotiation process when we have such political assistance [from the U.S.]."

What kind of assistance did he mean? Speaking of the Jewish outposts at the time, Bush announced decisively: "they ought to go .... we've been talking about it for four years. The agreement was, get rid of outposts, illegal outposts, and they ought to go."

What will the president say tomorrow?
Bookmark to del.icio.us  
 
Animated massacre
Animated Israeli film at Cannes explores Sabra and Shatila massacre.
Kowtowing to funders
When papers are sponsored, can their reporting be truly independent?
  1.   How has Pal position on refugees,Jerusalem and borders changed? 04:08  |  Sam 12/05/08
  2.   ADVICE FOR ABU QUISLING ABBAS 06:22  |  Arik Silverman 12/05/08
  3.   #1, Sam 09:33  |  Fritz 12/05/08
  4.   Fritz, how about reality? 09:52  |  Jordan 12/05/08
  5.   #1 Gosh, Sam, what a question! 09:54  |  Johnboy 12/05/08
  6.   sam PLO accepted robbery 09:57  |  Truth 12/05/08
  7.   Bush should face the music 09:58  |  Natallie Durson 12/05/08
  8.   Bush & McCain projecting image of continuity 10:01  |  Rowan 12/05/08
  9.   Agreed, The US Should Abandon Israel Completely 10:03  |  Mr. Know-It-All 12/05/08
  10.   So it goes... 10:42  |  Esther 12/05/08
  11.   Palestinians should abadon talk and sue for one state 10:48  |  El-Birawi 12/05/08
  12.   #9 Mr Know-it-All 10:56  |  Rozz 12/05/08
  13.   #4, Jordan - On Realities 11:10  |  Fritz 12/05/08
  14.   israel in stuff spot 11:11  |  jake 12/05/08
  15.   finally 11:15  |  paul 12/05/08
  16.   Why Blame Bush? 11:31  |  Tzfonit 12/05/08
  17.   akiva - where were u when arafat said no? 11:56  |  Dr Eric 12/05/08
  18.   Fritz 11:58  |  Sam 12/05/08
  19.   Dear Esther - Yosh is Israeli territory!!! 12:02  |  Dr Eric 12/05/08
  20.   Dear natalie - Israel wants peace!! 12:08  |  Dr eric 12/05/08
  21.   to truth #6 = zero truth 12:18  |  Dr Eric 12/05/08
  22.   Akiva Eldar Believes in Canoeing over Lava ! Leftist What Else? 12:23  |  Joseph . E 12/05/08
  23.   to#6 Truth, I hope you will soon return all.... 12:38  |  maurice 12/05/08
  24.   Arafat and PLO accepted Israel with open borders 12:48  |  El-Birawi 12/05/08
  25.   # 5 Johnboy 12:51  |  17 12/05/08
  26.   NOBODY WANT TO TALK TO BUSH NO MORE AT HOME, AKIVA 12:51  |  indrajaya 12/05/08
  27.   #5 in Sydney 13:12  |  Hilda 12/05/08
  28.   Where is Israel? 13:28  |  Marilyn 12/05/08
  29.   Sorry this is the Hopeless Room,Concilliation is down the hall 13:48  |  Ronnie Wolman 12/05/08
  30.   Iran holds the (atomic) keys to the future 13:49  |  Chanalau, Tova 12/05/08
  31.   My name is (Jewish) Israel, and I still haven`t understood...... 14:08  |  Swiss (Dino) 12/05/08
  32.   to Tzfonit #16 14:10  |  zeev 12/05/08
  33.   great idea - mr palestine should stay home 14:32  |  augustine e johnson 12/05/08
  34.   Finger licking good. 14:37  |  Baz Mann 12/05/08
  35.   Zeev Re Tzfonit 15:02  |  ...G1 12/05/08
  36.   #9 Mr Know It All in"frost-bite-falls" 15:29  |  John Allen 12/05/08
  37.   Bush? oh my.... 15:31  |  Marzia 12/05/08
  38.   Too all the anitsemites responding to Haaretz 15:43  |  John Allen 12/05/08
  39.   Bush should stay home 15:52  |  Brod 12/05/08
  40.   #9 Multiculturalism...... 15:57  |  John Allen 12/05/08
  41.   to John Allen 16:02  |  Marzia 12/05/08
  42.   A bi-national state? 17:05  |  sandra chitayat 12/05/08
  43.   To Marilyn from Australia, #28. 17:13  |  sandra chitayat 12/05/08
  44.   to Fritz -- again, how about reality? 17:20  |  Jordan 12/05/08
  45.   SOLUTION: GAZA AS A NEW DUBAI; PARTS OF W/B LINKED TO JORDAN 17:28  |  G. Marcus 12/05/08
  46.   to G1 #35 17:51  |  zeev 12/05/08
  47.   #27 Hilda 17:52  |  Janice 12/05/08
  48.   Bush has pre-senile dementia, like most of Israel`s allies 18:18  |  Palestinian in UK 12/05/08
  49.   to Jordan #44 - let us talk reality 18:28  |  zeev 12/05/08
  50.   Neville "Eldar" Chamberlain 18:30  |  Ed Sacks 12/05/08
  51.   they can want whatever they think is do to them 18:32  |  vladimir 12/05/08
  52.   bush should stay home 18:39  |  David Beneli 12/05/08
  53.   Palestinian in UK 18:39  |  17 12/05/08
  54.   Ed Sacks #50 18:42  |  Brod 12/05/08
  55.   truth, why pals do not accept that they wanted 18:46  |  vladimir 12/05/08
  56.   Dear Zev - Is there a price to starting a war and losing it?? 19:04  |  dr eric 12/05/08
  57.   The Problem With Anapolis, Camp David, Oslo, etc. 19:13  |  MIKE 12/05/08
  58.   To David Beneli #52 - Thank you for Oslo!!! 19:14  |  Dr Eric 12/05/08
  59.   AKIVA ELDAR SHOULD STAY HOME, IN GAZA 19:18  |  Jorge 12/05/08
  60.   to sandra chitayat #43 19:20  |  zeev 12/05/08
  61.   to david beneli #52 continued 19:24  |  Dr eric 12/05/08
  62.   @ 52: `Dr` Eric: LOL 19:50  |  Palestinian in UK 12/05/08
  63.   @24, el biravi, agree with you. 20:03  |  vladimir 12/05/08
  64.   Peace Plan (Bush won`t get there) 20:20  |  Ibrahim 12/05/08
  65.   to Dr. Eric #56 20:24  |  zeev 12/05/08
  66.   You are wrong Arik Silerman #2 20:24  |  bbl 12/05/08
  67.   Think of the advantages of a binational state 20:26  |  Aphemia 12/05/08
  68.   DR Eric have reason "Akiva all is false from u" 20:32  |  darmon 12/05/08
  69.   myth of "occupation" 20:35  |  Avram 12/05/08
  70.   to Dr Eric #58 20:39  |  zeev 12/05/08
  71.   Aphemia "Think of the advantages of a binational state" 20:45  |  17