Solving the three axes of crises

Yasser Arafat's disappearance from the scene has raised hopes that perhaps a window of opportunity to a new era has now opened. The behavior of the rais throughout the peace process - and especially in its final stages, to which I was a witness - led me to conclude that he was not capable of deciding to end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian national movement.

Yet at the same time, I argued that the problem lay not only within him personally, but also in the emerging ethos of both national movements. For all that Arafat was a master of deception and double-talk, he did not invent the Palestinians' national dreams and positions, and his demands on core issues of the struggle were not personal caprices. He merely reflected and expressed the dreams and desires of his people.

This was the secret of his power: He was the embodiment of the collective spirit of the Palestinian people. His obsessive desire - to be a pan-Palestinian consensus leader - was what prevented him from making decisions. Arafat was the ultimate proof of Margaret Thatcher's dictum that desire for consensus is the negation of leadership.

Will things be any different with his successors? Have the chances of resolving the conflict via direct negotiations now increased?

It is important to understand that a change in leadership in no way changes the conditions for peace or its price. Peace will not be cheaper because of Arafat's disappearance. The tragedy of this conflict is that the only man whose signature on an agreement of compromise and reconciliation, which would include giving up unattainable dreams, could have been legitimate in the eyes of his people was incapable of bringing himself to sign. He took this legitimacy with him to the grave, and left his heirs with the same positions and the same ethos, on which compromise will be very difficult for them. That is his terrible legacy.

And as if this were not enough, it is also possible that in his heirs' eagerness to fill the vacuum of legitimacy that the founding father left behind him, they will be compelled to stick to his well-known positions, and perhaps even to be more extreme, if they wish to survive. This is also true because of the difficulty they will have in exercising authority over organizations in the field - both those affiliated with Fatah and those of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Arafat was the commander and the symbol for everyone. That will not be true of his heirs, and they will be compelled to make political compromises, to integrate the field organizations and the terrorist organizations into the leadership and to create coalitions that will make it even harder to make the necessary compromises with Israel.

This assessment leads to the conclusion that peace will be achievable only through an international arrangement - led by the United States and the Quartet with ongoing assistance from the Arab states, especially Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

If the all-powerful Arafat attributed such great importance to having an international umbrella escort him to the altar of an agreement, does anyone believe that lesser figures, saddled with such difficult terms of inheritance, would be able on their own to cast off the ethos of the right of return and the Temple Mount without a tight-fitting envelope of support from the international community, especially from the Arab states and the Palestinians' allies in Europe?

Ending the conflict is of supreme strategic interest for Israel. Its continuation is causing severe harm to Israel's existential values: immigration, economic growth, the ability to bridge social gaps that are currently among the deepest in any Western society and international standing. And similarly regarding another existential issue - that of Iran's nuclear program - where we understand that only by genuinely harnessing the international community are we likely to be rid of the threat of this doomsday, the same is true of the Palestinian issue.

The need for an international solution also stems from the constraints on the second Bush administration. Iran, Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are America's key missions in the Middle East. Bush's plan to visit Europe immediately after he is sworn in constitutes an admission that repairing his shattered relationship with the old continent is the key to solving all three of these axes of threat.

Israel must recognize one fundamental fact: Under no circumstances will Europe consent to a joint policy with the U.S. on Iran and Iraq if there is not an accompanying joint policy - one in which the Quartet, and each of its components, will play a real role - on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Thus the three axes of crisis in the Middle East are currently all intertwined. The U.S. did not want this to be the case, but its vital need to repair the trans-Atlantic relationship obligates it to compromise with its allies.

An Israeli-Palestinian peace must be a comprehensive international initiative; otherwise, it will not happen at all. The prime minister did well to obtain a commitment from President Bush on the outline of a final-status agreement that does not differ substantially from the Clinton outline, for which the Barak government strived. But the president's letter will not survive for long unless it also attains legitimacy from the other members of the Quartet and the Arab states - in other words, unless it becomes the basis for an international arrangement, and for the defensive shield that Israel will need when such an arrangement comes.