Gość: A.D.
IP: *.mco.bellsouth.net
01.08.03, 02:21
)) Ocena spotkania Busha z Sharonem wyglada tragicznie dla Palestynczykow i
dla tego, o czyms kiedys mowiono jako o 'mapie drogowej'. Nic nowego dla
mnie, bo nic nowego w takim ukladzie spodziewac sie nie mozna, ale za to
wielu glupcow bedzie bardzo zawiedzionych...
((World dispatch
Bush just doesn't get it
The US president has allowed himself to be comprehensively bamboozled by
Ariel Sharon, says Simon Tisdall. Peace is as far away as ever
Thursday July 31, 2003
Not a little hope attached to this week's talks in Washington between the US
president, George Bush, and the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon.
Violence between Israelis and Palestinians has fallen sharply in recent
weeks. Both sides have spoken in positive terms about the prospect of peace;
both have made gestures, albeit mostly verbal, towards attaining that goal.
Not a little fear attended the talks, too. The fear, for Israelis and
Palestinians but also for the many others who yearn for a just end to this
interminable conflict, is that without urgent, substantive steps forward -
along the lines laid out by the international "road map" - a golden
opportunity may be lost.
Mr Bush put a characteristically optimistic spin on his discussions with Mr
Sharon and, last week, with the Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud
Abbas. "I think we're making pretty good progress in a short period of
time," he said.
He might think that is the case. He might wish it to be so. But there are
three basic grounds for challenging Mr Bush's rosy judgment.
The first cause for concern arises from the sight of Mr Sharon, standing
alongside the US leader, reiterating in uncompromising terms his
preconditions for negotiations on the fundamental issues that separate the
two peoples.
If anything, Mr Sharon hardened his position. He made no mention, as he has
in the past, of Israel's acceptance of a future Palestinian state; he made
no reference, as before, to the unsustainability of the occupation of
Palestinian land; and perhaps most ominously of all, he omitted all direct
reference to the "road map".
"I wish to move forward with a political process with our Palestinian
neighbours," Mr Sharon said. "And the right way to do that is only after a
complete cessation of terror, violence and incitement, full dismantlement of
terror organisations, and completion of the reform process of the
Palestinian Authority."
The key word in this sentence is "after". What Mr Sharon was saying, indeed
demanding, was that Mr Abbas disarm, disband, and possibly lock up, leaders
and members of militant organisations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad,
before Israel does anything substantive by way of reciprocal measures.
Mr Sharon appeared to anticipate failure, even to expect it. "We are
thankful for every hour of increased quiet," he said. "At the same time, we
are concerned that this welcome quiet will be shattered any minute as a
result of the continued existence of terror organisations which the
Palestinian Authority is doing nothing to eliminate."
His remarks, in a prepared statement, also seemed to imply that Mr Abbas
must achieve complete political control within the authority, including
ousting Yasser Arafat from any position of real influence or executive
authority for good, before Israel would act.
Mr Sharon is asking for the impossible, as he must know very well. For the
second reason for challenging Mr Bush's optimistic assessment is that Mr
Abbas has neither the political nor military power to satisfy these Israeli
demands at this stage, even if he were fully minded to do so.
His position remains weak, as is to be expected after only a few,
controversial months presiding over a government divided and impecunious
after years of intifada. He cannot issue fiats or make demands without
risking his own downfall, or worse, an inter-Palestinian conflict. If he
makes promises he cannot deliver, his credibility will be undermined among
his supporters, opponents, and among the Israeli public.
He has no choice but to tread carefully. He needs real Israeli concessions,
not mere gestures. So far they have not been offered.
Mr Abbas is already accused by some of his own people of collaborating with
the Israelis, of being a dupe or a stooge. They say his policy of
engagement, before and since the Aqaba summit, has brought few tangible
results. They say the handful of prisoner releases, the charades over the
uprooting of "unauthorised outposts", and the very limited military
withdrawal, are proof not of Mr Sharon's good faith but of his duplicity.
They say, in short, that Mr Abbas is being taken for a ride, that the
Americans are not really pushing Mr Sharon, and indeed, that Mr Sharon is to
a lesser extent taking Mr Bush for a ride, too.
It would be comforting to reject all this and say it is merely the product
of years of bloodshed and abiding distrust, that all will be well in the
end.
But when Mr Sharon in Washington went on to defy the US president, to his
face, over Israel's construction of the West Bank security wall, and to
ignore the road map's requirement for a freezing of settlement activities,
Palestinian suspicions that he is engaged in the old game of talking peace
while seizing more and more Palestinian land understandably deepen.
In terms of the bottom line, all Mr Sharon committed Israel to do was to
take unspecified "additional steps ... if calm prevails and we witness the
dismantlement of terror organisations". This is no commitment at all. And
still Mr Bush kept smiling.
In truth, Mr Bush himself is the third reason why optimism seems misplaced
at the end of this week's talks.
He says things are moving forward quickly. But he ignores the fact that he
wasted two years after he came into office, during which time the conflict
grew ever more embittered and entrenched. The opportunity for action is now
very limited, partly as a result.
Mr Bush says he and his advisers are committed to the "road map" and making
peace work, in line with the timetable for establishing a Palestinian state
by 2005. But in reality, they are massively distracted by Iraq, where
problems mount, and by broader domestic controversies that are building as
the US election year approaches.
Enforced regime change in Iraq is not facilitating the Arab-Israeli peace
process, as Mr Bush has frequently claimed it would. If anything, the
controversial US policy is obstructing it, just as it did for different
reasons before Saddam Hussein's downfall.
Mr Bush also seems quite happy to be almost blatantly bamboozled by Mr
Sharon, who is a much more wily and subtle politician that the former Texas
governor will ever be accused of being. The Israeli leader must be privately
delighted to have a US counterpart who is so easy to handle.
The way Mr Sharon flatters him so outrageously suggests just a smidgin of an
older man's condescension.
But Mr Bush's biggest blind spot stems not from his vanity, but from his
utter, simplistic determination to cast the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in
the fundamental, black and white, for-us-or-against-us terms of his "war on
terror".
"Those who want to destroy the peace process through terrorist activities
must be dealt with," he said this week, "There will be no peace if terrorism
flourishes... The rise of a peaceful Palestinian state and the long-term
security of the Israeli people both depend on defeating the threat of
terrorist groups." He went on: "The Palestinian Authority must undertake
sustained, targeted and effective operations to confront those engaged in
terror."
In other words, Mr Bush seems to have bought, in its entirety, Mr Sharon's
Machiavellian proposition that any act of "terrorism", however loosely
defined, may constitute j