Bush, Israel, The Middle East & Even the Best of Intentions...

President Bush reiterated some core realities and assurances to the Israeli people over the past two days, most importantly, that Israel remains "a homeland for the Jewish people," and that "any peace agreement between them [the Israelis & Palestinians] will require mutually agreed adjustments to the armistice lines of 1949 to reflect current realities."
But a disreality also permeated the visit. As Calev Ben-David points out below, "without first changing some of the current harsh realities on the ground," grand visions of peace and a two- state solution can be at best naive and disingenuous and as Ari Shavit notes, at worst, dangerous. Shavit gives President Bush credit for understanding the real dangers facing Israel and the West, and applauds him for having the courage to take on the big issue of radical Islam. He cautions though, that "the United States does not have the safety margins for another mistake such as the one that brought Hamas to power. A mistake of that kind will not only endanger the future of the State of Israel, it will endanger the ability of Western civilization to confront the forces of September 11, 2001."
Martin Peretz reminds us that while "America is the only country with the power to induce Israel to make perilous concessions and, therefore, it is the only country whose government Arabs - both in Palestine and in the surrounding countries - are motivated to influence; there are some realities that neither the American president nor the best laid plans of other mice and men can influence or affect." Peretz notes , "The fact is that the great impediment to peace with Israel is the fanatic obstinacy of the Palestinians" and then asks, "Does anyone have a strategy for negotiating with that?"
And lastly, Hillel Halkin, in this month's Commentary, suggests that even if the Palestinians were granted all of a contiguous West Bank within which to establish their state, "that [the] British Mandate Palestine never was, and is not today, big enough to accommodate both a Jewish and an Arab state. The “two-state” solution never could succeed and never will." His solution is for Israel to pull back to its self-determined borders (including a united Jerusalem) and leave the Palestinians to re-establish a federation with the Jordanians.
Into such quicksand has President Bush descended. Will he rise out of the desert yet and leave a lasting legacy?
david brumer



Bush: Israeli-Palestinian Peace Agreement Must Ensure "Defensible Borders" for Israel
President Bush said in Jerusalem on Thursday: "There should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967. The agreement must establish Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people, just as Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people. These negotiations must ensure that Israel has secure, recognized, and defensible borders. And they must ensure that the state of Palestine is viable, contiguous, sovereign, and independent." "While territory is an issue for both parties to decide, I believe that any peace agreement between them will require mutually agreed adjustments to the armistice lines of 1949 to reflect current realities and to ensure that the Palestinian state is viable and contiguous. I believe we need to look to the establishment of a Palestinian state and new international mechanisms, including compensation, to resolve the refugee issue." "I know Jerusalem is a tough issue. Both sides have deeply felt political and religious concerns. I fully understand that finding a solution to this issue will be one of the most difficult challenges on the road to peace, but that is the road we have chosen to walk. Security is fundamental. No agreement and no Palestinian state will be born of terror. I reaffirm America's steadfast commitment to Israel's security." (White House)

Bush's Friendly Nudge
If there was a body language of President George Bush's visit to Jerusalem and Ramallah, it was that of the friendly nudge. "The only way to have lasting peace, the only way for an agreement to mean anything, is for the two parties to come together and make the difficult choices," Bush said with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Wednesday."
At best, engagement means pushing both sides, or even attempting to impose agreement. At worst, it is a euphemism for mainly pushing Israel, the more compliant party, while ignoring the Palestinians' failure to abide by their commitments - even those under the PA's complete control, such as ending official glorification of suicide bombers and incitement against Israel.
This week, Tawfik Hamid, a former disciple of arch-terrorist Ayman al-Zawahiri, told The Jerusalem Post that any Israeli concessions should be conditioned on the "demonstrable sustained abandonment of incitement in the media, the mosques, and the educational system." This is what Bush should be telling the Arab world, and what the US should be closely monitoring and pressing to make sure it happens.
The first prerequisite for peace is ending Arab incitement to terrorism, hatred and war. (Jerusalem Post)

Strategy Needed to End the Jiha Against Zion
Marty Peretz
How many times have I heard this refrain? "This president is the best friend Israel has ever had." Hundreds of times. About Ronald Reagan. About Bill Clinton. And now about George Bush. I suppose, it is true in a certain abstract sense about each of them. They probably also understood that the prime impediment to a peace between the Israelis and those who now call themselves Palestinians (this nomenclature is relatively new to the Arabs of Palestine) is fanatic resistance to the non-negotiable reality of a Jewish state in the Holy Land. America is the only country with the power to induce Israel to make perilous concessions and, therefore, it is the only country whose government Arabs - both in Palestine and in the surrounding countries - are motivated to influence. Yet there are some realities that neither the American president nor the best laid plans of other mice and men can influence or affect. You can force this bloc of settlements to close down and draw the border here rather than there and even color code Jerusalem to allow the Arabs to control the Temple Mount (which would be a terrible affront to Jewish history that the Muslims want especially to affront) and to hand sovereignty over Palestinian neighborhoods in the city to the Palestinians and contrive some cynical and unprecedented formula for allowing some "refugees" (they are almost all dead actually) to "return" and creating a fund for compensation of zillions of dollars (to which Israel should not contribute because it has absorbed since 1948 a larger number of true Jewish refugees from the Islamic world) - yet not even all of this would end the jihad against Zion. The fact is that the great impediment to peace with Israel is the fanatic obstinacy of the Palestinians. Does anyone have a strategy for negotiating with that? (New Republic)

Bush Vision of Peace Still Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Calev Ben-David
Asked this week how a two-state solution can be implemented while Hamas controls Gaza, Bush responded, "There's three tracks going on during this process. One is the vision track. Let me make sure everybody understands, in our delegation, the goal. The goal is for there to be a clear vision of what a state would look like, so that, for example, reasonable Palestinian leadership can say, here's your choice: You can have the vision of Hamas, which is dangerous and will lead to war and violence, or you can have the vision of a state, which should be hopeful."
US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley was more specific, saying "When the people of Gaza are presented with this vision, they can make a choice and invite the Palestinian Authority back in to administer Gaza."
Really? Entranced by a final-status agreement that involves painful concessions, the people of Gaza somehow "invite" Fatah back, and Hamas and its radical Islamic allies simply lay down their arms and pass on power peacefully to Mahmoud Abbas?
Unfortunately, the problem with those Palestinians who oppose a two-state solution isn't that they lack a vision of a Palestinian state - it's that they lack a vision for a Jewish state existing alongside it.
If simply attaining a vision of a final two-state agreement were all, or even most, of what was needed to bring peace, than the Clinton Camp David proposal, or the Geneva Initiative, would have had far more influence on the situation here than they have had so far (which is none).
This isn't to say that having a vision of peace isn't a good or necessary thing. But it is naïve, or disingenuous, to think it can be implemented, or can even move the process of implementation forward, without first changing some of the current harsh realities on the ground.
And all this, of course, is predicated on the belief that two very weak leaders of two shaky governments can arrive at the vision sometime in the next year.
Bush is to be commended for his sincere belief in the power of a vision of peace, and on his dedication this week to try to make it happen.
During his time in the White House, though, he has sometimes confused rhetoric with reality, and overestimated the power of simply having a vision - such as "Bringing democracy to the Middle East" - with the ability to make it actually happen.
It's nice, and right, to dream, especially of peace. But as the US president saw this week in Jerusalem, sometimes the skies here are not blue - and when you're not in Kansas anymore, or in the Wonderful Land of Oz, dreams and visions shouldn't be confused with reality.

Bush's Divine Mission
Ari Shavit
The person who is waking up this morning in the presidential suite of the King David Hotel is a God-fearing man. A man who believes that a hidden hand brought him from Texas to the presidency in order to carry out a Divine mission. The president cannot say so publicly, but since September 11, 2001 it has been clear to him that the role assigned him is both historic and religious: to save America from the new barbarians; to defend the West from the Huns who are attacking it from the East.
When the man from Texas looks at the golden halo of the Dome of the Rock, he has some time to think about everything that lies to the east of the King David Hotel: The Israeli occupation, Palestinian extremism, Arab dysfunction and Islamic zealotry, the struggle for Iraq and the threat of Iran, the disquiet in Afghanistan and the danger embodied in Pakistan. And the feeling that is spreading in the East that the West is in retreat. The increasing assessment that the 21st-century Crusades are about to end in defeat.
The man standing at the window this morning is a very lonely man. He is vilified in his own country and almost a leper in the international community. The America that he tried to save has turned against him, and the West that he wanted to defend is dismissive of him. But George W. Bush is not deterred, nor does he bend to public opinion, to the media and to trendy thinking. Unlike some of his friends, he is not an opportunist who changes his stripes. He conducts his dialogue with history and with God. And since he is a man of moral clarity and simple principles and character, he does not tend to give in. Even when the current turns against him he remains faithful to his truth. George Bush defined his truth concerning the Holy Land on June 24, 2002.
This was the essence of that statement: The solution to the 100-year-old conflict is a two-state solution, but before the two-state solution is implemented a Palestinian conversion must take place. Only after the Palestinian people undergo a conceptual, ideological and institutional conversion will it be possible to establish a Palestinian state that will exist alongside Israel in peace and prosperity. So when President Bush looks at Jerusalem this morning, the question he should ask himself is whether he has remained faithful to his truth. The question that he should ask himself is whether the present diplomatic course does not contradict his own vision. And whether it is reasonable to expect that during 2008 the Palestinians will undergo the profound reform needed. And what the consequences would be of establishing an immature Palestinian state before the Palestinian conversion is completed. And whether there isn't a danger that a virtual diplomatic process divorced from reality will distance peace instead of bringing it closer. The region spread out beyond the swimming pool of the King David Hotel is a gloomy one. President Bush can be proud of the achievements of recent months in Iraq, but he cannot deceive himself. The zealots still have the momentum, the moderates are finding it difficult to cooperate. Egypt and Saudi Arabia are putting out feelers toward Iran, Abu Mazen and Salam Fayyad are walking on thin ice. In this state of affairs, the United States does not have the safety margins for another mistake such as the one that brought Hamas to power. A mistake of that kind will not only endanger the future of the State of Israel, it will endanger the ability of Western civilization to confront the forces of September 11, 2001. The right formula is the Bush vision. To act with determination in order to create Palestinian capability before precisely defining the borders of the Palestinian territory. To promote Paris before devoting ourselves to Annapolis. To help the Palestinians bring about their conversion rather than pretending that the conversion has already taken place. In short: to return to George W. Bush's fundamental truths. Many people mock President Bush. But the president who is descending from the presidential suite of the King David Hotel this morning is a courageous man. A man with a mission. Even when he erred, he did so because he was trying to deal with a challenge that others had evaded. But now, on his way to Bethlehem, the Church of the Beautitudes and Capernaum, Bush must be true to himself. He must leave a seal of truth in the Holy Land.

The Peace Planners Strike Again
Hillel Halkin

The hard fact is that British Mandate Palestine never was, and is not today, big enough to accommodate both a Jewish and an Arab state. The “two-state” solution never could succeed and never will.
To assert as much is not to propose an “undivided land of Israel” stretching from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River. Change “land of Israel” to “Palestine,” and you have the solution of Hamas. A Jewish state entertaining any such idea would be engaged in a romantic form of suicide.
Israel will have to withdraw, for the sake of its own survival, from most of the West Bank. It should not do so, however, as part of a settlement establishing a Palestinian state that can only be a permanent danger to it. On the contrary: it should withdraw on its own and in such a way that a Palestinian state will not come into being. Pulling back to the security fence while holding on to all of Jerusalem, without which no Palestinian state is possible, would be the best way of accomplishing this. As I have argued before in these pages, Israel has only one responsibility toward the Palestinians of the West Bank: either to give them full equality as Israeli citizens or to give them full freedom without Israeli occupation or control. It does not owe them a state and has no interest in their having one.
What, then, would happen to them? As I have also argued, left to their own devices the West Bankers would sooner or later join up again with Jordan, a country of 90,000 square kilometers with which they were united between 1949 and 1967. Over half of Jordan’s nearly 5.5 million inhabitants are already of Palestinian origin. Physically and culturally, the western part of Jordan is a mirror-image replica of the West Bank. Palestinians have always felt at home in it, more than in any other part of the Arab world.
It is said in objection to this that King Abdullah and the Jordanian ruling class, whose Bedouin origins are not Palestinian, fear an eventual Palestinian takeover, do not therefore want the West Bank with its large and politically unruly Palestinian population, and cannot be forced to re-absorb it against their will. This is true. But the Jordanian ruling class has even more to fear from Islamic fundamentalists than it does from Palestinians, who are well integrated in Jordanian society, and the chaotic West Bank reality that would be left behind by an Israeli withdrawal may make Jordan or Hamas the only two alternatives. In such a case, it is not difficult to imagine Abdullah, with the agreement of Israel and moderate Palestinian elements, sending his army into the West Bank to take control of it. This would be in the Jordanian—as well as in the American and European—interest, not as a favor to Israel.
As for the Gazans, they can be left to stew in the juices of Hamas for as long as it takes for them either to revolt or for Israel to move in militarily and throw Hamas out. In the end, a Jordanian solution would be best for them, too. Transferred to Jordanian sovereignty with a corridor through Israel, Gaza would give Jordan a seaport on the Mediterranean, which would be an economic boon for both parties.
Needless to say, such a scenario has its own potential perils. If the Hashemite regime in Amman ever fell to Palestinian or Islamic radicals, Israel would find itself in a serious situation. On the whole, however, it is safe to say that Palestinian irredentism would be better contained within a Jordanian framework. As citizens of a large and potentially prosperous country like Jordan, the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza would not feel cooped up in a miniature polity in which their opportunities were limited and their frustrations were great. Israel would no longer be the envied big neighbor next door. The grief and anger for what was lost in 1948 would be easier to manage. They might even, with the passage of time, be gotten over entirely.


A Jewish State
Gerald M. Steinberg
In response to the obsessive efforts to deny the Jewish people the right to national self-determination, Israelis have started to demand explicit public and unambiguous acceptance as a Jewish state, reflecting Jewish culture, holidays, language, etc., just as France is French, Italy is Italian, Iran is Islamic, etc. Fourteen years after the exuberance of Oslo, with the renewal of peace talks at the Annapolis meeting, Prime Minister Olmert put the recognition of the right of the Jews to sovereign equality squarely on the table. Unless the Palestinians, the Saudi leadership, Bashar Assad's regime in Syria, and others who claim to be interested in peace end their campaigns to delegitimize Israel, the conflict will continue. Similarly, as long as the demonization continues in the UN, and has strong support in the UK and Europe, these governments cannot be considered to be serious partners in peace efforts.
(Canadian Jewish News)