More on the Road Map: Do Israel and the US Talk To Each Other?

by Steve

The sudden rush of activity by the Bush Administration to push fast and far for progress in the Middle East peace process is apparently catching many off guard, even our allies the Israelis. Coming as this does after months of disengagement and equating Palestinian uprisings with terrorism has created a situation where Bush now wants a summit meeting next week in Egypt with Israel and the Palestinians, and the Israelis feeling that Bush and most notably Sharon are pushing them into a unsafe corner.

I can’t help but think from reading the comments from Sharon and the Likud Members of the Knesset that Bush’s recent fast-tracking of this initiative has caught them totally off guard and that they have been at least misled by the US as to what we expected from Likud. This perhaps is coming from poor or inadequate communications by the US with Israel, perhaps?

First, in reading Sharon’s comments in selling the Knesset on the need for the road map, he sounds like the voice of reason and eventual peace. His Likud supporters in the Knesset on the other hand sound like they have been caught off guard by the flurry towards negotiations and feel that their security is being threatened by such a move. This is the price Bush and Sharon will pay for calling Palestinians who fight the occupation terrorists. Even though Sharon sounds ready to deal and ratchet down the tension, his allies now feel betrayed by him because they feel that such moves are rewarding terrorism.

After nearly every Likud MK threw angry accusations at the cabinet decision, Sharon delivered a response that reiterated several times his determination to "reach a political agreement, because I think it is important for Israel."

He said: "I think the idea that it is possible to continue keeping 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation - yes it is occupation, you might not like the word, but what is happening is occupation - is bad for Israel, and bad for the Palestinians, and bad for the Israeli economy. Controlling 3.5 million Palestinians cannot go on forever. You want to remain in Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah and Bethlehem?"

The Knesset session saw one member after another slamming Sharon for accepting the international peace plan. Few of the Likud MKs remained silent - two key faction members who did stay silent were Sharon's son, Omri and Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

MK David Levy, a Likud stalwart who moved leftward into Ehud Barak's government and returned to the Likud, held up the text of the road map and said "at this price, the left would have brought peace long ago. There's no compromise here. It gives up everything. Even leaving the settlements in our hands will be difficult."

He mocked the 14 reservations the government attached to the road map when it voted in favor of it on Sunday, saying "they'll end up like autumn leaves." Minister without Portfolio Uzi Landau, who voted against the plan on Sunday, said "it is far worse than Oslo."

Deputy Industry Minister Michael Ratzon said "the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And this document is hell. It is Israel's surrender to terror."

Yehiel Hazan MK, who heads the Knesset settlements lobby, said: "This decision is the destruction of Israel." When he said he wasn't sure if it meant his son would be able to build his home in Ariel, Sharon interjected and said "natural growth in the settlements can continue and you can build your children and your grandchildren homes inside the settlement."

Gamliel also called the road map "worse than Oslo - maybe it would have been better if we had accepted Oslo." She said she was shocked to learn Netanyahu did not fight the road map in the cabinet. "That's the biggest scandal of all," she said.

Keep in mind that it was just weeks ago that Sharon told everyone that he was going to Washington to tell Bush that the road map needed to be changed in order for Israel to accept it. Sharon then attached fourteen conditions to the road map, conditions that even his own people feel are one-sided and nonsense. Yet it seems that with the Bush Administration’s agreement to deal with Israeli security concerns, the Sharon government was not ready to bargain in earnest and totally misread the Americans.

Why? Were the Israelis given to believe that Bush would never push this far and this fast?

Second, rushing a summit or set of negotiations in a region that has not seen US leadership or engagement results in leaders who cannot or won’t talk to each other, because there has been no ongoing dialogue with the warring parties for the last two years. This is evident in the Haaretz story where there are limitations on whom is willing to meet with whom.

Israel is loath to attend an international conference where Prime Minister Ariel Sharon could expect to be isolated. Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, who is expected at a meeting Bush wants with pro-American Arab leaders, would be unlikely to meet Sharon publicly.

One possibility, said U.S. officials, would be for Bush to hold two sets of meetings, seeing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas in Jordan, and leaders of Arab states in Egypt. Israel is not eager to hold the summit in Egypt because of the chilly relationship with Cairo.

Arafat has noted this extreme pressure on Sharon and the Israelis and is shrewdly now telling the French that the Palestinians are willing to crack down on the violence and meet one of the oft-stated conditions that Likud demands. He has apparently learned just enough from his 2000 Camp David mistake to grab for whatever victory he can, while putting maximum pressure on the Israelis to meet their obligations.

Lastly, Bush is obviously taking a political chance that he can broker an agreement here when he has been a nonplayer since he came into office. In doing so, he is taking a political risk that his moves don’t force Israel to go farther and faster than it was ready to go, allowing others here at home (read Joe Lieberman and his own hawks in the GOP) to outflank him on the right.

Add to that Karl telling the president “Ya know, we really should get this Israeli-Palestinian thing resolved before next year; it will make you look good”, and what you get is either a laudable grab for peace by a president over his head, or a lunge based on faulty assumptions of power and divine providence.

Again, I can’t help but think that the Israelis’ shock at these developments stems from false assumptions on their part and missed signals and poor communications from us.

But the really interesting question to me is how this pushing around of Israel must infuriate the PNAC cabal. Is this an example of Karl Rove asserting domestic political imperatives over the cabal? And if so, what are the longer term consequences of that?