Mahmoud
Abbas’ Mission Improbable
Mouin Rabbani
and Chris Toensing
June 1, 2005
(Mouin Rabbani
is an Amman-based political analyst and a contributing editor
of Middle East Report. Chris Toensing is editor of Middle
East Report.)
Renewed,
if somewhat less euphoric talk of a historic opportunity for Middle
East peace accompanied Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas both heading
to and returning from his May 26, 2005 summit with President George
W. Bush at the White House. Yet the opportunity, of which much
has been written since Abbas’ victory in a presidential poll in
January, is primarily remarkable for the absence of any plan for
exploiting it.
The
atmospherics were indeed warm and pleasant in the sun-splashed
Rose Garden as Bush and Abbas emerged to meet the press after
their White House conference. Bush was effusive, if awkward in
his personal praise for Abbas, pointedly referring to him as “Mr.
President” (rather than “Chairman,” as the late Yasser Arafat
was called in Washington) and offering this summary of the Palestinian’s
campaign platform: “Vote for me -- I’m for peace, and I believe
in democracy.” Yet Abbas had flown across the Atlantic seeking
more than a presidential slap on the back.
Abbas’ White
House mission was a relatively straightforward affair. Having
been informed by Washington that he is the “partner for peace”
who the US and Israel claim has been missing since July 2000,
he was determined to find out if there is in fact a partnership
on offer. Mindful of Bush’s and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s
current preoccupation with Israel’s unilateral disengagement initiative,
his specific agenda was to examine whether plans are afoot to
implement the “road map” after Israel leaves the Gaza Strip, as
it is scheduled to do in mid-August 2005. The road map, a phased
plan for arriving at negotiations to end the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict sponsored by the Quartet of the United States, the UN,
the European Union and Russia, has not yet completed its first
phase. Abbas came to Washington to point this out, and to make
the case for jump-starting a meaningful process that achieves
concrete and timely results.
The head
of the Palestinian Authority (PA) heard encouraging words in this
vein. Bush once again called upon Israel to cease settlement expansion,
specifically mentioning Jerusalem in this respect, and clarified
assurances he had provided Sharon in April 2004 by noting that
the details of any peace settlement will need to be negotiated
with the Palestinians, not only with Washington. His statement
that “any final status agreement must be reached between the two parties
and changes to the 1949 armistice lines must be mutually agreed
to” was particularly welcome to Palestinian ears. Yet the
prospects that the Bush administration will match its rhetoric
with actual deeds are at best slim. The end result could well
be a case of inertia unleashing a chain reaction, with potentially
far-reaching implications for Palestinians, Israelis and the future
of their conflict.
OVER-INTERPRETED
SIGNALS
There is,
to be sure, a sense of rejuvenated engagement in Washington when
it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Where Bush’s first
term was characterized by partisan neglect, 2005 has seen growing
US involvement to manage the conflict and mobilize relevant developments
in the service of regional US policy objectives. Thus Washington
has actively promoted efforts to ensure a smooth Israeli departure
from the Gaza Strip, dispatching outgoing World Bank head James
Wolfensohn to oversee Israeli-PA “coordination” on behalf of the
Quartet. The Bush administration claimed credit for and ascribed
regional significance to a Palestinian leadership transition in
which elections produced a pragmatic victor. Notably, the administration
also compelled the Sharon government to suspend particularly conspicuous
settlement initiatives such as one in early 2005 that would have
confiscated all Arab property in East Jerusalem owned by non-residents.
Signals of
enhanced US engagement continued to flash at the May 26 summit,
with Bush promising to send Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
to facilitate “coordination” talks when the withdrawal date draws
near and pledging to transfer $50 million directly to the PA for
new housing in Gaza. The aid package may have been intended to
ameliorate the White House’s embarrassment at its failure to secure
unconditional approval for the $200 subvention to the PA announced
in the 2005 State of the Union address. Congress stipulated that
$50 million of that money would pay for Israeli construction of
“high-speed terminals” at checkpoints, and that the Women’s Zionist
Organization of America would be given $2 million to spend on
Palestinian public health. The rest of the tranche will not, in
all likelihood, go directly to the PA.
But one would
be mistaken to interpret personal warmth and other signs of engagement
as the initial stirrings of a sustained US effort to promote a
comprehensive resolution of the conflict. Pending the Rice mission
around the time of disengagement, the Bush administration has
not seen fit to send a high-level envoy to seize the opportunity
so widely lauded as historic. The task of Lt. Gen. William Ward,
appointed by Rice shortly after the Palestinian election, was
until quite recently restricted to vetting Abbas’ progress in
“consolidating” the PA’s security forces -- that is to say, eliminating
those elements that might use armed force for something other
than a crackdown on Hamas or other militant groups. Ward’s original
mandate, it is important to recall, was but a pale reflection
of the 2001 mandates of retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, whose futile
missions first clarified the extent to which the Bush administration
had accepted Israel’s view of the intifada as a security
crisis rather than a political one. The recent expansion of Ward’s
brief to include security coordination between Israel and the
PA merely reprises the brief of ex-CIA director George Tenet when
President Bill Clinton was still in the White House, and so underlines
the limits the US has imposed upon its own engagement since the
intifada broke out.
More to the
point, while Bush used his Rose Garden comments to reiterate Israel’s
obligations under the road map, he did not provide the explicit
assurance sought by Abbas that Israel can no longer decree when
the road map’s phases will begin. Gaza disengagement, Bush said
instead, is “an opportunity to lay the groundwork
for a return to the road map.”
In fact,
Bush’s statement after the US election that he is personally committed
to the establishment of a Palestinian state by 2009 above all
confirms that the formal 2005 deadline for the same objective
enumerated in the road map has become meaningless. The reason,
in a word, is Sharon.
“THE PRE-ROAD
MAP PHASE”
Seen from
Washington, Sharon’s unilateral disengagement initiative has produced
both opportunities and constraints. In the first column, the prospect
of Israeli settlements being permanently uprooted from occupied
Palestinian territory -- something that never occurred during
the Clinton years -- will be utilized to demonstrate that the
more hard-nosed approach espoused by the Republicans produces
real rather than ephemeral results. In the second, the reason
Sharon is prepared to implement such measures reflects his determination
to transform the nature of Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution.
Rather than
looking to US-sponsored bilateral negotiations to produce a comprehensive
peace treaty, Sharon is in the process of imposing a new relationship
with the Palestinians negotiated directly with Washington that
in his view will be sustainable for a generation, with or without
Palestinian consent and cooperation. If Washington is prepared
to support him, Sharon is ready to implement a further series
of unilateral withdrawals that, while consolidating Israel’s position
within the Occupied Territories, will involve real and visible
movement on a scale exceeding redeployments from Palestinian population
centers conducted pursuant to the Oslo accords of 1993 and 1995.
If, however, Bush insists upon a revival of bilateral Israeli-Palestinian
negotiations, Sharon will give him nothing, and stall and procrastinate
unless (or until) he is literally compelled to part with existing
assets.
Given this
menu of options, conscious as ever of domestic political calculations,
and preoccupied himself with Iraq and his “transformational” vision
for the region, Bush seems almost certain to take the path of
least resistance. Seen from the White House, it simply makes no
sense to provoke a costly conflict with a close and politically
influential ally in order to achieve less than is being offered.
The price Sharon is demanding in return -- chiefly, endorsement
of the West Bank separation barrier and US recognition of strategic
settlement blocs and the Jewish character of the Israeli state
-- are things Bush is inclined to accept even without excessive
prodding.
Oddly
enough, Sharon was also in Washington during the week of May 26.
Though, as the Israeli press reported, he did not meet with US
officials so as to avoid uncomfortable questions about his plans
upon completion of the Gaza disengagement, the Israeli premier
did engage in diplomacy through the speech he gave to the annual
policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC). Where Bush offered rote reminders of what Israel must
do to fulfil the terms of the road map, Sharon assured his audience
that they were still living in “the pre-road map phase.” He reminded
them, moreover, of Bush’s April 14, 2004 letter that, in Sharon’s
words, guarantees that “the major Israeli population centers in
Judea and Samaria will remain an integral part of the state of
Israel.”
Even
if one posits, as some commentators have, that the tonal dissonance
between Bush’s Rose Garden comments and Sharon’s AIPAC speech
is a portent of US-Israeli discord in the post-disengagement future,
it is at least clear that the Bush administration has not yet
attempted to compel Sharon to part with any component of his strategic
vision. By choice or by default, the Bush administration is still
acting, in the words of former Clinton official Aaron David Miller,
as “Israel’s lawyer.” If the White House does adopt a tougher
stance toward its Israeli ally, this may come too late for the
“partner for peace” in Ramallah.
HITTING THE
CEILING
Mahmoud Abbas,
of course, is involved in an entirely different ballgame than
is Sharon. Having been elected on a pragmatic political program,
his main priority at the White House was to demonstrate to his
people that his approach not only works, but is more effective
than the militant path preached by the Islamists and powerful
factions within his own Fatah movement. Not less importantly,
he needed to return from Washington with enough ammunition in
the form of concrete achievements to confront domestic rivals
-- chiefly rival Fatah power centers -- who are blocking his attempts
to reconfigure the Palestinian political system and consolidate
his mandate.
Abbas views
the latter, represented by the Fatah Central Committee and including
powerful PA officials such as Prime Minister Ahmad Qurei and recently
cashiered security chiefs, as his more immediate and therefore
primary obstacle. To overcome these entrenched elites, he has
formed an alliance of convenience with more activist, popular
and comparatively disenfranchised Fatah leaders such as the imprisoned
Marwan Barghouti, as well as the political wing of Hamas. These
leaders share Abbas’ interest in speedy legislative elections,
which are expected to accelerate the process of leadership renewal
within Fatah and the political system as a whole. Abbas’ problem
is that he will lose credibility if these elections are delayed
beyond their announced date of July 17, and lose authority if
they are held before he is able to deliver significant results
on the ground. Given that many Fatah reformers have come out in
favor of delay because of Abbas’ meager achievements, and given
that the vested interests that control the PA-Fatah bureaucracy
will remain powerful enough to prevent real change until confronted
at the ballot box, speedy elections are unlikely to be a winning
proposition. The Palestinian president’s only alternative, effective
US pressure on Israel rapidly and visibly to ameliorate Palestinian
living conditions, seems equally unlikely to materialize.
If achieving
progress toward a genuine peace process is of critical importance
to Abbas, the organic connection between his diplomatic achievements
and his domestic position is even more so. Yet, it is now clear
that the one thing Bush will not do on the eve of disengagement
is unveil a new diplomatic initiative that will further complicate
Sharon’s domestic position. The political ceiling, it seems, is
the second phase of the road map: a Palestinian state with provisional
borders, and something Bush would be more than pleased to tout
in a region riven by increasing levels of anti-American hostility.
It is a development that would greatly gladden Sharon, whose strategic
objective remains a long-term interim agreement, yet one that
Abbas, for precisely the same reason, has adamantly rejected since
his ill-fated 2003 premiership.
GETTING TO
YES
By all accounts,
Mahmoud Abbas and his advisers left Washington positively delighted.
On the one hand, they ascribed real meaning to Bush’s pronouncements.
Secondly, given that Abbas was elected less on the basis of wholesale
Palestinian identification with his agenda than the belief that
he can achieve it, the PA delegation feels the summit provided
enough evidence to validate and sustain this belief among Palestinians.
“We have noticed and felt an American commitment,” Abbas explained
to the Washington Post after the summit. “Perhaps this
commitment manifests itself through the [expanded] mandate of
General Ward.”
The PA’s
enthusiasm seems at best premature. Alongside his mentions of
Israeli obligations and the 1949 armistice lines, Bush also confirmed
suspicions that his definition of Palestinian freedom is more
about the trappings of democracy than full Palestinian sovereignty
or an end to Israeli occupation. Responding to a reporter’s question
about control over Gaza’s airspace after Israel’s scheduled disengagement,
he stated, “Now as a democracy evolves and people see that this
is a government fully capable of sustaining democratic institutions
and adhering to rule of law and transparency and puts strong anti-corruption
devices in place, answers to the will of the people, than it becomes
easier to deal with issues such as airspace.”
Yet it is
precisely because Abbas needs to respond to the will of his people,
for whom national liberation either trumps personal freedom or
is inseparable from it, that Abbas’ forecast seems rather bleak.
Having seen Abbas to the airport without making concrete commitments
on the real issues, Washington’s subsequent failure to deliver
on its implicit promises in the weeks and months to come could
well constitute a critical turning point for the Palestinian leader.
For just as real success at the White House would have significantly
empowered Abbas in Palestine, so failure will give his rivals
-- who are to be found chiefly within the ranks of Fatah -- a
vital shot in the arm. If they play their cards well and form
the right alliances, they can exploit his inability to deliver
to eventually bring him down a second time.
Should Abbas fall once
more, the implications are potentially enormous. Because the Palestinian
political system has only begun the process of transformation
from one dominated by a single individual to one led by institutions,
Abbas is more likely to be replaced by fragmentation and chaos
than either Marwan Barghouti or Hamas.
At
the same time, as shown by Bush’s heavy focus on the personage
of Mahmoud Abbas, the modestly invigorated US commitment to moderating
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is almost wholly predicated upon
the survival of a single individual in power. Nor would Abbas’
line of credit in Washington be extended if he were to fend off
internal challengers by altering his pragmatic rhetoric to appear
to his own people as a stauncher defender of Palestinian aspirations,
rather than as the best interlocutor with the US and Israel. At
the World Economic Forum in Jordan in late May, Sen. Gordon Smith
(R-OR) stated in blunt fashion the attitude toward Palestinian
“rejectionism” that is probably also the Bush administration’s
default position: “Until we have someone on the other side who
is willing to say ‘yes,’ we’re not going to continue to prostitute
the American presidency to people who aren’t serious.” For Abbas,
the most urgent problem is not whether he can say “yes” to the
US and Israel, but whether he will ever be asked the right questions.
