-Caveat Lector-
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13461
Right-Wing Hawks Win Big On Middle East
Jim Lobe, AlterNet
June 25, 2002
The long-awaited speech by President George W. Bush on the Middle East marks
a resounding victory for the pro-Likud hawks in his administration and
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Sharon and his supporters within the Bush White House (Cheney, Rumsfeld et
al) have tried for months to persuade the Bush administration and the larger
public that Israel's fight against Palestine -- and Yasser Arafat, in
particular -- is an extension of the global war on terror. It seems their
efforts have paid off.
I'm surprised he didn't begin his speech with 'Shalom', the standard
Israeli greeting, said one Arab journalist here after Bush's appearance in
the White House Rose Garden. I'm surprised he didn't read it in Hebrew.
Outlining his plan for peace in the Middle East, Bush insisted that
Palestinians elect new leaders, new institutions, and new security
arrangements with their neighbors as a precondition for U.S. support for an
independent Palestinian state. I call on the Palestinian people to elect
new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror, Bush declared. In doing so,
the president wholly repudiated Yasser Arafat -- though he never once
mentioned his name.
The speech was greeted with enthusiastic praise by the coalition of
Christian Right and neo-conservative hawks who have repeatedly called on
Bush to extend his war on terrorism in Afghanistan to Iraq and Iran, as well
as the Palestinian Authhority.
President Bush showed strong moral leadership by acknowledging that the
path to peace doesn't run through Arafat's compound, said the House
Majority Whip, Tom DeLay, one of Likud's most fervent backers in Congress.
Christian Right televangelist Pat Robertson was delighted by Bush's demand
for the ouster of Arafat and predicted that Arab states are going to come
into line. The Wall Street Journal, which has been calling for Arafat's
ouster for months, praised Bush's break from tired Saudi-State diplomacy,
and called the speech far more daring [than had been expected], and
potentially a major leap forward in U.S. Middle East diplomacy.
Bush's speech -- which appeared to drive the last nail into the coffin of
the nine-year-old Oslo peace process -- is a major blow to moderates within
the administration, especially Secretary of State Colin Powell. Although
Powell publicly defended Bush's decision to effectively break with Arafat
the next day, he had been privately warning the President against such a
policy for weeks. Powell believes the action may exacerbate the level of
violence, particularly if it is not accompanied by tough demands on Israel.
That prediction was echoed by none other than Israeli Foreign Minister
Shimon Peres, according to a correspondent with Yediot Aharonot, Israel's
biggest mass-circulation newspaper. Shimon Shiffer -- who was with the
minister as he watched Bush's speech -- wrote that Peres repeatedly
denounced Bush's demand for Arafat's ouster as a fatal mistake. He warned
that, The abyss into which the region will plunge will be as deep as the
expectations from this speech were high. There will be a bloodbath.
Bush did offer Palestinians the prospect of an internationally recognized
provisional state within 18 months. A final peace accord with Israel --
covering the status of Jerusalem, recognition of the two countries'
permanent borders, and the fate of Palestinian refugees -- would be
negotiated within another 18 months. But he also warned that Palestinian
failure to implement sweeping reforms and satisfy Israeli security demands
could stall progress toward those ends indefinitely. Moreover, acccording to
Bush, Israel should only have to withdraw from Palestinian territory and end
its settlement activity as we make progress towards security.
In comparison, the president set very few conditions on Israel and did not
repeat his previous demand (made less than three months ago) for an
immediate Israeli withdrawal from territory and towns handed over to the PA
under the Oslo process at that time. Sharon ignored the U.S. call for
withdrawal and was then praised by Bush as a man of peace when he visited
the White House a few weeks later. Bush also obliged Sharon by issuing
pointed warnings to Syria for its backing for Hezbollah in southern Lebanon
in his speech. There is nothing here that could give Palestinians hope,
said James Zogby, president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute
(AAI) and a supporter of the Oslo process.
Peace activists also found little cause for hope in Bush's speech.
The root cause of terrorism and suicide bombing was hardly addressed at
all: the situation of young Palestinians under an increasingly tight
occupation, who see themselves oppressed and dispossessed, deprived of all
hope and expectation for the future, abandoned by the world, and who reach
the point where they decide to blow themselves up in order
