Qureia's challenge

9/9/2003

THE RESIGNATION Saturday of the pragmatic Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas after four frustrating months in office and the provisional acceptance of the post yesterday by Ahmed Qurei signify that the road map for Mideast peace is in serious trouble. Key reasons for the failure to implement the road map are discernible in the power struggle with Yasser Arafat that Abbas lost and in the conditions that Qurei said must be met if he is to accept Arafat's nomination to succeed Abbas.

Abbas had the great virtue of saying aloud that the militarization of the current intifada has been a catastrophe for Palestinians. His efforts to reform the Palestinian Authority and suspend the violence ran aground on a reef called Arafat. Abbas made it plain he could not continue if Arafat refused to permit all the Palestinian security services to be unified under Abbas's government, as the road map required. Since Arafat's power as paternalistic chieftain of the PLO has always rested upon his control of the money and the men with the guns, Abbas's terms were a demand that Arafat divest himself of power.

If Qurei does become prime minister, this negotiator of the 1993 Oslo peace accords will have to cope with the same Arafat who thwarted Abbas. And Qurei was not merely indulging in propaganda yesterday when he said he will need cooperation not only from Arafat but also from Israel, the Bush administration, and the other sponsors of the road map.

Now, when Palestinians and Israelis alike are descending into a new maelstrom of bloodletting, backers of the road map should ask Qurei to say in public what Abbas said against the militarization of Palestinian resistance to occupation. But President Bush should also press Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to respond to any cessation of Palestinian attacks by suspending land confiscations, house demolitions, settlement expansion, and targeted assassinations.

If there is to be progress on the road map, both sides must comply with its terms.