'New reality' for Palestinians
TEL AVIV -- President Bush emerged from two hours of consultations with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel and bluntly told the Palestinians to stop living in the past.
Palestinian refugees can go to Palestine when the new state is created, he said; Israel is a Jewish state. The major Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are facts on the ground and cannot be wished away. The separation barrier Israel is building between its population centers and those of the Palestinians is OK, as long as it's not forever.
And by the way, Bush added, Sharon -- the Israeli whom Palestinians love to hate more than any other -- is a bold and capable leader, one whose courage they should emulate.
If it wasn't the Palestinian leadership's worst nightmare, it was pretty close.
"This is a coup that will not be accepted by anyone," said Abbas Zaki, a member of the central committee of the ruling Fatah movement. "We are facing a new reality. Bush has performed a mercy killing on the peace process. He accepted the transformation of our cities into isolated areas, without territorial integrity."
The Palestinian Authority's spokesmen expressed confidence until the day before the meeting in Washington that Sharon was overreaching and could not succeed.
But the Authority's leaders seemed on the verge of panic by midday yesterday, as the impending disaster grew increasingly apparent.
After a morning meeting in Ramallah, they condemned Sharon's proposal to withdraw all Jewish settlements and some military installations from the Gaza Strip as an attempt to turn Gaza into "a big prison."
They also threatened to cancel all their "commitments in the signed accords," an apparent reference to Bush's internationally-endorsed "road map" to Mideast peace, in which they committed to repress terrorist organizations and stop incitement against Israel.
"This is a scheme against al Haram a-Sharif [Muslims' name for the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem] and against our Islamic and Christian sites," the Authority said in a statement distributed by WAFA, the official Palestinian news agency that termed the Sharon-Bush understandings a "dangerous development in our contemporary history."
Palestinian and Israeli analysts are divided on whether the Sharon-Bush understandings mark a major shift in US policy, but they agree with the Palestinian Authority that the understandings further undermine the group of men who have led the Authority since its inception in the mid-1990s. The Authority's institutions and international credibility are in ruins, and now the Israelis and Americans are moving to overt agreement on major issues on which previously agreement had only been implied.
"The Palestinian Authority has lost its power to maneuver," said Ali Gerbawi, a Palestinian activist who is a professor of political science at Bir Zeit University. Its leaders "believed that they have been forcing Sharon out of Gaza, when in fact, they have lost the West Bank."
"Who can stop Sharon from building the wall? He is building it, and he will continue to build it," Gerbawi said. "Sharon has got what he asked for."
Abdel Sattar Qassem, an independent member of the Palestinian Legislative Council known for his criticism of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his inner circle, said that Bush's statements contained nothing new and that the heated condemnations issued by the leadership were cover for behind-the scenes moves.
"We are accustomed to the lies of the Palestinian Authority," Qassem said. "There are things going on behind the curtains." He added that the so-called Geneva Agreement, which many of the leaders of the Palestinian Authority have endorsed, already has shown their willingness to deeply compromise the right of Palestinian refugees to return to Israel. Qassem also said that Palestinian officials are party to negotiated agreements with the United States, Israel, and the Egyptians about how Gaza will be run after the withdrawal.
Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the foreign affairs and defense committee of the Israeli parliament and a member of Sharon's Likud Party, said yesterday's statements were "nothing special," just a reiteration and marginal clarification of previous US policies. But Eliezer Sandberg, who is minister of science and a leader of the centrist Shinui Party, said Bush injected an important new element into the discussion by stating firmly that Palestinian refugees should return to a Palestinian state, not to Israel.
But more significant than their differences over yesterday's statements was that the two hawkish Israeli parliamentarians said they are leaning toward endorsing Sharon's withdrawal plans, despite their reluctance to evacuate settlements in the West Bank and despite the continuing barrage of opposition to Sharon from the far right and from the Jewish settlers in the occupied territories.
Israeli analysts have been saying for weeks that Sharon's prime goals of the summit were to counter the tide of conservative opposition to his withdrawal plans and put Palestinian leaders on the spot to respond with a positive gesture. Preliminary indications are that he had made progress toward both objectives.
Charles A. Radin can be reached at radin@globe.com
