Haaretz
Iyar 15, 5765
One cannot help but wonder about the paradox
involved in the visit to Washington of the Palestinian Authority chairman
due to start Thursday: Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) will succeed in meeting
with the president of the United States but not with the prime minister of
Israel. This is evidence, first and foremost, of the lack of normalization
in ties between the government of Israel and the PA, particularly at a
time when there is a window of opportunity for cooperation, based on a
common interest - to strengthen Abu Mazen in anticipation of the election
of the Palestinian parliament due to take place in a month and half. But
this is merely the "minor" paradox. The more major paradox is the report
that the U.S. is considering whether to grant political guarantees to Abu
Mazen, and what kind of guarantees, if any.
Washington, which
created the road map, is rightly demanding of the Palestinian Authority to
fight the terror infrastructure and to disarm the breakaway organizations.
This demand, however, albeit worthy and important in itself, cannot be
detached from the rest of the road map. That document demands that Israel
refrain from construction work in the settlements and promote the building
of an independent Palestinian state. Israel accepted the road map, and
from time to time is reminded of the necessity to implement it, but not
much more than that. President Bush has even adopted a new policy
according to which it is no longer possible to ignore the developments in
the territories - that is, the massive construction of the settlements -
when the sides come to hold negotiations on a permanent
solution.
Abu Mazen is currently asking Washington for a road map
to the road map: guarantees that the stages and processes that the sides
agreed on both in the road map and at the Sharm el-Sheikh summit will not
merely be adhered to as a gesture of good will but will become mandatory
policy in which the U.S. plays the chief role. Abu Mazen has the feeling
that Washington is dragging its feet with regard to everything that has to
do with giving backing to the Palestinian side.
This feeling grows
stronger in the face of the achievements that Abu Mazen can already
present them with, the most important being the cease-fire between the
armed factions and Israel and the chance of turning Hamas into part of the
political fabric of the PA. These are still fragile achievements, and the
recurrent attacks on Israeli communities bear witness to this. But Israel,
which itself was not able to prevent the attacks on the villages in the
Negev and the Gaza Strip and therefore decided to withdraw from the Gaza
Strip, is quick to see in this unrest a sign that Abu Mazen has failed
miserably. This is the reason for the conclusion by some of Israel's
policy-makers that Abu Mazen is not a worthy partner and that therefore
there is no point in trying to coordinate the pullout from Gaza with him,
and that the PA is not worthy of receiving political guarantees from the
U.S.
This conclusion is both hasty and unmerited. Israel has an
interest in coordinating the withdrawal with the Palestinian Authority as
well as in seeing Abu Mazen leading the diplomatic process even in the
political pressure cooker in which he finds himself. Therefore Israel
should be interested in Abu Mazen receiving political guarantees from
Washington, which he can then present as part of his election campaign to
the Palestinian parliament.