Israel and Palestine

Today was the start of the major Mideast peace conference in Annapolis. Newsweek has an interview with one of the authors of the Roadmap, the outline for creating a lasting settlement between Israelis and Palestinians. He is skeptical of the notion that a settlement can be reached before the end of Bush's term of office.

It is possible, but not necessarily likely. In a way, you have three parties in the region. You have the peacemakers, who really want to resolve the issues and create a Palestinian state alongside Israel. There are many Arab states in the region who will support and work for this. Then you have the peace breakers, who will say, "It's not in our interests to have this state, because our goal is push Israel into the sea." And they will use every means available to undermine this process. And then you have what I call the "conflict entrepreneurs," who thrive on keeping the conflict alive. What they believe is that a resolution of the Palestinian conflict will take away a weapon of ideology from their arsenal.

Time also has a story about this conference in the context of Bush's other attempts at diplomacy.

On all these fronts, however, Bush is making progress against those far-right interests. Bill Clinton's Palestinian negotiator, Rob Malley, argues that Bush stands a better chance than Clinton of creating a Palestinian state because he is starting nine months earlier, has full Arab buy-in and is one of the few people who could actually pressure Israel to make tough concessions if he chose to. On North Korea, Bush approved talks led by a top Clinton negotiator, Chris Hill, who promptly delivered a deal to dismantle the country's nuclear reactors. And through quiet discussions with the Democratic Congress, Bush has breathed life into Latin American trade deals most thought were dead after Democrats took over Congress in 2006.

It does seem that Condoleezza Rice has become much more influential in the White House over the past year, countering the rabid pro-war stance of Cheney. That is most certainly a good thing. I think it may be too little, too late, however. I do hope that Rice can guide the Israelis and the Palestinians to a settlement, but I agree with those that say trying to do it before Bush leaves office is hopelessly optimistic. This conflict has been going on for awhile and we've seen it on the verge of being settled a few times only to have it blow up. And it's not like the U.S. has a lot of credibility in the region right now.

I think the three most important steps that need to happen in order for peace to take effect is 1)Israel freezes all development of settlements, 2)Israel eases restrictions on Palestinians and fosters economic growth, 3)Palestinians cease all terrorist actions against Israelis. I believe the U.S. can apply pressure on Israel for the first two. In order to achieve the third objective, though, we need other countries in the area to stop their own terrorist activities and pressure the Palestinians to do the same. We are seen as too close to Israel to have a serious impact on Palestinian actions. We must have the support of other players in the region. I'm not sure we have the credibility or the diplomatic suave to gain this support.

We'll see how it goes. I am hoping for the best.