Tempered good news

Updated Even though there are some among us (I can name some; I expect others can as well) who would take it as evidence of cooption or worse, I prefer to take it as a hopeful sign that

President Bush on Monday promised to assist newly elected Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas boost security and the Palestinian economy, and invited him to the White House after years of shunning Yasser Arafat as an obstacle to peace,

said Reuters on Monday.

Bush also gave Abbas an "open invitation" to visit Washington and urged Israel "keep a vision of two states living side by side." In addition,

Congressional aides said Bush is considering a proposal to boost U.S. aid to the Palestinians this year by $200 million - a more than twofold increase over current aid levels - to help Abbas prepare for Israel's withdrawal from Gaza.

One possible reason for this seeming openness was suggested by some analysts: Bush is thinking about his legacy and with Iraq so screwed up, he's looking for another way to be remembered. Not such an outlandish idea; the notion of being the one to bring peace to the Middle East has driven others before him, particularly Bill Clinton. And in the old Nixon-to-China vein, Bush is probably freer to politically challenge Israel than Clinton ever was (and as his father was earlier). However,

Judith Kipper, director of the Middle East Forum at the Council on Foreign Relations, said it remains to be seen whether Bush will be willing to pressure Israel, a close ally, to act: "It's a huge job and the U.S. cannot be shy."

So it remains to be seen how far he will go.

And as always, it's wise to be cautious, wise here even more than elsewhere to be alert to nuance. One persistent and troubling preconception was to be found in Bush's remark calling on Israel to support the Palestinians in "begin[ning] to develop the institutions of a state." Well, they have such institutions and have had them for a time but those institutions have been starved for support and actively undermined by some of the same forces that have used the success of that very policy to label the Palestinians as a people somehow outside the bounds of "civilized society" who now have to prove to their adversaries - who get to set the standards of proof - that they deserve to be treated with the minimal human respect required for negotiations. To act and speak like Palestinian governing institutions are just now emerging for the first time is misleading, unfair, and untrue.

But let's hope Bush didn't mean that; let's hope that he meant as a more formalized state with an even more extensive bureaucratic structure is built, that assistance will come along with it. Don't count on it, don't base decisions on it, but do hope for it.

Meanwhile, the other player in this, Israel, is also providing some warily-regarded possibilities. The day after Bush spoke, Reuters reported,

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said he would phone newly elected Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Tuesday to wish him good luck and seek cooperation, Israel Radio said.

What's more, he too held out the possibility of a meeting with Abbas.

One problem with all this happy talk is that is overlooks the reality of what the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza will result in there and what it's supposed to result in elsewhere: The plan, as described, with leave Gaza surrounded by Israeli "security" forces and the people there totally dependent on Israel's good graces to obtain electricity, water, and goods and even to come and go from the area. It will in effect be, as I described it one time, a gulag. And the purpose is to strengthen Israel's hold on the West Bank by focusing its settlement there. Whether it will achieve that goal is a different question, but so long as the discussion revolves around Sharon carrying out his "unilateral disengagement" as if that was an end in itself, it will not lead to peace.

For that very reason, another statement by Sharon is disturbing:

"I believe there will soon be a meeting between me and Abu Mazen," he said, using Abbas's nickname, adding that the key initial issue would be Palestinian efforts to "stop terrorism."

Which means there has been no change at all in Israel's response to moves by Palestinians. An end to all terrorism is still the "initial issue," the matter that must be dealt with as an a priori condition for anything further.

This is foolish for several reasons. One, if taken literally it gives the most radical, the most rejectionist, elements among the Palestinians - that is, anyone who doesn't want peace or who is guilty of what Israel accuses them of, the desire to destroy Israel - veto power over Israeli policy and any genuine attempts at a settlement. Two, politically it's either naive or deceptive, as it makes demands while offering nothing in return: It essentially says "you stop resisting us and our occupation, thus coming to the table more as supplicants than as opponents, and then we'll see what - if anything - happens." Three, it's an impossible condition to meet: It demands of the Palestinian Authority something that no government, short, perhaps, of the most dictatorially brutal, has succeeded in doing, indeed something Israel itself has been unable to achieve in more than 30 years of trying.

There is also the fact that it sometimes appears that the standards keep getting changed, that shifts by the PA are not met with shifts from Israel but with demands for further shifts. What raises this now is that Sharon recently has been talking about not just ending terrorism, but "dismantling the infrastructure" of militant groups such as Hamas. That is, it's no longer enough for them to stop, they must disappear. It's not enough for Abbas to win their support, to obtain their cooperation, he must destroy them. And we are back to the impossible.

Now again, nuance must make an appearance. I noted recently that Abbas very likely was talking tough about Israel in order to win the support of the militant groups he openly intends to co-opt into a path of political rather than military resistance. It's equally true that Sharon may feel the need to talk tough about Palestinians in order to co-opt some of his own militants. That is, it's possible that both Abbas and Sharon are talking tougher than they actually plan on being with each other in order to be better able to sell what they get.

Abbas doesn't have enough of a record to reliably judge him on that particular score, although, again, it's my conclusion that he is doing exactly that. Sharon does have enough of a record and because of that record I'm frankly suspicious of his conciliatory words. Part of that, I admit, is because they come wrapped in the same old impossible demands, the very demands I suggested might arise from domestic political necessity.

Still, the bottom line here, at least for me, is that while it's true that Mahmoud Abbas has to prove his sincerity and good intentions, that is at least equally true of Ariel Sharon - and particularly true of George Bush.

Updated to add some links.