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(May 6, 10am)
Ariel Sharon is coming to the White House feeling lucky, because he believes that President Bush's domestic political concerns sets strict limits on the extent to which the U.S. is able to pressure Israel. The Bush administration recognizes that protecting its interests throughout the Middle East requires rapid progress towards settling the conflict by creating a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza. But Sharon has made abundantly clear that he's not interested in any near-term political settlement nor in any version of Palestinian statehood that would satisfy even the most moderate Arab and Palestinian leaders. The Israelis hope that a dossier of evidence purporting to prove Yasser Arafat's links to terrorism will convince Washington to support Sharon's refusal to negotiate with the Palestinians under his leadership. But that's unlikely, since the administration has already made clear that no matter how bad Arafat has been, he remains the only address for dialogue with the Palestinians. Still, the bipartisan groundswell of support for Sharon on Capitol Hill last week signals the potentially damaging domestic political cost for Bush attached to any pressure on Israel to resume talks.
Ethnic Cleansing and the GOP
(May 2, 4pm)
To make effective foreign policy in the Middle East, President Bush has had to learn to ignore the leadership of his own party on Capitol Hill. And it's not hard to see why: Last week, House Republican whip Tom DeLay proclaimed that the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights were not occupied, as U.S. foreign policy maintains, but are in fact part of Israel. Now House Republican leader Dick Armey has reportedly upped the ante, suggesting that Israel had no reason to hand over occupied territory to the Palestinians and that instead "the Palestinians should build their national home within a neighboring Arab country." Problem is that there are 3.5 million Palestinians who don't share Armey's view that they should just pack up and leave their homes because of some conservative Republican's ideological fancy. Indeed, someone may want to gently remind the House GOP leader that ethnic cleansing is just the sort of thing that got Slobodan Milosevic into all that trouble.
Department of Hyperbole: Jenin-on-the-Volga?
(May 2, 4pm)
Reveling in his newfound freedom, Yasser Arafat has allowed his imagination to run wild. The West Bank city of Jenin, he told journalists while surveying the ruins of Ramallah, would henceforth be known by Palestinians as "Jeningrad" (in reference to the epic World War II battle of Stalingrad in which more than 1 million people died). Perhaps he simply wanted to underscore that his sense of humor had survived the Israeli siege.
An International Solution?
(May 2, 4pm)
The key to resolving the Ramallah standoff was the insertion of a few British and American prison warders, and many diplomats and Palestinian officials want that to serve as a model for achieving a broader truce by sending some form of international force to the West Bank. The Israelis remain resolutely opposed and so far the Bush administration is inclined to agree with them. Still, international pressure is likely to mount, particularly in the fallout from the collapse of the U.N. mission to investigate the battle of Jenin.
Bibi Sets a Trap for Sharon
(May 2, 4pm)
Ariel Sharon is expected at the White House next week, where President Bush will press him to start negotiating the terms of Palestinian statehood. Sharon says he's ready to offer what he considers a far-reaching plan. But the central committee of Sharon's own Likud Party — the majority of whose members want former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rather than Sharon as their candidate in the next election — is having none of it. The party committee looks set to adopt a resolution two weeks from now rejecting any Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. And Netanyahu has taken to the Israeli airwaves, mercilessly chiding Sharon for caving in to U.S. pressure to limit Israel's "Operation Defensive Shield." The intensifying leadership struggle between Sharon and Netanyahu may turn out to be a key factor shaping Israel's negotiating position in the weeks to come. And Sharon may wish he could ignore the Likud rank and file as easily as Bush can ignore the House GOP.
Gaza's Gendarme Stakes his Claim
(May 2, 4pm)
Gaza security chief Mohammed Dahlan is reported to have played a major role in negotiating an end to the siege of Yasser Arafat. Now he's calling on his leader to make big changes in the way that the Palestinian Authority does business. And you hardly have to read between the lines to know that one of those changes is to put Dahlan, rather than his West Bank rival Jibril Rajoub, in charge of the Palestinian security forces.
Bush, Sharon, Saddam and the U.N.
(Apr 30, 11.30am)
Having proved over the weekend that he can, when push comes to shove, prevail on Ariel Sharon to do his bidding, President Bush may have inadvertently made 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue the address for complaints over Israeli behavior. First up: Israel's effort to limit the terms of a U.N. fact-finding mission established to investigate the recent battle at Jenin. Israel is holding off for fear that it is being set up for prosecution or a smear campaign. But European Union commissioner Romano Prodi says he'll use Sunday's Washington summit to press President Bush to "use his influence" to persuade Israel to back down on its "unacceptable" response to a U.N. Security Council resolution backed by the U.S. Even stronger language came from Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, who warned in a nationally televised address Tuesday that Washington's support for Israel's offensive in the West Bank has "shake(n) the people's faith in (the war on terrorism) and in its credibility in the Arab and Muslim worlds." He applauded President Bush for prevailing on Sharon to lift the siege on Yasser Arafat, but used that achievement to underscore his "can do better" tirade.
Although the Bush administration has endorsed the U.N. fact-finding mission, it urged the international body on Monday to consider Israel's objections — a political bone thrown, says the Israeli media (see below) in exchange for Sharon's compliance with the Ramallah deal. But Arab and European skeptics point out that Washington responds differently when the man seeking to limit the terms of U.N. inquiry, is Saddam Hussein.
Was Jenin the Price of an Arafat Deal?
(April 29, 11am)
President Bush applied what Israeli officials described as "brutal" pressure on Ariel Sharon to back down over the siege of Yasser Arafat's Ramallah compound. According to Haaretz, however, the U.S. may have provided some political cover for Arafat against the rightwing backlash led by Benjamin Netanyahu — Sharon reportedly told his cabinet that in exchange for letting Arafat go free, the Bush administration would support Israel in its confrontation with the United Nations over the Jenin fact-finding mission. Having backed down on Arafat, Sharon may be even more inclined to dig in his heels over Israel's objection to the terms of the Jenin fact-finding mission, whose members remain in Geneva as Israel's cabinet continues to debate whether to approve their visit.