As usual, Saul Singer has some wise words to close out the week:
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On the three critical final-status issues - refugees, borders and Jerusalem - the US position is ambiguous in a way that hurts Israel. Despite President George Bush's April letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and Sharon's own claims that the US position has changed in our favor, the looming truth is this: Israel cannot go into final-status talks without knowing that it will receive US backing for the three things it needs - no "right of return" to Israel, annexation of settlement blocs, and no full Palestinian sovereignty in the heart of Jerusalem, particularly the Temple Mount.
Sharon's disengagement plan is born of this uncertainty. Why not go for a full peace now? Partly because the Palestinians are not ready, but they are not ready largely because the ambiguity in the US position puts all these issues in play, so there is no reason for them to prepare their people for the concessions Israel needs.
In case anyone doubted the in-playness of these issues, Mahmoud Abbas decided to press for the "right of return" last week, on the eve of his White House visit, while Sharon felt the need to tell AIPAC that "thanks to the disengagement we can make certain that there will be no entry of Palestinian refugees into Israel."
The US can end this jockeying any time it wants by taking a clear position. For example, the principle of two states is not negotiable because the US has staked out clearly that this must be the basis of any agreement. It could similarly state that since the claim of an asymmetrical Palestinian right to move to Israel (without any comparable Israeli right to move to Palestine) negates Israel's right to exist, it is not a legitimate matter for negotiation.
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The principle of treating Oslo's final-status basket as inviolate is not advancing peace but condemning us to another generation of war. It also locks in a pre-9/11 form of appeasement that directly harms American interests.
America's paramount interest is to stand with Israel, not just through military aid and opposing terrorism, but by openly opposing Arab positions that render negotiations a potential threat to Israel's existence. A Palestinian state is not in itself such a threat. But a "right" to export Palestinians to Israel; or the wresting of the "Zion" in "Zionism" - the Temple Mount - entirely from Jewish hands; or the driving of Israel back to the 1967 lines, is.
Before 9/11, recognizing this might have been seen as a favor to Israel. No longer. The Arab jihad against Israel is as much a test of American will as was Saddam Hussein, or Iran's current nuclear push.
America cannot beat one arm of jihad while allowing itself to be slapped by another. By conditioning statehood on Palestinian democratization, Bush made his first critical departure from Oslo's strictures. A fuller, more potentially successful conformation of US policy with Bush's post-9/11 paradigm has barely begun.
Shabbat Shalom.
