Prime Minister Sharon’s surprising declaration in February 2004 to evacuate Israel’s settlements from the Gaza Strip, along with four settlements in the northern West Bank, was broadcast into the vacuum of a moribund Road Map peace plan. Since then, a reelected President Bush has politically committed his Administration to the establishment of a Palestinian state; and the leadership and political dynamics of the Palestinians has fundamentally changed.

Yet the questions raised then are still unresolved and for-the-most-part haven’t changed. 

• What is the impact of this unilateral action on the Quartet’s (U.S., European Union, Russian Federation and the U.N.) Road Map peace plan?

• Will the settlements infrastructure — housing, greenhouses, etc. — be turned over to the Palesti-nians; and will Israel be compensated for their value?

• Will the Palestinian Authority be able to maintain security within the Gaza Strip or will chaos break out?

• Will Israel vacate the Gaza Strip completely or keep hold of the strip along Egypt’s border?

• Will goods and people be able to move between Gaza and the West Bank, between Gaza and Israel, between Gaza and the world?

•  Will Israel allow Palestinian control over its seashore and airspace and the operation of an airport and seaport?

• Will Israel have any continued responsibilities, such as provision of water and electricity, toward the Gaza Strip and the people? 

• Will an end of the occupation of the Gaza Strip be declared, by whom, and if so,  what is the implication on the status of the ongoing occupation of the West Bank including East Jerusalem?

• Will the settler movement acquiesce or foment violence against Sharon and the army?

The biggest, overarching question has become a cliché – “will Gaza first be Gaza last?” Implied in that question is the elemental uncertainty about what will be the nature and shape of the state of Palestine.

During a visit to Washington in April, Ami Ayalon, former head of Israeli security, laid out what the President needs to do. “Just saying ‘a two-state solution’ is too ambiguous. The vision has to spell out details on final status issues such as Palestinian refugees, borders and Jerusalem.” It is one thing for the President to point to a veiled vision of an independent and democratic Palestinian state, living with Israel in peace, and quite another thing for him to actually do the heavy lifting and take the political risks that will be necessary.

Formaldehyde or Fresh Air?

The Gaza disengagement announcement was generally welcomed as a sign that Sharon finally recognized that leaving occupied territory was in Israel’s best interest. But Palestinian suspicion that Israeli peace gestures are little more than a carny’s slight-of-hand was provoked by the comments of Sharon’s aide Dov Weissglass last October; “The disengagement is actually formaldehyde; it supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians.” He spoke of freezing the process to prevent “discussion on refugees, the border and Jerusalem.”

Meanwhile, the Palestinians in the West Bank are seeing the separation barrier and maps of its projected route encompass Jewish settlement blocs on the Israeli side of what looks like a unilaterally drawn border.  Sharon’s plan to expand a large settlement bloc to the east of Jerusalem and thereby achieve his objective of “contiguity between Maale Adumim and Jerusalem” was a topic of his meeting with President Bush at his Texas ranch. The President expressed, again and again, opposition to Israel expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Nevertheless, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported on April 26 that work on the construction plan is continuing as usual. It is noted in the article that the construction “has raised an international controversy, as it severs the south of the West Bank from the north, preventing the contiguity that...Bush demands.” 

To back up his words, the President has enlisted some major players. The Quartet appointed outgoing World Bank president James Wolfensohn to oversee Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the four settlements in the northern West Bank. Maen Areikat, who directs negotiations affairs for the PLO, recently told a Washington audience that, “We welcomed his appointment, we knew him as head of the World Bank.” (The World Bank channeled funds, including U.S. aid, directly to the Palestinian Authority via a special “Holst Fund,” named after the Norwegian minister of foreign affairs, instrumental in the Oslo peace negotiations.) Ms. Areikat said that Wolfensohn was coming to Palestine the first week in May to discuss linkage (between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank), crossing points, the port and airport.

A fresh gust of air was felt in Ramallah during the visit of Bill Frist, the Senate Majority Leader, on May 3. Surely his visit, and his praise of Abbas’s leadership, were orchestrated by the White House. Hopefully this indicates that the President and Administration are finally getting around to rolling up their sleeves and using some of that political capital to get Congressional support for the Road Map peace plan, which Frist said is to lead to a Palestinian state.

The Stakes for President Bush Are Enormous

This is the assessment of CQ Weekly in the May 2 issue of this influential Capitol Hill publication. Reporter Jonathan Broder writes “the risk of failure is undeniable.” And as Aaron David Miller, a leader of the collapsed Oslo process, said recently, “the world’s most compelling ideology is success.” The smell of success could be a powerful motivator for the President to press forward with the comprehensive peace talks necessary to realize his vision. Only the President can make a decision of this magnitude and with this much risk. 

According to CQ Weekly, Mr. Bush sees Gaza as a test of whether he can move forward toward a broader Middle East peace. Sharon will need to carry out the withdrawal with popular consensus in Israel sufficient to prevent civil war. Palestinian President Abbas must prove that he can rule effectively, end terrorism and restore law and order, restrain corruption and work with international donors to build the economy and put people to work. 

A huge problem for Sharon, Abbas and Bush is that each has a passionate right wing composed of people with religious convictions – opposed to any political compromise of the particular vision of their Holy Land. By refusing to assure the Palestinians or the Quartet that withdrawal from Gaza will be followed by parallel actions to evacuate the majority of settlements in the West Bank, Sharon keeps the lid on the settler movement and Knesset opponents. Hamas and Islamic Jihad won’t cooperate with Abbas if he agrees to indefinite postponement of the vital issues of Jersualem’s future status, final borders and refugee rights. Broder reports that in White House meetings, House Majority Leader DeLay and Sen. Brownback of Kansas have “made it clear that a Greater Israel holds deep religious meaning to them because the Holy Land is central to the New Testament prophecy of the ‘End of Days.’”

Looking Down the Road

It will be after the Gaza disengagement that Mr. Bush will have to decide where he stands and how far he’s willing to go.

“Sharon’s preference would be to complete the Gaza disengagement, consolidate on the West Bank and park,” said Flynt Leverett, a former member of Bush’s National Security Council. “He will see if he can get away with that.”  Sharon’s plan to unilaterally determine Israel’s permanent borders was reported, albeit with Sharon’s denial, by a Jewish Telegraphic Agency article in the April 22 Forward. The map of a second disengagement showed annexation of four main blocs (Ariel, Etzion, Maale Adumim, Modi’in) and a corridor along the Jordan River.

In discussions with President Bush at the end of May, Abbas is apt to focus on specific assurances that the United States is going to work hard to make sure: 1. that Road Map commitments are fulfilled, 2. that the Gaza disengagement will be the beginning of a process, and 3. that a Palestinian presence in East Jerusalem must be part of a negotiated solution. 

A Sharper Vision  

President Bush’s “vision” of a Palestinian state has both benefited and suffered for lack of substantive detail.  The question of “what kind of state” is pervasive. “Viable” is reassuring, but begs for further definition. Sen. Lincoln Chafee pressed Condoleezza Rice at her Secretary of State confirmation hearing, “Can you expand at all on viable?”    

Now, a prestigious American think tank, the RAND Corporation, has published a set of phenomenal reports, “Building a Successful Palestinian State” and “The Arc,” which give high definition to a future Palestinian state. RAND is well regarded by U.S. government officials; the reports could expand the President’s understanding of what he, and P.M. Sharon, has to do. 

RAND proposes as the backbone of Palestine, a corridor, called the Arc, that links Palestine’s major towns and cities – including Nablus, Ramallah, Jerusalem, Hebron and Gaza City. The Arc would include a 140-mile rail line, a highway, an aqueduct, an energy network and fiber optic cable. New businesses and new housing, for returning refugees, would be built along the corridor, all creating new jobs for Palestinians. RAND’s press release says that many of the actions can get underway now to begin improving lives of Palestinians.  

“Creating a state of Palestine does not ensure its success. But for Palestinians, Israelis and many around the world, it is profoundly important that the state succeed.” The report says that “a failed Palestinian state, or one so weak that it must be sustained and policed by others, would endanger international security.”  

RAND estimates that $33 billion in capital investment in the first 10 years of the state will be needed to implement the report’s recommendations. The annualized average of $760 per person is similar to costs of nation building in Bosnia. The Los Angeles Times, on May 10, editorialized, “That’s not an enormous amount of money, given the vast sums the United States, the United Nations and European nations have spent in past decades,” on Palestinian needs. An estimated $6 billion of the investment would be used to build the core rail and road infrastructure of the Arc.

The report does not go into how the Israelis and Palestinians can reach agreement on the outstanding issues. An upcoming RAND report will examine security issues and multinational military participation.  The current report says “the success of an independent Palestinian state is inconceivable in the absence of peace and security for Palestinians and Israelis alike.” The most pressing concern for Palestinians will be to control militant organizations that would undermine stability of the new state and threaten Israel.

Recommendations are offered for Governance, Internal Security, The Arc, Economic Development, Water Supply, Health, and Education. The key summation is: “The studies say the chance of success of a Palestinian state will increase with a high level of territorial contiguity of Palestinian lands (apart from the separation of Gaza from the West Bank); relatively open borders allowing movement of peoples and goods between Palestine and its neighbors, especially Israel; and security within Palestine and for its neighbors.”

The reports do not highlight the as-yet unresolved status of Jerusalem but the city is part of the Arc corridor. The status of Jerusalem is cited as key to the recognition of the legitimacy of the state by its own people, and internationally. From the conclusion on Governance; “The most important elements for state legitimacy will be determined in the negotiations: the size of Palestine, its territorial contiguity and border permeability, and the status of Jerusalem.”

During his first term as President, George W. Bush tried to avoid the Israeli-Palestinian minefield. He did, with reluctance, sign onto the Quartet’s Road Map. But as his taste developed for nation-building and democratizing the Middle East, he became a verbal advocate of a Palestinian state living side-by-side with Israel. Now into his second term, it seems that the President has realized that the conflict harms America’s interests and impedes other policy goals. At the time of this writing, plans are being made for a White House visit by Palestinian President Abbas, following visits by Israeli Prime Minister Sharon and Russia’s President Putin. The Quartet met in Moscow on May 9 along with James Wolfensohn.

SUGGESTED ACTION: 

It is decision-making time in the White House. 

President Bush needs to know he has YOUR SUPPORT for:

1. being clear that Israel has an obligation under the Road Map to not expand settlements.

2. ensuring that the peace process will continue after the Gaza withdrawal.

3. expanding the vision of a viable Palestinian state, such as is done in the Rand Corporation reports. 

Call the White House Comments line at 202-456-1111.  You will reach a live operator who will take your message – be sure to speak clearly and concisely.  He or she will submit the message to a staff person who compiles a report on the various topics raised by U.S. citizens and submits it to the White House on a weekly basis.  If the Comments Line receives a lot of calls on a particular issue, they will tabulate this, and if it’s a particularly hot issue will submit their report to the White House that day.

Personal notes are an effective means of advocacy for members of Congress. Write to your representative and senators at U.S. House of Representatives, Washington DC 20515 or U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510, or e-mail the Legislative Assistant (if you have developed a relationship) with a short message similar to the following:

As opportunities become available, I urge you to support President Bush’s leadership in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking and back his demand that Prime Minister Sharon stop expanding settlements, and also remove outposts. He will need your help, and of both Republicans and Democrats in Congress, to ensure that the peace process continues after Israel withdraws from Gaza.  If the Gaza disengagement is not accompanied by U.S. assurances that final status issues will be resolved by negotiations, then the possibility of a two-state solution to the conflict will be lost. I urge you to study the RAND Corporation reports for good ideas on what would make a successful Palestinian state, and a good neighbor for Israel.