November 19, 2001	Monday	Ramazan 3, 1422

WASHINGTON: As the United States looks to victory in Afghanistan, its Arab and Muslim allies look to Washington to avert another war down the road by bringing 50 years of Israeli-Palestinian conflict to an end. Much as victory in the Gulf War against Iraq in 1991 led to the Madrid peace conference, Arab diplomats are hoping the phenomenon of Osama bin Laden will shake the Bush administration out of its detachment from 13 months of conflict which has killed almost 900 people.

The US has promised more active engagement, possibly starting with a speech which Secretary of State Colin Powell will make in Louisville, Kentucky on Monday. The indispensable US role, as so often in Middle East diplomacy, is once again the panacea that diplomats and analysts prescribe for the region’s ills.

But the Bush administration still shows signs of indecision and analysts said it was tending toward an ultra-cautious approach based on pushing again for implementation of the six-month-old Mitchell plan. Until the last minute, Powell is keeping his options open and can probably choose from more than one text on Monday, depending on developments over the weekend, the analysts said.

President George W. Bush has already signalled a shift in US thinking, with his remark last month that a Palestinian state had always been part of his administration’s vision and his use of the word Palestine in his UN speech on Nov 10. But he coupled that with a refusal to meet Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, who was also in New York.

Reflecting the mixed signals from within the administration, the analysts have a range of expectations from the Powell speech, which the State Department has billed as a significant statement on US foreign policy. “I’m not giddy with excitement. There is not a rabbit he can pull out of a hat,” said an academic close to the administration. “Don’t underestimate the extent to which the administration is committed to the Mitchell recommendations. That is the objective, that is the goal.”

Former US Senator George Mitchell, head of an international fact-finding committee set up last year, recommended a cease-fire, a cooling-off period and confidence-building measures leading to peace talks. The ideas have been on the table since April but violence between Israelis and Palestinians has never stopped long enough for the cooling-off period to begin.

Shibley Telhami, a Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution, said he expected much new language to show that Washington does have a new vision, but nothing so bold as to alienate either the Israelis or the Palestinians.

An essential element will be the decision to dispatch UN mediators to the Middle East, probably Assistant Secretary of State William Burns and retired Marine Gen Anthony Zinni, who used to command US forces in the Middle East. “The main thing is to state a vision that allows for serious negotiations, that does not alienate one party or another and doom it to failure,” Telhami said. “You have to look at the speech as an instrument to maximize the chances of the new diplomacy that the United States is going to start, so the steps have to be consistent with the mission.”

Telhami said he saw striking parallells with 1991, when Secretary of State James Baker turned the Gulf War victory into an opportunity for bringing Israelis face to face for the first time with Jordanian, Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese delegations at the Madrid peace conference.

In building the international coalition against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Baker came to the conclusion that the Arab-Israeli conflict seriously damaged US interests.

But there are differences. This time the Bush administration, partly in response to complaints from Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdullah, was already planning a Middle East initiative when hijackers attacked America on Sept 11.

Mobilizing for the “war against terrorism” held up the initiative, but its attempts at building an alliance reminded Washington once again how much its Middle East policies have alienated the peoples of the region.

Judith Kipper, a Middle East specialist at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the Israeli side of the equation has changed too. “Sharon (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon) is a pragmatist and is capable of doing anything, although he does have a problem. The people on the right are putting pressure on him but he has to do enough to keep the Labour Party in the government,” she said. The uneasy coalition in Israel faced new strains on Friday after Foreign Minister Shimon Peres expressed support for Palestinian statehood at the UN.—Reuters