July 4, 2002	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 22,1423

LONDON: The world is now familiar with US President George W. Bush’s “vision” for peace in the Middle East, but many Arabs, Israelis and Europeans are still baffled at how he plans to attain it.

Many fear the uncertainty will unleash even more bloodshed. Bush told Palestinians they could reach their promised land by ditching their leaders for new ones “not compromised by terror” and radically reforming the Palestinian Authority into a democratic, market-oriented, terror-fighting entity.

Only then, he indicated in a long-awaited speech last week, would Israel have to make room for a “provisional” Palestinian state, ultimately retreating to “secure and recognized borders”.

Unsurprisingly, Bush’s blunt prescription delighted rightwing Israelis, outraged Palestinians and confounded his European and Arab allies, who pointedly refused to endorse his demand for a Palestinian “regime change”.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has long sought to sideline Yasser Arafat and was surely gratified to hear US officials making clear that they will ostracise the Palestinian leader, even if he is re-elected in polls now set for January.

But Israeli, Arab and European analysts said they saw few signs of deeper US involvement in Middle East peacemaking — and every prospect for more violence in its absence.

“My conclusion is that for whatever reasons the United States has no realistic policy for peace,” Israeli strategic analyst Yossi Alpher said. “Since neither Arafat nor Sharon has a realistic policy, things will get worse in the near term.”

Like many analysts, he questioned how Palestinians could hold elections while Israel kept a military stranglehold on the West Bank and bemoaned the absence from Bush’s speech of mutual confidence-building measures to calm violence.

“More likely we (Israel) will semi-permanently reoccupy the West Bank. Arafat might be exiled or jailed, but it won’t solve anything,” he said. “No party has a realistic approach.”

ACCENTUATING THE POSITIVE: US allies such as Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia grasped at what positive straws they could find in Bush’s speech, speaking politely of the need to clarify its details.

Yet they won scant reward for the months they have spent pressing Arafat to rein in militants and embrace reform in exchange for what they hoped would be US support for a land-for-peace plan adopted at an Arab summit in March.

Egyptian, Jordanian and Saudi leaders see a just solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the key to defusing discontent among their own restive populations and diminishing the appeal of anti-Western militants such as Osama bin Laden.

Jordan, whose king has spoken more forcefully in support of Bush’s “war on terror” than any other Arab leader, seems most vulnerable to worsening Israeli-Palestinian violence.

“Jordan does not want to see military action continue in the West Bank and Gaza. It will eventually spill over into Jordan,” said former Jordanian information minister Jawed al-Anani.

Jordanians, many of whom are of Palestinian origin, fear that Israel might one day act on calls by ultra-nationalists represented in Sharon’s government for the “transfer” or mass expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank to Jordan.

Arab governments, already worried about the impact on regional stability of a possible US attack on Iraq, are upset at Washington’s apparent inability to distinguish between the ideologically inspired violence of a Osama and that of Palestinians who might renounce it if given independence.

LEGITIMATE LEADER: Whatever misgivings they have about Arafat’s leadership, they resent Sharon’s bid to paint him as equivalent to Osama and cannot accept that he be removed by US-Israeli fiat.

“Bush leaned over backward in favour of Sharon by accommodating his demand for change of leadership,” Anani said, predicting that the Americans would realise sooner or later that the search for an alternative to Arafat was futile.

Former Palestinian security chief Mohammed Dahlan, touted as a possible successor to Arafat, has denounced what he said amounted to US calls for a Palestinian “coup d’etat”.

Dahlan wrote in Britain’s Guardian newspaper that it would be wrong to criticize or replace Arafat at a time when he is “under siege” in the West Bank, where Israeli forces have reoccupied seven cities after suicide bombings in Israel.

“There is no question of changing the leadership in these circumstances,” he wrote.

European Union leaders have insisted that Palestinians must be able to choose their own leaders, and said they would continue to deal with Arafat if he were re-elected. —Reuters