Message to the President as PM Olmert Comes to Washington
[Ed. Note: this is part of a series about the demise of the Palestinian experiment in self-government and the implications for U.S. policy in the region.]Mr. President, in the interest of the Palestinian people, please withdraw formal American support for an independent Palestinian state. There are people in the region who have staked everything on you and still look to you for moral clarity. Israel and Jordan are the friends of American interests that the Palestinians never wanted to be, and they need your help to undo the damage the notion of an independent Palestine has done.
[Ed. Note: this is part of a series about the demise of the Palestinian experiment in self-government and the implications for U.S. policy in the region.]
Mr. President, in the interest of the Palestinian people, please withdraw formal American support for an independent Palestinian state. There are people in the region who have staked everything on you and still look to you for moral clarity. Israel and Jordan are the friends of American interests that the Palestinians never wanted to be, and they need your help to undo the damage the notion of an independent Palestine has done.
On 24 June 2002, you offered a creative blueprint for Palestinian nationalism. It was, at least the way you said it, fairly safe for the Israelis and Jordanians who would be most directly affected by it. Yours was an “if-when-then” plan. IF Palestinian leaders created civic space, transparent institutions and consensual government, and “WHEN the Palestinian people have new leaders, new institutions and new security arrangements,” THEN the U.S. “will support the creation of a Palestinian state…” You promised, “A Palestinian state will never be created by terror.”
But you made the unwarranted assumption that Palestinian leaders WANTED to create a government in service of their people (which exists exactly where in the Arab world?) and further would be satisfied with rump state next to a strong and prosperous Israel.
You were wrong. But instead of calling it off, you – with active Israeli government acquiescence – kept lowering the bar for them. You ignored rampant corruption and offered money and American military training to the corrupt forces of the corrupt Abu Mazen – he should never have been “your guy.” To the extent that he was, you were wrong about that too. You ignored Jew-hatred in Palestinian institutions. You knew perfectly well that elections are the last stage of democratic evolution – Natan Sharansky told you so – but you pushed for early elections that included not only corrupt secularist terrorists, but Iranian-sponsored religious terrorists as well. There was no reform, no transparency, and no peace BECAUSE THE PALESTINIANS NEVER WANTED PEACE OR CLEAN GOVERNMENT – THEY WANTED PALESTINE IN THEIR IMAGE, NOT YOURS. They got it.
The bar can’t get any lower. The Palestinians failed to meet a single requirement for American diplomatic, security and financial support. Understand it and move on. Gaza is gone but the West Bank remains crucial. Please don’t pretend Salam Fayyad can hold Palestine together. Funding and rearming the remnants of Abu Mazen’s army only ensures that they lose that battle as well, and it is further punishment of the Palestinian people to condemn them to more Fatah incompetence and brutality.
Please use the visit of Prime Minister Olmert to discuss how to save the West Bank – because Hamastan there threatens not only Israel, but your friends in Jordan as well. The King of Jordan has done everything you could have asked of a small, poor country wedged between Iraq and the West Bank. Israeli and Jordanian security forces have worked in concert to protect both countries. Make it official.
The last, best hope for West Bank Palestinians now is some form of confederation of territory, people and security forces between Israel and Jordan. Talk to Prime Minister Olmert about that.