Rice and Olmert need fresh ideas

Illustration by Noora Altannak/Gulf News

By George S. Hishmeh, Special to Gulf News

Why did the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visit the Arab world and Israel earlier this month and during these crucial times if she were not planning to undertake a serious effort to revive the moribund Palestinian-Israeli peace talks?

The media in the region, Arab and Israeli, appeared disappointed, if not critical, of her fruitless trip. The Bush administration seemed attempting an election-eve ploy to divert attention from its growing unpopularity as a result of its failed policies in Iraq, the ruinous disclosures made by Bob Woodward in his explosive book, State of Denial, and the sordid sex scandal of a key Republican Congressman.

There were recent rumours, circulated by some high officials in Washington, that US President George W. Bush was planning a pace-setting gesture vis-a-vis the Middle East after the mid-term election, a Madrid II summit.

But whether he would go through with these ideas may now be far-fetched since the Republicans are not so sure of maintaining control of either the US House of Representatives or the Senate or even both legislatures.

The Congressman's sexually explicit e-mail messages to former pages are casting a black cloud over some senior Republican Congressmen for not taking early disciplinary or legal action and thus avoid hurting the party's standing. Even Bush's approval rating is now in the 30s.

However, it is Rice's actions of late that are more perplexing here. She had declared that she was going to the region to help in shoring up the leadership of the beleaguered Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, raising high expectations that something is in the offing.

Abbas's party lost the parliamentary elections earlier this year and now has to deal with Hamas, the popular but recalcitrant Islamist movement, which took over the government of the Palestinian National Authority.

Coalition

But on arriving in the region, in Saudi Arabia as a matter of fact, her first action was to seek a coalition of "moderate" Arab states in a bid to stand up against Iran and its ambitious nuclear programme.

Her meeting later in the week with the Palestinian president proved undramatic - simply no original ideas - only promising to press the Israelis to relax the crossing points into Egypt and Israel and some additional financial assistance.

(US officials like to remind everyone that the US is the highest donor to the Palestinian people, but not the Hamas-led government.)

This US wishy-washy stance of refusing to find a way to deal with the democratically elected Hamas may compel Abbas to dismiss the Palestinian government and thereby precipitate a much-feared civil war in the region. There is no doubt that the brunt of this devastating development will be blamed on the Bush administration.

It is strange that the Bush administration does not pay more attention to James A. Baker, III, the much-respected American statesman who served the former president George H. W. Bush and is now the Republican co-chairman of a bipartisan panel reassessing Iraqi strategy for this Bush administration.

In a television interview last Sunday, he underlined that he believes in "talking to your enemy", pointing out that he had made 15 trips to Damascus while serving as secretary of state for the elder Bush. "You do not give away anything, but in my view, it's not appeasement to talk to your enemies."

The Bush administration, or more directly, Rice, will have to make clear America's priority in the Middle East: Is it an Arab-Israeli settlement or cutting down Iran to size?

It is extremely doubtful that any Arab country would jump on the American bandwagon to disarm Iran, a conflict that they can ill-afford especially that these states marked time while their citizens were cheering the Hezbollah forces in their 34-day battle with Israel.

Short of much-needed fresh ideas from Rice, who last night was scheduled to address for the first time an Arab-American group, the American Task Force on Palestine, there is the likelihood that Ehud Olmert, the weakened Israeli prime minister who wants to beef up his coalition to stem continued criticism against his government, may be tempted to meet with Abbas, as is expected, to come up with a face-saving formula.

Both Olmert and Abbas are in a quandary and their tenure may, in the end, depend on their ability to find a decent settlement on their own.

George Hishmeh is a Washington-based columnist.