Authors: Elliott Abrams
These were tough words that we thought would help Abbas at home. We did not understand clearly, however, how much Arafat would resent the very fact of Abbas's presence at the White House. Arafat had been undermining Abbas from the start, of course, and would have continued to do so under any circumstances, but in retrospect it seemed clear to me that Arafat's jealousy over the White House visit contributed to his desire to bring Abbas down – and soon.
Four days later, on July 29, the President hosted Sharon for their eighth meeting in Washington. We had met with Weissglas to set the stage, and he had argued that Abbas's descriptions of Israeli nonperformance were unfair. He minimized the impact of the security fence and said Sharon would tell Bush construction had to continue. Dubi also repeated the pledges about removing outposts and promised that all the understandings we had reached about limiting settlement construction would be kept.
On the White House lawn, Bush gave Sharon what he needed politically – tough language on terrorism and security:
America is firmly committed to the security of Israel as a Jewish state, and we are firmly committed to the safety of the Israeli people.…All parties agree that a fundamental obstacle to peace is terrorism, which can never be justified by any cause. Last month in Aqaba, Prime Minister Abbas committed to a complete end to violence and terrorism. The Palestinian Authority must undertake sustained, targeted and effective operations to confront those engaged in terror, and to dismantle terrorist capabilities and infrastructure.
He also added kind words for Sharon personally:
If we are ever to reach our common goal of two states living side-by-side in peace and security, leaders must assume responsibility. The Prime Minister is assuming responsibility.…I want to thank Ariel for all he's done to contribute to that friendship, for his leadership and his willing to make tough decisions in the cause of peace.
And there was credit and cajoling on what Sharon needed to do:
We have now a tremendous opportunity to add to Israeli security and safety, and add to the hopes of the average Palestinian citizen, by making tangible progress towards two states living side-by-side in peace.…I’m encouraged by the positive steps that Israel has taken since then to further the cause of peace, including prisoner releases. Prime Minister Sharon is now meeting regularly with Prime Minister Abbas, and that's positive. Israeli and Palestinian cabinet and security officials are meeting, as well. Israel has recently taken steps to make it easier for Palestinians to work in Israel, and to travel to their jobs and schools and families. And I thank the Prime Minister for these important actions. In our discussions, I encouraged the Prime Minister to take further steps to improve the daily conditions faced by Palestinians. Israelis and Palestinians deserve the same chance to live normal lives, free from fear, free from hatred and violence, and free from harassment. I also urged the Prime Minister to carefully consider all the consequences of Israel's actions as we move forward on the road to peace.
When his turn to speak came, Sharon congratulated Bush on Iraq and stressed their friendship:
Mr. President, it is a great privilege for me to be here at the White House for the eighth time. I am always pleased to visit, and feel that I am among friends, true friends of the state and the people of Israel. Mr. President, I congratulate you on the impressive victory in the Iraqi campaign and for removing Saddam Hussein from power, one of the most ruthless and tyrannical leaders in history. For 30 years, the free world has witnessed the recklessness and brutality of this dictator. Only you, Mr. President, have shown the courage, determination and leadership needed to spearhead the successful campaign to oust this ruthless, merciless despot, his dynasty an evil regime.
He then turned to his real talking points, about terror and the end of terror as a precondition for peace:
We are currently at an important juncture in our relations with our Palestinian neighbors. While relative quiet currently prevails in Israel, terror has not yet completely ceased. This relative calm was achieved, first and foremost, through the uncompromising activity of the Israeli security forces.…We are thankful for every hour of increased quiet and less terrorism, and for every drop of blood that is spared. At the same time, we are concerned that this welcome quiet will be shattered any minute as a result of the continued existence of terror organizations which the Palestinian Authority is doing nothing to eliminate or dismantle. Mr. President, I am confident that you, as the leader of the free world in this war against terror, will act to ensure that the Palestinians put a complete stop to the threat of Palestinian terrorism so that it will never rear its head again. I wish to move forward with a political process with our Palestinian neighbors. And the right way to do that is only after a complete cessation of terror, violence, and incitement, full dismantlement of terror organizations, and completion of the reform process in the Palestinian Authority.
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The two visits had, we thought, maintained the momentum established at the Red Sea Summits, and there was hope that slowly but surely progress would continue. We hoped the White House visit had helped build up Abbas and
had perhaps persuaded Sharon to give the PA some more space. Sharon and
Abbas planned to meet again soon and their teams would get together as well, and we were in the middle of a three-month stand-down by Hamas and Islamic Jihad that suggested there would be no acts of terror. Two weeks after returning to Israel, Sharon on August 15 announced that Israel would cede control of Jericho and Qalqilya, in the West Bank, to PA security forces. He also agreed to lift in part the siege of Arafat, who would be allowed to leave the Muqata for at least a brief visit outside. Further moves, the Israelis said, were contingent on no more terrorism. On August 12 there had been two suicide attacks, the first in more than a month, but “only” two Israelis had been killed and the Israeli government was not allowing these attacks to change its overall policy. In Washington, we planned out the fall with optimism: We would ask the Israelis to remove more checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank and to release more prisoners, assuming the truce held and there was no terrorism. We would see what the agreed “settlement freeze” looked like. We would push Abbas to
continue financial and security reform. Assistant Secretary Burns would visit there in August, then Rice and
later Deputy Secretary Armitage in September, followed by Powell after the UN General Assembly.
Within weeks, however, Sharm and Aqaba would seem like mirages and the progress made in the two White House visits came to an end. A bloody suicide bombing on August 19, an attack on a crowded bus in Jerusalem, killed 23 people and injured more than 100. Sharon had repeatedly said he would not make gestures to the PA under fire and that everything depended on stopping terrorism. U.S. and Israeli views were congruent now: The PA must act. The reforms of the PA security forces that had been demanded month after month – taking control away from Arafat, consolidating the more than one dozen gangs into three professional forces – must be undertaken immediately. Once again, names of terrorists were passed to Dahlan so that the PA could act against them.
But Dahlan did nothing; he refused to take charge and made it clear that he would not act unless he had full political cover from Arafat. The PA forces sat on their hands. Behind the scenes, Abbas had a nasty meeting with Arafat, who refused to budge. The Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Soliman, a powerful force in Egypt and beyond in those days, called Arafat and
told him it was time to agree that the security forces must be reorganized and consolidated; Arafat refused. Rice spoke with Weissglas, who said there was still time for the PA to act; at an Israeli cabinet session, the consensus had been that the process with the Palestinians was now over, but Sharon had pushed back. Now is the time for the PA to act, Dubi told Condi. We all agree on that, and so do all the newspapers, Rice said; it is time for the Palestinians to act. John Wolf, on the ground and visiting all the key players, told us Dahlan was sulking, his ego bruised by all the criticism – but he was doing nothing. Rice spoke with Omar Soliman directly and told him there was really nothing the United States could do if the PA was simply unable to move. But for Arafat, all these developments were wonderful: He was back at the center of attention. Arafat is in hog heaven, Wolf reported, playing the kind of political games he loves, having meetings all through the night at the Muqata. Nothing we are trying is working, Wolf told us. And except for the Soliman calls, the Arabs were AWOL. They were not supporting Abbas either publicly or privately, demanding action against terrorism, or trying to push Arafat aside. Calls from Powell and Rice to Arab leaders produced no responses.
After waiting 36 hours after the bus attack, Israel moved, assassinating a Hamas leader on August 21 and three days later conducting an air strike at a Hamas target in Gaza City. Abbas appeared impotent, a peripheral figure unable to command PA resources; he was not the “empowered prime minister” whose creation had been a key to the Roadmap
and
to peace. On September 6 he resigned, blaming both Arafat and Sharon for undermining him. Arafat
declared a state of emergency and named another old crony, Ahmed Qurie (known as Abu Ala'a) to the post; he was installed formally on October 5. Ghaith al-Omari, an aide to Abbas, recalled the situation:
I think Arafat, from the day Abu Mazen was appointed, was working consistently and tirelessly in every way possible to undermine him.…Arafat was very politically intelligent in recognizing threats. And the moment Abu Mazen was appointed as prime minister, with even theoretical access to the security services, it was a threat to be eliminated. And you would notice that it was clear that Abu Mazen was imposed on him. So the minute that Abu Mazen was out, smartly Arafat did not abolish the position. He appointed Abu Ala'a with a clear understanding: “You're a prime minister that does nothing.”
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The American consul general in Jerusalem, Jeffrey Feltman, was sent to see Abu Ala'a on September 8 to gauge his commitment to reform. I was concerned when I arrived and panicked when I left, Feltman reported back to Washington; there is a complete leadership vacuum. My own memos to Rice reflected this perspective: We were moving backward now, not forward, with the new Palestinian cabinet being more, not less, subservient to Arafat. In fact, there was no cabinet and in essence no PA during September and October; the new cabinet did not take office formally until it was approved by the PLC on November 12. As to security reform, there was to be a new National Security Council (NSC) in Ramallah, but any hope of real change was gone: Yasser Arafat was be the head, of course, of the Palestinian NSC. He was back in the saddle. Starting with Bush's speech of June 24, 2002, there had been a year and a half of politics, machinations, diplomacy, meetings, and pressure – all aimed at progress toward Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. The EU, the UN, the key Arab states had signed on; Ariel Sharon had brought along Israel's right to supporting establishment of a Palestinian state; Arafat had been forced to establish the post of prime minister and fill it with a decent candidate. But now in the fall of 2003, it was clear that there would be no such negotiations. Hamas and other terrorist groups were back at work, renouncing the truce they had undertaken in June. Mahmoud Abbas was gone, and the effort to sideline Arafat had failed.
This situation was clear enough, but now what? Some Israelis and Palestinians acted outside their own governments to provide answers – “there is a boom in plans,” Sharon described it – and of these the best known were the “People's Choice Plan” and the “Geneva Initiative.” People's Choice (also known as “People's Voice”) was an effort by Palestinian intellectual Sari Nusseibeh and by Ami Ayalon, a former commander of the Israeli Navy and later head of the Shin Bet
, the internal security organization. It sought to get large numbers of Israelis and Palestinians to sign a petition committing to six principles for
peace: the two-state solution; Jerusalem as an open city that would be the shared capital of both states; borders based on the 1967 lines with agreed one-to-one swaps; demilitarization of the Palestinian state; no “right of return” to Israel for Palestinian refugees, who would resettle only in the new Palestinian state; and an agreement that when all of these conditions are met, the conflict will be declared ended and all claims extinguished. Although drafted in the summer of 2002, People's Choice was not introduced at a press conference until June 25, 2003, and its authors hoped to affect politics on both sides by demonstrating vast public support. But over the following year and a half, People's Choice only signed up about 150,000 Israelis and 100,000 Palestinians, and by the end of 2007, its website went dark.
The Geneva Initiative
got a great deal more publicity and became a center of attention and mobilization for the “peace camp” on Israel's left. Geneva included the following concepts: the two-state solution; one-to-one land swaps that would permit the major settlement blocks and the Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem to be annexed by Israel but with the Old City open to all; a Multinational Force and International Verification Group to monitor and enforce its provisions; a solution to the refugee problem that included possible movement to Israel; and Palestine as a “non-militarized state.” The full text and annexes took 500 pages and spelled out detailed plans on many issues, though not on security: The security annex was one tenth the length of the annex on the environment.
Included among its dozens of Israeli and Palestinian signers were prominent names: Yasser Abd Rabbo (a top PLO politician and advisor), Yossi Beilin (a former Knesset member and justice minister), David Kimche (a long-time Mossad official, now dead), Amnon Lipkin Shahak (a former IDF chief of staff), and Qaddurah Faris (a Fatah leader who had spent 14 years in Israeli prisons before being elected to the PLC). Teams of these and other signers toured the world, meeting with heads of government to promote their plan. In the United States, they went to the State Department for a session with Colin Powell on November 9. The Geneva Plan, which took more than two years to formulate, was finally presented to the public on December 1, 2003, at a ceremony attended by Jimmy Carter and blessed from a distance by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.