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June 6, 2003/Sivan 6 5763, Vol. 55, No. 41
Looking beyond the Aqaba summit
LESLIE SUSSER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - A double dose of optimism and skepticism led up to the summit at the Red Sea resort of Aqaba June 4, but what really matters is what comes next.
Hardened by past failures, Israelis and Palestinians alike recognize that there is still a long way to go, and a lot that could still go wrong after President Bush meets with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas.
There are, for example, still dozens of warnings of planned terrorist attacks, and a new round of suicide bombings could quickly derail a reactivated peace process.
And even if the parties are able to make the first moves Bush is asking of them, they will encounter major problems down the road.
One far-right Israeli Cabinet minister, Avigdor Lieberman of Yisrael Beit-einu, warns that "any attempt to dismantle settle-ments will lead to civil war."
Despite all the challenges, there was a fresh breath of optimism in the air this week. Israeli generals are talking about the end of the nearly three-year-long Palestinian uprising.
Palestinians are delighted by Sharon's unprecedented use of the term "occupation" - and are looking forward to the occupation's end.
And most importantly, both sides have been sobered by what they see as the American administration's newfound determination to put an end to the long conflict between them.
Indicative of the new mood, the Israeli stock market, sluggish during the intifada years, has been skyrocketing.
The Aqaba summit, designed to kick-start a new peace process, is first and foremost a statement about the degree of American commitment.
On June 2, Bush vowed to "put in as much time as necessary" to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Bush made his comments in France before leaving for the Middle East, where he attended a summit in Egypt with Arab leaders on June 3.
At the meeting June 3 with leaders from Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the Palestinian Authority at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheik, Bush said Israel "must deal with the settlements." Israel must "make sure there is continuous territory that the Palestinians can call home."
A few days earlier, in a private conversation at the White House, Bush was reportedly asked how he could be sure Sharon would go along with him and make the necessary concessions.
"Because he owes me," the president replied confidently.
Indeed, Sharon has a lot to thank the American presi-dent for.
The American-led war in Iraq removed a major strategic threat to Israel; the United States allowed Sharon virtually a free hand in fighting Palestinian terror; and in the run-up to Israel's acceptance of the American-inspired "road map" to peace, Bush gave the green light for a billion-dollar defense deal under which Israel is to supply India with state-of-the-art Phalcon air-mounted command and control systems.
At the June 3 summit, Arab states agreed to Bush's request to back the road map.
The president is also asking Egypt and Jordan to send ambassadors back to Israel as soon as there are tangible signs of progress.
"I hope that as we move forward in this process down the road map, both Egypt and Jordan will see the merit at an appropriate moment to return their ambassadors," Secretary of State Colin Powell said June 3 in Egypt.
For the Palestinians, too, the president's message will be clear: Stop the terror or nothing will go forward.
To underline just how serious they are, the Americans are sending in a team of about a dozen monitors, mostly CIA officials, to determine where the parties are carrying out their road map obligations - and where they are not.
And the word is that any side that creates obstacles will be publicly rebuked.
Also this week, John Wolf was expected to be named a special U.S. Middle East envoy to help implement the road map.
A team headed by Wolf, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for non-proliferation, is slated to arrive in the Middle East following the summit.
Leslie Susser is the diplomatic correspondent for the Jerusalem Report.
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