by Ali Abunimah
US President George W. Bush's administration is considering
economic measures to prevent Israel from building its separation
wall in the occupied West Bank. The proposed punishment is to
subtract from US loan guarantees for Israel $1 for every dollar
Israel spends on building the barrier inside the West Bank. AIPAC,
the main pro-Israel lobbying organization in Washington, estimates
the cost of the barrier at $1 million per kilometer, and much of
the 640-kilometer barrier has been or will be built inside the
occupied areas.
Such a move would reflect concerns expressed by Bush and US
Secretary of State Colin Powell that the wall makes achieving a
two-state solution more difficult. However, the administration
appears to be split. Bush embodied this ambivalence recently at
the White House by criticizing the wall when standing next to
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas one day, and saying
nothing the next when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon openly
defied him, insisting the wall would be built.
Powell, meanwhile, has been the subject of press speculation that
he and his deputy, Richard Armitage, would not serve in a second
Bush administration. Powell dismissed the reports as "nonsense"
and "rumor," but on 6 August, New York Times columnist
Maureen Dowd saw in the story an attempt by Powell's
neoconservative rivals to dislodge him in favor of one of their
own. Dowd observed: "Just as the neocons made their move on
Powell, pro-Israel hawks scorned the secretary for not being on
their team in the peace process. Israel's supporters scoffed at
the new threat to cut loan guarantees as a State Department
policy, not a White House policy."
Such infighting does nothing to convince Israel or anyone else
that Washington is serious and determined to pursue the "road
map."
For the Bush administration, the situation could be an
uncomfortable reprise of an earlier episode involving the
administration of former US President George H.W. Bush. In 1991,
the elder Bush imposed an almost identical punishment on Israel to
force the Israeli government to attend the Madrid Peace
Conference. However, settlement construction continued, derailing
a nascent peace process. At the time, the president's comment that
he was "one lonely little guy" up against "something like a
thousand (pro-Israel) lobbyists on the hill working the other side
of the question," earned him the lasting enmity of the pro-Israel
lobby and may have helped lose him the 1992 election. Then
Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton seized on the
comment in the campaign, accusing Bush of breaking down "the taboo
against overt anti-Semitism." In American political terms such
accusations are poison.
As the 2004 elections approach, Democrats and Republicans are
again competing to make fervent pledges of allegiance to Israel.
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican, recently
toured Israel and addressed the Knesset, even as Bush was
receiving the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers in
Washington. DeLay's speech was so strident that it prompted a
Labor Party lawmaker to remark that DeLay was more extreme than
even the Likud. Prior to his trip, DeLay displayed an almost
racist view of Palestinians, while openly challenging Bush's
stated goal of a Palestinian state by declaring: "I can't imagine
this president supporting a state of terrorists, a sovereign state
of terrorists." Not to be outdone, a delegation of 29 Democratic
congressmen will head for Israel this month. Leading Democrats
were among the first to condemn withholding loan guarantees to
Israel because of the wall.
The lack of any serious debate about Israel in the US political
arena is perhaps best illustrated by the attitude of Howard Dean,
a former Vermont governor and Democratic presidential hopeful.
Dean has generated enthusiasm among liberals because he vocally
opposed the war in Iraq and supports universal healthcare. Yet
when it comes to Israel, Dean takes no risks.
Dean was asked last November by the Jewish weekly, The Forward,
whether he supported the views of the liberal Zionist group
Americans for Peace Now, or those of AIPAC, which backs the Sharon
government to the hilt. He answered: "My view is closer to AIPAC's
view." Dean's official Statement of Principles on the Middle East
Peace Process supports a two-state solution, but says that, "to
get there, the Palestinian Authority will have to fight terrorism
and violence." Yet he has not had a word to say about Israeli
violence that has killed three Palestinians for every Israeli in
the past three years and rendered intolerable the lives of
millions of people. The leading candidates' views get only more
hawkish.
With the political fundamentals in Washington being what they are,
any action that the Bush administration takes to confront Sharon
is likely to be timid at best. Sharon probably knows this, and his
defiance did not stop at his White House pledge to pursue building
the wall. As soon as Sharon returned to Israel, his government
announced tenders for 22 new housing units for Jewish settlers in
Gaza. This prompted the State Department to protest that a "freeze
is a freeze."
And this is only the tip of the iceberg. Last May, Israel's
housing minister, Effie Eitam, announced plans to build almost
12,000 new housing units in the occupied territories - a fact
virtually ignored by the Bush administration. In early August,
Israel's Haaretz daily reported, Eitam announced a major new
financial incentive plan to encourage increasingly impoverished
Israelis to move to the settlements.
Thus, with no check on Israel, the road map could be in an
impasse. The one factor focusing some attention on Israel's
rejectionist policy is the decision of the different Palestinian
factions to respect a cease-fire against Israeli civilians.
Hopefully, the factions will have the wisdom to maintain this,
despite Israel's provocations and Washington's inaction.
Ali Abunimah
This article first appeared in
The Daily Star (Lebanon).
