Condi, Stay Home
Meanwhile, Abbas dithers, saying nothing. No wonder Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said that Abbas could not even return a bike that the Palestinians stole from one of the neighborhoods in Jerusalem. How on earth does Condi Rice expect the Israeli prime minister to talk to Abbas about a final status agreement?
The Bush administration wants someone to make an agreement with-and there isn't anybody. Nobody on the Palestinian side, for sure. And not on the Israeli side either, given the new chaos in Gaza.
Only the Arab countries-Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan-can provide enough cover and pressure for the Palestinians to make an agreement, but they don't want to. The Saudis prefer to look as if they want peace, rather than working to achieve it. And nobody is focusing on the fact that any agreement with Israel must now be endorsed by a refashioned Palestinian Liberation Organization through a popular referendum, held not only in the PA region but also among the refugee populations in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.
Forget any possibility of an agreement. The "political horizon" Rice sees is a mirage of her own making, an effort that is bound to stall, diminishing American prestige and credibility. The best advice for the moment is that once given to the overly peripatetic Secretary of State John Foster Dulles: Don't just do something-stand there!
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