The Father of Palestine: Into Ramallah with George W. Bush. Part I

By David Samuels

1^st part of 3

"I've never been to Ramallah before," one of the White House correspondents says, gazing out at the cold gray mountains outside Jerusalem. The walls and ceilings of the buses provided for the press are lined with strips of old shag carpet, and it takes two skinny Third-World-person-sized seats to fit a single network cameraman accompanying President Bush on the first leg of his pilgrimage to the Middle East. The printed sign in Hebrew at the front of the bus reads HEBRON. This is an armored bus that has been diverted from its normal route in the West Bank, which explains why the windows are so thick and the aisles are so narrow.

The rest of the reporters in the bus stare out the windows, trying to make heads or tails of the bleak, rain-swept moonscape of the Judean Hills. It is one of the great disappointments of first-time travelers to Jerusalem that the hills surrounding the city where King Herod ruled and Jesus was crucified look nothing like softly glowing Bible
illustrations of well-fed cows and humble donkeys. Instead, the scenery largely consists of barren fields of broken rocks that look like they were smashed by a surly giant with a sledgehammer.

Ripped from Ambien-induced slumbers at 5:45 a.m., the White House press has been fed an Israeli hodgepodge of hummus, eggs, smoked fish, and coffee for breakfast in the lobby of the Dan Panorama Hotel before being swept for weapons and explosives by the Secret Service and then badged in the lobby by future "Good Morning America" host Dana Perino. In addition to the White House photo badge, there is also the hexagonal traveling-pool badge and a Palestinian Authority press badge bearing the insignia of the P.A. and the Palestine Liberation Organization, two organizations that also might as well be located on the moon.

"THERE ARE NO PEOPLE," SOMEONE GASPS

Driving through the rain in Ramallah, we pass through a cordon of Palestinian Authority soldiers in brand-new camo uniforms carrying M-16 rifles that looked as if they had been freshly unpacked from their crates. "There are no people," someone gasps, as we head into the sterile zone set up by the Palestinian Preventive Security Force with the aid of the Americans over the past few days.

Residents in the streets surrounding the Muqata - the old British prison that served as Yasser Arafat's headquarters and has since been inherited by his successor, Mahmoud Abbas ("Abu Mazen") - have been told not to go out onto balconies or roofs and to stay away from windows while the president is here.

The largely fictional nature of Palestinian self-government in the West Bank is shown by the fact that only a token handful of Abbas's Presidential Guards are allowed inside the sterile zone, which has been secured by U.S. sniper teams and electronic warfare specialists.

In the week before the president's visit, the Israel Defense Forces spent four days arresting wanted men in Nablus, a city that the Authority had declared to be a shining example of its recent security successes. Israel also cut fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip, the seaside jail where a majority of the Palestinian population lives under the control of Hamas, the murderous Islamist militia that won a plurality of the votes in the Palestinian elections in January 2006 and now showers Southern Israel with rockets.

Having been stripped of its democratic mandate by Abu Mazen, Hamas replied by taking control of the Gaza Strip in approximately 48 hours between June 12 and June 14, 2007, exposing the hollowness of the American commitment to the electoral process and also the inability of the Palestinian security forces to defend themselves with their slick new American-donated weapons.

"WE GOT WINNIE"

At the entrance to the Muqata, visitors are greeted by a large portrait of Arafat in a black and white kaffiyeh hanging next to his colorless successor, Abbas. "The South Africans got Nelson Mandela," a Palestinian friend from Jerusalem once told me. "We got Winnie Mandela." As a student of revolutionary movements, my friend believes that the personal character of the historical leader has a determining impact on the political culture of the future state.

In his view, Arafat's essential trait was duplicity. By being all things to all people, and refusing to commit himself to a single course of action, Arafat's legacy is that he has made it impossible for the Palestinians to choose their own fate.

The press is rushed from the armored buses to the Muqata's main briefing room, a professional-looking setup with state-of-the-art overhead light arrays and other CNN-ready paraphernalia put together at a cost of over $1 million in U.S. taxpayer money in order to provide American officials like the president and the secretary of state with a secure, camera-ready location from which to transmit their latest newsworthy pronouncements.

On the wall near the door hangs a large printed plastic banner of the gold-topped Dome of the Rock rising above the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. The White House press corps is seated near the door, in case something happens and they need to be hurried back to the buses. The Palestinian press corps, shivering outside in secure tents, will soon be allowed to take their places across the aisle, in a section of folding chairs in front of Abu Mazen's podium.

A CONVENIENT MYTH

Even if Abbas is a "good man," in the patronizing formula adopted by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, it is hard to see why the president of the United States believes so strongly in the likelihood of brokering a peace deal between a weak Israeli government and a Palestinian Authority that exists largely on paper and has no obvious means of future support.

It is true, of course, that the fiction of the Palestinian Authority is convenient for everyone. Without the myth of Palestinian self-government, Israel would be forced to rule the West Bank directly, the Americans would pressure Israel to leave, and the Jordanians would go weak at the knees at the thought of a second Gaza Strip arising on their border. Still, confusing the fig leaf offered by the P.A. with a functioning state seems like too big a blunder even for an administration that brought us the failed U.S. puppet government in Iraq.

When it comes to describing the purpose of today's staged event, the reporters in the room are therefore in a double or triple bind. It is rude to say that the Palestinian Authority is a fiction and that a peace treaty signed with an imaginary entity would be a joke. It is rude to say that there is no immediate solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Because it is rude to say these things, it becomes difficult - if not impossible - for reporters and editors to think about why the president is here.

IRAN, IRAN, IRAN

In the more conspiratorially minded climates of the Middle East, for example, it did not escape notice that the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) announcing that Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons program was published after the U.S. Army announced that attacks on U.S. troops by IEDs and other explosive devices of Iranian origin had fallen by nearly two-thirds.

It was also noted that President Bush had publicly approved of the Russian decision to ship nuclear fuel rods to the Bushehr reactor. In the opinion of regional conspiracy buffs, the president was pursuing a secret deal with Iran, and the focus on a grand plan for peace between Israelis and Palestinians in 2008 was intended to give plausible cover to a trip whose real purpose was to reassure the skittish Kuwaitis and Saudis that the Americans were not planning to fold up their tents and go home.

In the meantime, the White House press corps has been left to speculate on the chances for solving the 100-year-old Arab-Israeli conflict in the next twelve months while watching one of the Muqata flacks hang foam-backed Palestinian eagles on little hooks at the front of each podium.

A young Palestinian reporter seated in front of me is writing down a question in her lined notebook, in case President Bush calls on her. "Mr. President, there has been talk about you giving the green light to the Israelis about a military strike," she writes. A woman from the U.S. Consulate distributes Star Trek-like devices that will allow the reporters to hear a simultaneous translation of Abbas's remarks.

"THEY'RE COMING!"

At 11:07, eight minutes early, a wedge of security people moves toward the stage. "They're coming!" the press handlers announce. The sound of shutters going off fills the room like someone flipping through a deck of plastic-covered playing cards. "Two minutes, guys." The room falls silent. The truth is that it is difficult if not impossible for any native-born American to travel on a presidential plane, go through the endless security checks, and bear witness to the extreme precautions that are taken to ensure the president's safety at every stop, and still conclude that what you are watching is void of significance.

Faster than expected, Bush walks in from the cold and winks at the traveling press, who generally seem to like him. Next to him is Abbas, who wears a gray suit with a white shirt and a dull striped tie as he addresses the leader of the free world for the cameras: "Our people will not forget Your Excellency," Abbas begins in Arabic, "and your commitment toward the establishment of an independent Palestinian state."

The father of the future state of Palestine fumbles with his earpiece, which is not working. "I haven't got it yet," Bush says. He points to a White House correspondent in the front row. "You better stay awake," he jokes. Everyone laughs. The Palestinian press is discovering what the American reporters already know, which is that Saint George, Defender of Western Civilization is also a world-class cut-up.

David Samuels

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.