Sunday, April 13, 2008

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

By David Samuels

2nd part of 3

FINALLY THE EARPIECE IS FIXED

"Our people, Your Excellency," Abbas begins again. The president's earpiece still isn't working. "I agree completely," Bush says. Finally the earpiece is fixed, and he settles in to listen as Abbas praises "our Palestinian people who are committed to peace as a strategic option." It would be easier for everyone, of course, if Abbas were given to praising "our Palestinian people who are committed to peace," without adding that odd little phrase at the end.

Well, the truth is, it's an old formula, you can hear the presidential translator, Gamal Helal, saying, as he explains what "strategic option" really means for the umpteenth time on the way back to Jerusalem.

Bush turns his face to the camera as he steps to the microphone. "We have met a lot in the past, and I'm glad to finally have a chance to sit down in your office to discuss important issues," Bush begins. The translation audio goes out again. "Listen, they say I have enough problems speaking English as it is," Bush jokes, unflustered.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND

He is lean and fit and achingly sincere. Standing next to Abbas, he looks like Jimmy Stewart side by side with the Walrus from Alice in Wonderland. The Palestinians are entrepreneurial people who can create jobs, Bush says, in an encouraging way that makes him sound like he is addressing a Hispanic job fair in San Antonio. A handful of people want to dash the aspirations of the Palestinian people by fomenting chaos and violence.

"We are fully satisfied," Abbas says, in answer to a question from a Palestinian journalist about the results of the meeting. "We spoke about all topics. ... We are agreed on all topics. All topics are clear." His habit of talking out of the side of his mouth makes him sound like he is slightly soused.

While news reports will portray the American president as having expressed empathy with Palestinians, or condemned the Israelis, or predicted a peace treaty by the end of the year ("Bush expects to see Palestinian state before he leaves office," says USA Today), or done other consequential things, the truth is that nearly every sentence out of his mouth has already been said someplace else. Those sentences that don't fit the expected storylines are ignored.

CONDI STARES STONE-FACED AT THE ENORMOUS PLASTIC DOME OF THE ROCK

"Look, the U.N. deal didn't work in the past," Bush says, in answer to a Palestinian question about why the United States doesn't simply enforce the relevant U.N. resolutions relating to Israel the way it did with Iraq - i.e., by bombing. Seated at the side of the room, out of Bush's direct sight line, Rice stares stone-faced at the enormous plastic Dome of the Rock banner. On another day, with another president, a statement that the "U.N. deal" no longer applies to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might be diplomatic dynamite.

But the truth is that this is Bush, and besides, no one cares anymore. "We can stay stuck in the past, which will yield nothing good for the Palestinians, in my judgment," the president explains. "Do you want this state, or do you want the status quo? Do you want a future based upon a democratic state, or do you want the same old stuff?"

"We'll take a state," Abbas interjects, showing a welcome sign of life. But what he wants doesn't matter all that much anymore, either. If the occupying Israeli army disappeared from the West Bank tomorrow, it is doubtful that he would last more than a few months.

"See, the past has just been empty words, you know," Bush says, leaning over the podium in an oddly ruminative moment. "I'm the only president that's really articulated a two-state solution so far - but saying two states really doesn't have much bearing until borders are defined, right-of-return issues resolved, Jerusalem is understood, security measures - the common security measures will be in place."

A Palestinian reporter asks Abbas how he expects to reclaim the half of his future state that is currently under the control of Hamas. "Gaza is considered a coup by us," Abbas says.

On cue, a cellphone starts ringing at the side of the stage, filling the room with the familiar sound of the adhan, the Muslim call to prayer. "We consider it a coup d'etat," Abbas repeats, his upper lip twitching. The Palestinians crack up. "We spend in Gaza fifty-eight percent of our budget," he explains. "It is our duty toward our people that we provide them what they need."

BACK IN JERUSALEM

Back in Jerusalem, I ask National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley how it is that 58 percent of the Palestinian Authority budget goes to Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas. I suggest that the figure is particularly disturbing in light of the $7.4 billion in aid pledged to the Palestinian Authority at the recent Paris donors' conference. A tall and courteous national security expert, Hadley has the slight stoop of a man who has spent the better part of his life standing at briefing podiums set up for men who are four or five inches shorter than he is.

"Let me reframe your question, if I can," Hadley says. "What is Salam Fayyad, as prime minister in this Palestinian Authority, what is he going to do?" He is playing for time as he tries to sort out the small mess that Abbas has made.

"We don't have a presence in Gaza and haven't for a long time," Hadley parries, as though he wishes to avoid any accusation that the national security adviser's office is getting a cut, too. Finally, he gives in. "We worry about it. Salam Fayyad worries about it. He and President Abbas have no interest in strengthening Hamas," he says, adding, "If you want to get back in and restore the status quo ante to the Hamas coup, the last thing you want to do is stop the money flows." The logic of this last statement is debatable.

For a moment Hadley looks flummoxed, and then he decides to cut his losses and move on, like a man who lost a hand at whist. "Are there risks? You bet," he says briskly. "Are they concerned about it? Sure. Are we concerned about it? Sure."

AN IMAGINARY PALESTINIAN PARTNER

There is no shortage of theories in Jerusalem as to why Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has chosen to lend himself so enthusiastically to the goal of reaching a final-status agreement with an imaginary Palestinian partner. The theory put forward in public by Olmert himself is that the circumstances for an agreement are unlikely to be as favorable to Israel in the future as they are now, with Bush in the White House.

"If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights ... the State of Israel is finished," Olmert told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. More cynical minds have plastered the walls near the Prime Minister's office at 3 Rehov Kaplan with posters that show a mournful Olmert behind bars in shirtsleeves and a necktie, beneath the legend: even Bush can't save you.

The popular depiction of Olmert as a sly and personally corrupt lawyer whose shaky judgment resulted in the debacle of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon has some truth to it, yet it slights his ability to finesse big egos while acting in surprising ways that in another life might have won him a job as consigliere for the Bonannos or the Sopranos.

MAKING HIS FOREIGN MINISTER LOOK LIKE AN UNRULY TEENAGER

When Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni launched a campaign to replace him as head of his own Kadima party, for example, Olmert adopted the masterly and entirely counterintuitive strategy of doing absolutely nothing. If Livni wants to sit in Cabinet meetings in the morning and go to rallies against me in the afternoon, his attitude proclaimed, that's her business.

After successfully making his foreign minister look like an unruly teenager, he made his victory complete by appointing her chief negotiator with the Palestinians. Olmert is also surprisingly tall.

"It was a good visit, a productive visit," he intones in a mellow voice, when I ask him how the president's visit went. As he speaks, he palpates my hand as though he was using some kind of ancient Ayurvedic medical technique to judge the fitness of my heart and my liver.

I ask him whether Bush's summary statement on Thursday at the King David Hotel (known for a brief moment as the "King David Statement") contained anything new - Bush's description of Israel as a "homeland for the Jewish people, " for example. "He said it in Annapolis also," the prime minister said, in the tones of a man who has just enjoyed a relaxing hot bath. "It is always refreshing to hear it."

After another minute of chitchat, he glides out of his office and over to the Cabinet room to accept the resignation of Minister for Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman, a former nightclub bouncer from Moldova.

David Samuels

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

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