George Bush's plan for peace

摘要

To A world that had been longing for an all-powerful America to rescue the Israelis and Palestinians from their self-inflicted purgatory, it was the dampest of damp squibs. Even Israelis admitted that the peace plan George Bush and his di- vided administration set forth this week could just as well have been written by their own prime minister, Ariel Sharon. Yes, Mr Bush's speech held out the possibility, within three years, of an independent state for the Palestinians, and a "provisional" state, whatever that might mean, even sooner. But the promise was hedged around with a thicket of contradictory, and arguably impossible, conditions. The Palestinians will first have to elect a "new and different" leadership; Yasser Arafat, though elected, is now it seems beyond the pale. They will have to turn territories that are under renewed Israeli military occupation into a true democracy, with an independent judiciary, helped along, says a straight-faced Mr Bush, by Arab states that have never managed to become democracies themselves. By implication, Mr Sharon is relieved of any obligation to negotiate a political settlement until this improbable transformation comes to pass. There was no reference in Mr Bush's speech to a previously promised international peace conference, nor any immediate call on Israel to reverse this week's re-occupation of towns and villages ceded to Mr Arafat under the Oslo accords.