Thanks to No Left Turns, I found this short USA Today piece by Dennis Ross. It includes five steps the US should take to "act on the president’s committment" (Dennis Ross is a former ME envoy for Clinton and Bush 41):
- First, it must secure the cease-fire by removing ambiguities that could produce its unraveling.
- ensure that our assistance, and that of others, goes into labor-intensive projects that put Palestinians back to work and meet real needs
- Lean hard on the EU – If the Europeans are serious about promoting Israeli-Palestinian peace, they must raise the costs to Iran (and to Syria) of attempting to disrupt the truce.
- Bush must get Arab leaders, at their upcoming summit, to explicitly endorse Abbas’ commitment to end the violence
- the cease-fire cannot be an end in itself. It must lead to peacemaking. This time, there must be a solid foundation for the effort. That means making the Gaza withdrawal work and forging a common understanding of the obligations each side has under the road map.
What ambiguities is Ross talkig about? Whether Abbas has real poweer?
I have a labor intensive project for them: dig all foundations for new buildings with tea spoons.
Lean hard on the EU – yeah that will work.
As for getting Arab leaders to endorse Abbas’ commitment to end the violence. How about getting them to endorse efforts. When there are some. I see a repeat of the old Arafat shuffle. i.e. “I’m trying very hard but I can’t control the bombers.” Right.
What does it mean to make the Gaza withdrawal work? Isn’t that up to the Palis? Israel leaves them to their own devices (which is what they claim they want) and then what? Peace for our time? Right.
M. Simon,
Thanks for shredding Dennis Ross’ piece! I posted that reference in a neutral way to see what informed readers found in it. I’m not a fan of Ross – I associate him with the Oslo blunder.
I think his point on ambiguities is to push for an agreement on responses to violations of the ceasefire – before the s… hits the fan. That means another push on the Israelis to box themselves in.
Unless one anticipates that the Israeli side will be violating the ceasefire…
As for getting Arab leaders to endorse Abbas’ commitment to end the violence
That’s a Ross point that makes sense to me – wouldn’t it change the game significantly if the Arab League came down clearly that further attacks on Israel are tactically stupid? Will the Arab leaders actually do it?
I see a repeat of the old Arafat shuffle
Until now the cynic owned the best table odds. In the past month Abbas has shown some guts – I wish him success.
Ross aside – we’ve seen more hopeful actions by Abbas than anything I can remember before. I think the progress in Iraq strengthens his case to the voters – do you?
Cheers, Steve D.