Authors: Elliott Abrams
Sharon was, of course, in Jerusalem, and after repeated efforts to reassure Abdallah of this fact, he finally appeared. But by then the discussion time had ended, and the press was gathered for the leaders’ public appearance together. So after gathering at the roundtable, the leaders simply trooped outside onto the stage to listen together as Mubarak read the agreed statement. Viewers would have noticed that the audience and the press were absolutely wilting in the heat and sharp sunlight, while the leaders appeared – and remained – cool and fresh. This was not an optical illusion but a marvel of American technology. The stage on which the men stood was on the edge of the hill leading down to the sea; it was placed there because that location provided a gorgeous backdrop – Tiran Island and the Red Sea itself. But White House technicians had also brought air conditioning condensers down to the shore by boat and crane, and were piping cold air up the hill and under the stage. The audience saw nothing, but the icy air wafting up from the floor boards kept the leaders in a kind of cold bubble.
From Sharm, the president made the short flight to Aqaba, which was to be a far more successful venture. There were three key events: the private meetings with Sharon and
then with Abbas, and then public statements. Both men said what Bush wanted to hear. For the Palestinians, there had been debate over how to react to those American drafts of what Abbas should say. As an advisor to Abbas described it,
There were two schools of thought. One school of thought that said, “You know, this is unacceptable. Let's negotiate every word, every comma, every term.” Another school of thought that said, “No. We're not going to turn this into one of these painful things – this is an opportunity to start building good rapport with the President.…[T]his is an opportunity to say, “Look, we're playing ball here.” And the latter school of thought did prevail.
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Indeed it did. The Abbas speech did everything the White House wanted – in the key passages endorsing the two-state solution and new negotiations to reach it, renouncing terror and violence as a means of promoting Palestinian interests, and promising democratic reforms:
As we all realize, this is an important moment. A new opportunity for peace exists, an opportunity based upon President Bush's vision and the quartet's road map which we have accepted without any reservations. Our goal is two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security. The process is the one of direct negotiations to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to resolve all the permanent status issues and end the occupation that began in 1967 under which Palestinians have suffered so much.
At the same time, we do not ignore the suffering of the Jews throughout history. It is time to bring all this suffering to an end.
Just as Israel must meet its responsibilities, we, the Palestinians, will fulfill our obligations for this endeavor to succeed.
We are ready to do our part. Let me be very clear: There will be no military solution for this conflict, so we repeat our renunciation and the renunciation of terrorism against the Israelis wherever they might be. Such methods are inconsistent with our religious and moral traditions and are a dangerous obstacle to the achievement of an independent sovereign state we seek. These methods also conflict with the kinds of state we wish to build based on human rights and the rule of law.
We will exert all of our efforts using all our resources to end the militarization of the intifada and we will succeed. The armed intifada must end, and we must use and resort to peaceful means in our quest to end the occupation and the suffering of Palestinians and Israelis. And to establish the Palestinian state, we emphasize our determination to implement our pledges which we have made for our people and the international community, and that is the rule of law, single political authority, weapons only in the hands of those who are in charge of upholding the law and order, and political diversity within the framework of democracy.
Our goal is clear and we will implement it firmly and without compromise: a complete end to violence and terrorism. And we will be full partners in the international war against terrorism.
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Sharon's speech also met the mark – in its key parts he clearly endorsed Palestinian statehood and the commencement of negotiations, and even mentioned the Roadmap:
As the Prime Minister of Israel, the land which is the cradle of the Jewish people, my paramount responsibility is the security of the people of Israel and of the State of Israel.
There can be no compromise with terror and Israel, together with all free nations, will continue fighting terrorism until its final defeat.
Ultimately, permanent security requires peace and permanent peace can only be obtained through security, and there is now hope of a new opportunity for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Israel, like others, has lent its strong support for President Bush's vision, expressed on June 24, 2002, of two states – Israel and a Palestinian state – living side by side in peace and security. The Government and people of Israel welcome the opportunity to renew direct negotiations according to the steps of the Roadmap as adopted by the Israeli government to achieve this vision.
It is in Israel's interest not to govern the Palestinians but for the Palestinians to govern themselves in their own state. A democratic Palestinian state fully at peace with Israel will promote the long-term security and well-being of Israel as a Jewish state.
There can be no peace, however, without the abandonment and elimination of terrorism, violence, and incitement. We will work alongside the Palestinians and other states to fight terrorism, violence and incitement of all kinds.
We can also reassure our Palestinian partners that we understand the importance of territorial contiguity in the West Bank, for a viable, Palestinian state. Israeli policy in the territories that are subject to direct negotiations with the Palestinians will reflect this fact.
We accept the principle that no unilateral actions by any party can prejudge the outcome of our negotiations.
In regard to the unauthorized outposts, I want to reiterate that Israel is a society governed by the rule of law. Thus, we will immediately begin to remove unauthorized outposts.
Israel seeks peace with all its Arab neighbors. Israel is prepared to negotiate in good faith wherever there are partners. As normal relations are established, I am confident that they will find in Israel a neighbor and a people committed to comprehensive peace and prosperity for all the peoples of the region.
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Before his private meetings with Abbas and Sharon, the president met briefly with King Abdullah, the host at Aqaba; in fact, all the meetings took place at his palace there. President Bush was impressed by Abbas's intentions but still worried about Arafat. If he reemerges, forget the peace process, he told Abdullah; the goal today is to strengthen Abbas, and in particular start getting him control over the security organizations. In this assessment Bush was absolutely correct because, as Sharon had repeatedly told him, there could be no “peace process” while suicide bombs were exploding weekly.
The president first met with Sharon before meeting with Abbas. Sharon was accompanied only by Dubi Weissglas. Dubi had been Sharon's lawyer for many years, since his libel lawsuit against
Time
magazine in 1983. He was a prosperous Tel Aviv lawyer who served Sharon now as his chief of staff inside the government and in effect as his foreign minister and chief interpreter – interpreter of the world to Sharon and of Sharon to the world. Dubi was
famous in Israel, and soon enough to us as well, for his endless and often brilliant wisecracks and jokes, which he used to defuse any tense situation or to change the subject when he thought it useful to Israel that he do so. He was Sharon's best press agent and his key interface with the Bush administration. Perhaps most critically for us, Sharon trusted him and he truly spoke for the prime minister as no other Israeli official could. It was not surprising that for this key meeting with Bush, Sharon chose to come only with Dubi.
Bush began with flattery: I called you a man of peace, I meant it, and today you are proving me right. He then repeated his views of Arafat, knowing this too would reassure Sharon: I am never going to deal with him, he told the Israeli. He is no good; he has failed. And the president repeated his commitment to Israeli security, this time with a note of exasperation: Do not worry about that; in fact, if you are really worried about my commitment to Israel's security, which you keep mentioning over and over, take your plane and go home.
Sharon thanked Bush for calling him a man of peace and said that was his goal – but peace and security were inextricably linked. For real peace, peace that brought security, Sharon said he was ready to make “painful compromises.” He had run on that platform and gotten a majority of the vote for it. He was ready for territorial concessions in the “cradle of the Bible.” He then went back to security: The Palestinians must understand that if terror continues, they will not get anything. Bush did not argue but asked instead how the process could move forward; how can we make this work? Sharon, who had for so long resisted the Roadmap, now adopted its phases. If the terror ends in Phase I, we will move to an “interim” Palestinian state in Phase II and then can begin discussing the final phase. Sharon made it clear that he understood what Palestinian contiguity meant: the painful removal of settlements, which he always called “Israeli towns.” But all this would have to come in stages: Israel would not negotiate peace first and then wait for terror to stop. Phase I came first, and only then Phase II. Sharon was adamantly opposed to making concessions first and then finding that Israel was still living under terror. I won't ask you to take risks with Israel's security, Bush told him again; you've mentioned this maybe 30 times so you must be nervous. Don't be.
There was also discussion of the settlements, worth noting in view of later denials (made by the Obama administration) that any real understanding had been reached. Weissglas said that as part of the U.S.-Israel understanding about a freeze, there would be no new building beyond the current construction line. Sharon added that there would also be no additional confiscation or expropriation of land. Rice asked about another part of the agreement, the end of subsidies; Weissglas replied that in the new Israeli budget, all subsidies to settlers would come to an end. This was no staff-level discussion but rather a meeting between Bush and Sharon, and both sides were fully cognizant of the agreement on settlements that had been reached.
The session ended with Sharon raising the so-called right of return. It had always been a central Palestinian demand – found in all their key documents – that all Palestinian refugees
and
their descendants, now
numbering in the millions, had the right to “return” to Israel. Such a population movement would, of course, shift the ethnic/religious balance in Israel, whose population was then 20% Arab, and would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish State. It would finally defeat the partition declared by the United Nations in 1947 between a Jewish State and an Arab State and rejected since by every Arab nation.
Bush and
Sharon had never discussed the issue before, but Sharon put it on the table before we adjourned. The official U.S. position had long been that there should be a “just settlement” of the refugee issue; we had no agreement with Israel that there would never be a right of return. The Bush reply must have surprised the Israelis: When Weissglas said the whole issue hit a raw nerve with the people of Israel, Bush's only comment was “No shit – here come three million people!” The Americans in the room could not have been surprised when later, in the spring of 2004, Bush made it official American policy that the refugee problem would be solved solely in a Palestinian state, and not by Palestinians “returning” to Israel.
In his meeting with Abbas, Bush first emphasized the need to stop terror. You've got to kick some terrorist ass, he told the mild-mannered prime minister, because it will be impossible to move forward if the terrorism
continues. Abbas was accompanied by his security minister, Mohammed Dahlan, on whom Bush placed the burden for action: Tough things need to be done. Dahlan reminded Bush that the PLO had fought Hamas before, in 1996, and said it could do so again; the forces needed to be rebuilt, but this would not take long. (In this as in so many later promises, Dahlan proved to be what one very senior official called him that day – “just a bullshitter.”) Abbas said the time for such a clash with the terrorists would come; it was inevitable. Bush spoke almost emotionally of his hopes for the Palestinians: A democratic Palestinian state would be a model for the entire Arab world, which had for so long mistreated the Palestinians. He promised to pressure Israel to move as well, though not by compromising its security, and told Abbas it was U.S. policy to make him and his new government steadily stronger.
In this meeting, the good and bad of Abbas came through clearly. He seemed to all of us, as we chatted later, a decent man who really did want to see the violence end. Nothing that Abbas said or did in the ensuing years ever led any of us to doubt that conclusion. He was always pleasant to work with, possessed a good sense of humor, and was fond of Americans. We had no evidence that he was personally corrupt, even if the rumors (and, later, information) about his sons were ultimately too strong to deny. But from the president on down, we doubted that day and ever after whether he could deliver on his pledges. He seemed better suited by nature to be a prime minister in some small and peaceful state in northern Europe than to lead the Palestinians. By 2002 and 2003, Palestinians were becoming tired of Arafat's corruption and his autocratic leadership style, but the political culture still placed a great premium on militancy. Those who had served time in Israeli prisons had a huge advantage over those who had not; those who had fired guns (or claimed
to have done so or were urging others to do so) were elevated over those whose weapons were words. Could Abbas really wrest the mantle of leadership from Arafat and
from gang leaders who urged confrontation with Israel? Could he persuade Palestinians to drop their weapons and make the compromises that peace would require, and then enforce any deal that was made? Those questions recurred throughout President Bush's efforts to move toward a peace agreement, and he himself repeatedly raised them, sometimes thinking aloud and sometimes directing them at visitors from the region.