Israel and Palestine: By way of deception

Having made a triumphal visit to the United States, during which he received multiple standing ovations from a pliant Congress and managed to woo an almost equally pliant White House closer to his "convergence plan", Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is now contemplating his next move in the West Bank.

Even before embarking on his inaugural pilgrimage to the American capital, Olmert, acting on advice from AIPAC, the powerful American pressure group, decided to change the focus of his visit from "the convergence plan" to "getting to know President Bush".

Irrespective of who is in power, Washington has always been a conquered territory for Israel, which now takes America's unquestioned backing for granted.

Olmert's first visit to Washington as prime minister "succeeded beyond our wildest imagination", said one Israeli commentator. Success, from an Israeli perspective, is measured by the extent to which Israel and its allies in Congress and the State Department succeed in convincing the president of the veracity and plausibility of the Israeli view point.

With his domestic popularity ratings at an all time low, mainly because of Iraq, Bush was in no mood to challenge Olmert over his convergence plan, a euphemism for the wholesale theft of Palestinian land.

Coaxing a man who didn't require much convincing anyway, Olmert told Bush that Israel, in the absence of a reliable Palestinian partner, must act alone to ensure security and a semblance of peace for its citizens. The Israeli premier didn't bother to explain why there was no Palestinian partner, nor did Bush bother to ask what qualifications a Palestinian "partner" needed to possess in order to be accepted by Israel. The fate of the Palestinians, in short, appeared to be juggled between the indifferent hands of Bush, and the callous ones of Olmert. Finally they did manage to agree that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who Olmert had recently labelled as "weak and unreliable", was perhaps the person to whom Israel should talk.

Not that Olmert really wants to talk to Abbas; it's simply that at this delicate juncture in US manoeuvrings over Iran, Olmert must give the impression that Israel is exhausting all possible avenues to reach peace with Palestinians so that the White House can give the same impression to its increasingly weary allies.

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http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/798/fr3.htm