IT'S UNANIMOUS

"A Shot at Peace": Can the U.S. Enforce the "Road Map" (Daniel Pipes, July 8, 2003, New York Post)

In private conversations with Bush administration officials this past week, I was favorably impressed by their realism about the U.S.-sponsored "road map" plan to stop Palestinian-Israeli violence. But I worry nonetheless that things could go awry.

Those worries stem from the seven years (1993-2000) of the Oslo round of Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy, when well-intentioned Israeli initiatives to resolve the conflict only worsened it. I learned two main lessons about Palestinian-Israel negotiations:

* Unless Palestinians accept the existence of Israel, the agreements they sign are scraps of paper.

* Unless Palestinians are held to their promise of renouncing violence, agreements with them reward terrorism and therefore spur more violence.

My caution today concerns both points. Palestinian ambitions to destroy the Jewish state remain alive. And the U.S. government's ability to enforce Palestinian compliance more effectively than did the Israelis remains in question.

Questioned again and again on these issues of Palestinian intentions and American monitoring, the senior officials I spoke with offered impressively hard-headed analyses:

* On Palestinian intentions to destroy Israel, they echo Secretary of State Colin Powell's recent statement, that he worries about "terrorist organizations that have not given up the quest to destroy the state of Israel."

* On the need to enforce signed agreements, both officials insist that the road-map diplomacy would screech to a halt if the Palestinians fail to keep their word. One of them also volunteered that Israel would not be expected to fulfill its promises if the Palestinians betrayed theirs.

I was especially pleased by the modesty of their aspirations. As one official puts it, "We have a shot at peace."

Wow, even the hard-cores are trying to carve out some wiggle room now. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 8, 2003 10:18 PM