Fresh from Washington, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is more unilateral than ever, reports Khaled Amayreh from the West Bank 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. Before they parted, Olmert and Bush remembered to pay a lip service to the effectively moribund roadmap, which needs constant artificial resuscitation to remain barely alive. Bush and Olmert dutifully ignored the fact that Israeli actions in the West Bank, particularly the construction of the separation wall in the Palestinian heartland, make the American-backed plan irrelevant. On the Iranian nuclear issue it was clear the Israeli premier did not get everything he would have liked. It is hardly a secret that Israel would like the US to attack, or even invade Iran, in order to ensure that the Jewish state remains the unchallenged nuclear power in the Middle East. Bush, however, showed that he was not only answerable to the Jewish lobby and the American evangelical camp, which unhesitatingly support the bombing of Iran. According to reports, influential sectors within the Republican Party, along with the European Union, had convinced Bush to change his mind, if not necessarily his heart, vis-à-vis Iran, resulting in a new package of incentives that might lead to direct American-Iranian talks. Olmert was unlikely to have been enthusiastic about the tactical turnaround but had to keep silent after American Jewish leaders told him that the Iranian nuclear issue should not be allowed to appear as an Israeli-Iranian dispute, in which case Israel's own nuclear arsenal would come into focus. Soon after returning from Washington Olmert sought to augment his success with another public relations success in Egypt. Indeed, the Israeli press praised Olmert's visit to Egypt earlier this week as "probably the most cordial ever by an Israeli prime minister". In Sharm El-Sheikh Olmert avoided the Palestinian issue as much as possible, contenting himself with repeating the usual diplomatic pleasantries about joint Israeli- Egyptian efforts to reach peace. Olmert told Mubarak Israel would spare no effort with the Palestinians to reach peace, but would go it alone if a Palestinian partner was not found. He also sought to highlight the "terror issue" in such a way as to suggest terror was the region's most pressing problem, and the matter of Palestine merely a sideshow. Mubarak told Olmert that Abbas was the partner willing to reach a peace settlement with Israel based on the roadmap while Olmert, eager to maintain a modicum of good chemistry with the Egyptian leader, promised he would meet Abbas soon. No one expects substantial results from any meeting, and when Israel claims that there is no Palestinian partner for peace it is, in a certain sense, telling the truth. Certainly there is no Palestinian partner willing to accede to Israel's annexing of large segments of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and give up the right of return of millions of Palestinian refugees. For the vast majority of Palestinians such a leader would be more quisling than a partner. (see pp. 2&8)
