The Palestinian president's trip to the US was not a failure, but then neither was it a victory, writes Samir Ghattas* Mahmoud Abbas has just concluded his first visit to the US as Palestinian president. Last time he was in the US, two years ago, he was prime minister under Yasser Arafat. Earlier, in 1993, he signed the Oslo accords that he was widely viewed as having masterminded. Although one Palestinian spokesman has claimed that the visit was a "success beyond expectations", there are reasons to believe that Abbas got out of the Americans much less than what he wished for. Weeks before the Palestinian president landed in Washington, Sharon was there, luxuriating in the hospitality of Bush's Texas ranch and securing substantial concessions from his American friends. The only thing Sharon failed to do, apparently, was convince the Americans that Abbas was a spent force and an unreliable partner in the peace process. Sharon may try again, but for now at least, the Americans are not in a mood to humour him on that point. What Sharon ultimately wants is to keep squeezing the Palestinians out of the peace process until they agree to have an interim state on 22 per cent of their land, at which point the Israelis are almost certain to procrastinate some more. For now, however, the Americans seem to back Abbas against the Israelis, just as they backed him in the past against Arafat. Sharon wasn't ruffled. He appeared at the AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee) annual conference and launched into a diatribe against the Palestinian president. His assessment of the Palestinian president met the approval of at least two top US legislators, Republican majority leader Tom Wiley and Democrat Joseph Biden. On the eve of the Palestinian president's meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Sharon sent two of his aides to Rice, almost certainly to gripe about Abbas's handling of security matters. For now, however, the US administration is behind Abbas. A security envoy Rice sent recently to the Middle East, Lt-Gen William Ward, has voiced satisfaction with what the Palestinian president is doing. Recently, Abbas re-organised his security forces, dismissing many of the old guard. So far, the Palestinians seem to be successfully keeping law and order, the US envoy reported. But Abbas got more from the Americans than moral support. He got $50 million in cash, dispensed straight to the Palestinian Authority (PA), not to civil society groups as the US Congress had suggested. This is quite significant, for it means that the US trusts PA financial and administrative performance, which may encourage other international quarters to do so. The financial aid would help Abbas improve conditions in the Palestinian territories, turn around the vicious cycle of poverty and unemployment, and thus, perhaps, maintain the current state of calm. Abbas and his entourage -- Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei, Foreign Minister Nasser Al-Qudwa and Finance Minister Salam Fayad -- maintained a stance of pragmatism throughout the visit. When Al-Qudwa was asked if any particular party may be likely to undermine the state of calm, he spoke of Israeli violations then mentioned that some Palestinians are to blame as well. Mohamed Dahlan was conspicuously absent. Under Arafat, Dahlan was a fixture in all Palestinian visits to the US. Not this time. One possibility for Dahlan's absence is that his status was undermined by the victory Hamas scored against his supporters in Gaza's municipal elections. Another is that Abbas kept him home on purpose to avoid focussing solely on the security issue during the visit. Bush made a point of noting that Hamas is still on the US list of terror groups. But US officials refreshingly had other things to discuss with the Palestinians other than the much-hyped need to disarm the armed factions. For now, the Americans are willing to let the Palestinian president handle things his way. Abbas, for his part, noted that the PA has achieved in four months what Israel failed to achieve in four years through excessive force. President Bush seemed willing to support Abbas's policy of integrating opposition Palestinian groups into the political process. All Palestinians are entitled to be part of the democratic process, the US president said, obviously challenging the Israeli point of view. Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom had once threatened that should Hamas take part in the Palestinian elections, Israel would call off the withdrawal from Gaza. It is to the credit of Abbas that the Americans took his side in matters of domestic policy. And yet the Palestinian president didn't get what he really wanted; namely progress on the peace process. This was somewhat expected. Only weeks earlier, Bush handed Sharon a letter promising, first, that the US does not support any other political plan other than the roadmap; second, that Palestinian refugees right to return is confined to the future Palestinians state; third, that demographic changes would be taken into account in the final settlement; and fourth, that Israel has the right to pursue suspected terrorists in areas it evacuates. Even more worrying, Bush seems to have forgotten his earlier promise that an independent Palestinian state be formed by the end of 2005, in accordance with the roadmap. Some may argue that the Americans didn't want to give Sharon's foes ammunition ahead of the Gaza withdrawal. But for now at least, Abbas seems to have gone home empty-handed on matters concerning the peace process. Abbas had definitely wished to hear more than the perfunctory US rhetoric about the two-state solution, the dismantling of illegal settlements, and the cessation of unilateral measures. That wasn't to be. What has Abbas accomplished? Let's start with what he hasn't. The Palestinian president wanted a short cut to the final status talks. He wasn't granted that. He is believed to want to start talks where Clinton's revised plan in Taba in 2001 left it. He wasn't granted that either. He wanted the Americans to understand his reservations concerning the interim Palestinian state. This wasn't to happen. And he certainly wished for a letter of reassurance similar, at least, to the one Sharon received. Any of these would have been a definite success, but none came. The Palestinian president is likely to voice any or all of these requests in the future, but for now he is biding his time, careful not to rock the boat. The strongest statement Abbas came up with during the visit was a warning that time is running out. "Time is going to be our greatest enemy. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict must be settled before it is too late," he told US interlocutors. The Palestinian president has taken all he can get and left what he couldn't for another time. This sums up his visit. He has the right to be happy, but not thrilled. "Success beyond expectations" is not how Abbas or anyone else can credibly describe the trip. * The writer is the director of the Maqdis Centre for Political Studies in Gaza.
