Colin Powell's first visit to Israel and the occupied territories in over a year failed all Palestinian expectations, writes Graham Usher from Jerusalem Colin Powell arrived in West Jerusalem on 10 May hailing the "momentous opportunity" afforded by the defeat of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, the installation of a new prime minister at the helm of the Palestinian Authority and the publication of the roadmap, perhaps the most concerted international attempt to end the Israel-Palestinian conflict since the 1991 Madrid Conference. He left the region three days later -- after meetings in Jericho, Cairo, Amman and Riyadh -- with nothing in his pockets except his hands. And these too were empty. In West Jerusalem Ariel Sharon told the secretary of state that Israel could not accept the roadmap as drafted by the US, EU, UN and Russia, the so-called Middle East Quartet. The Israeli prime minister will instead journey to Washington on 20 May to reach "understandings" with George Bush on Israel's 15 or so "reservations" about the plan. These include a US acknowledgment that all movement on the political front hinges on the Palestinians waging "a real war against terror", a deferral for now of any Israeli settlement freeze and an up-front Palestinian renunciation of the right of return in exchange for any Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state, including one hemmed in behind "provisional", Israeli defined borders. Powell said little about the last two "comments", other than to admit to Israeli television that he doubted whether it was "possible to bring about a viable Palestinian state without doing something about the settlements". But in Jericho -- where he held his first meeting with PA Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), on 11 May -- he was entirely at one with Israel on the first. "We must see rapid, decisive action by the Palestinians to disarm and dismantle the terrorist infrastructure" in the PA areas, he said. "Without such action our best efforts will fail." Abbas answered that such efforts could not begin without Israeli acceptance of the roadmap. Powell told him to meet with Sharon to discuss matters "where sufficient agreement can be reached to push the peace process forward". Under extreme duress -- and in the teeth of opposition from many in the Palestinian leadership -- Abbas conceded. The first meeting between the Israeli and PA prime ministers is set for 17 May, and Abbas will strive to succeed where Powell failed. There is not a single PA official who believes this will happen. It is easy to understand Abbas' alarm. He has vowed to end the armed Intifada, initially through a cease-fire agreement between the Palestinian factions but ultimately through a Palestinian Authority strong enough to impose "one law" throughout the Palestinian areas. But he knows neither a cease-fire nor an enforcement can happen without Israeli withdrawal from the PA areas and an end to actions like the army's incursion into Gaza on 14 May that left three Palestinian police officers dead, two of them, apparently, killed by an Israeli undercover unit. The Israeli reprisal was for Palestinian mortar attacks that injured 10 soldiers at a military base in the Gush Qatif settlement and three civilians in an Israeli town bordering Gaza. Abbas has a similar dilemma with the settlements. In Jericho -- and in line Israel's obligations under the roadmap -- he called for "totally ending settlement", including the construction of "the separation wall" and the "destruction of Palestinian farmland and infrastructure" it involves. One day later Sharon gave his reply, in an interview with Israel's Jerusalem Post newspaper. He said Israel's settlement activity was "not an issue on the horizon right now". He added that the separation wall would probably envelop "Ariel and Emmanual", two settlements that lie some 20 kilometres inside the West Bank. Finally he clarified comments he made last month intimating that small West Bank settlements like Beit El and Shilo might perhaps be evacuated in return for a "real peace". "If you ask me whether in Beit El there will not be Jews, no, Jews will live there," he told the Post. Asked whether these settlements would remain under Israeli sovereignty, he was no less categorical. "Do you see the possibility of Jews living under Arab sovereignty? I'm asking you, do you see that possibility?" Beit El and Shilo are settlements that lie across the central West Bank corridor linking Ramallah and Nablus. Their evacuation would be necessary for any Palestinian state that is territorially contiguous, even one behind provisional borders. Sharon's message, clearly, is that such a state will not be established during his premiership. Recent Palestinian opinion surveys show Palestinian majorities in favour of a mutual cease-fire and a return to negotiations. Cognisant finally of the enormous losses caused by the "armed Intifada", many in Fatah are prepared to put their weight behind the security arrangements mandated by the roadmap. But this support is dependent on Israel keeping the roadmap's promises of withdrawal and settlement freeze and Abbas keeping his on reform, especially new elections for a Palestinian government. If, under American pressure, Abbas holds to the PA's security commitments without holding Israel to theirs "he will be eaten alive," says one Palestinian analyst, "and not only by Hamas and Islamic Jihad."
