Waiting for the man

Much is dependent on a speech Colin Powell is scheduled to give in the US next week. Almost certainly too much, predicts Graham Usher in Jerusalem
Yasser Arafat welcomed George Bush's "commitment" toward "a day when two states, Israel and Palestine, live peacefully together" as "a significant step on the path of ending the conflict and the establishment of peace in the Middle East." But he counseled the 189-member UN General Assembly on Sunday that it requires "international intervention" to "convert this vision [of Palestinian statehood] into a realistic political track."
Will the conversion come? In the wake of Bush's speech, Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke enigmatically of a greater American engagement in the Israel- Palestinian conflict "in the days and weeks ahead" based on "additional ideas for jump-starting" renewed negotiations. Much now seems to rest on the "major policy statement" Powell is due to deliver in Louisville on 19 November.
But of what will the "ideas," "engagement" and "jump-start" consist? The Palestinians are hoping for a clear roadmap that will lead them through the forest of the Mitchell and Tenet plans to the promised land of "a viable Palestinian state" alongside "a state of Israel accepted fully by its Arab neighbours," as envisioned by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
But there is precious little evidence that this is what's on offer. Israel is quietly convinced that Powell's initiative will not go beyond the parameters Ariel Sharon and Shimon Peres have set for him. 'Yes' to the Mitchell plan for ending the Intifada and to some nebulous endorsement of Palestinian statehood. But 'no' to any negotiations "under fire"; 'no' to any permanent settlement in the present period; and 'no' to any solution imposed on Israel against its wishes.
This too seems to be the reading in Europe. At their meeting in Washington last week, Bush reportedly told Blair that the war in Afghanistan could, and would, continue "with or without peace in the Middle East." The priority now was for "industrial quiet" in Israel and the occupied territories courtesy of the cease-fire deal set forth in Mitchell. It is also pretty clear whom the White House believes has the greater role in bringing about quiet.
"These are responsibilities we have asked Chairman Arafat to take, and to take seriously," rapped National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on the eve of the General Assembly. "We still don't think there has been enough [effort to lower the level of Palestinian violence] in that regard."
This of course is Israel's interpretation, which is why Sharon is still riding the wave of the war in Afghanistan to prosecute his own war in the occupied territories. Nearly a month after they went in, Israeli tanks still "occupy" Jenin and Tulkarm and lay a siege on four other Palestinian West Bank cities.
The army is also stepping up its search, destroy and kill incursions in numerous West Bank and Gaza villages. The latest of these happened on Monday when special army forces invaded Tal near Nablus, killed Hamas activist Mohamed Rihan, demolished the home of another and arrested 40 Palestinians, allegedly belonging to one or another of the factions.
There is also the routine oppression, such as the killing on Tuesday of 29- year-old Wafa Nasif, hit by a random army bullet while sitting in her home in Tulkarm. The international protest to these incursions and deaths is now so faint as to be inaudible.
The only noise generated by them is from the Palestinian resistance forces. These pitch mortars against the settlements in Gaza, ambush and kill settlers in the West Bank and stage the occasional action inside Israel proper, like the shooting attack that left one Israeli dead and another wounded in northern Israel on Sunday. "It is open war now," comments a Hamas leader in Gaza. "And it's open war for most of Fatah also."
Caught in such rapids, Arafat can only stay afloat, unwilling to bring his unruly militias to shore and clutching at whatever straw this European politician or that UN official tosses him. But, like them, he is waiting for the man in the form of the "initiative" Powell might or might not unveil in Louisville.
Until then -- and probably after it -- the studied ambiguity of America's "greater engagement" in the region will continue. And so will the war.
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