Is there now really any doubt? Despite heated denials by leaders of the Palestinian Authority, its naval force was caugh en flagrante in one of the most substanitial weapon hauls in modern. There it was, a ship registered in the name of the Palestinian Authority, commanded by a Palestinian naval officer, carrying several Palestinian crew members and seeking to unload 50 tons of weaponry to an undisclosed location. The final destination for this cargo could not have been more obvious if the crew had paraded around the deck with red, black and green t-shirt emblazoned with the PLO logo.
Yet, Maj, General Zinni, meeting with Arafat at the very moment the news broke, felt confident enough, by the end of the meeting, to declare that "conditions are right for progress to be made in easing tension". What, we might ask, did Arafat put in his drink to coerce such a ludicrous statement? within hours even left-wing Israeli papers were announcing that a shipment of this size and cost (the figure of 15 $ millions was suggested) would need to approval of the highest echelons within the Palestinian Authority and almost certainly of Arafat himself. The seizure of the Karine A leaves little doubt that while peace may be on the Palestinians' lips, it is war and vengeance that percolates in their thoughts.
Zinni's tepid response coupled with the modest wrist slapping administered by State Department's Richard Boucher were not the reactions of incautious or incompetent men. On the contrary, these are tough professionals chosen for their abilities to hurdle obstacles and bring antagonists to the negotiating table. The problem with American mediation is rarely ever the messenger, but rather in the way the message is packaged. Wilsonian thinking, a valiant crusade for the peace of the world, still dominates U.S foreign policy. Generations of Americans have unquestioningly accepted peace-making as a sacred American duty, convincing themself that every international problem can be resolved with proper application of American influence and mediation.
However, there are situations in the world that are so intractable that they do not lend themself to resolution. The Palestinian - Israel conflict is one of them. The two sides simply do not speak the same diplomatic language. The current Palestinian leader in a man who views a peace agreement as a mere tactic in an ongoing military struggle. A predilection for double-talk has shredded his credibility, rendering his signature essentially worthless. Much of his senior leadership and would be successors are in the same league. They are, by the large, men who have never understood that fulfilling an agreement can both build trust and secure the crucial political capital needed to advance an agenda.
Israeli leaders on the other hand, while certainly far from perfect, have appreciated precarious political and diplomatic international position and therefore are constant pressure, both internally and externally, to abide by their written agreements. This is the reason both of Israel's recent right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon, vociferous opponents of Oslo peace process, found themselves nominal advocates of it once they came into office. It is the reason Israel was scurpulous in fulfilling to the U.N resolution 425, calling for Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 1999.
To his credit George W. Bush who watched the collapse of Bill Clinton's interventionism, revealed an instinctive grasp of the limition of diplomacy and initally rejected an activist role in the Middle East. While the events of September 11th altered his perspective, today the reasons for continued mediation are becoming increasingly unclear. The same moderate Arab regimes who once demanded an even handed U.S approach to the Middle East have yet demonstrate any commitment to America's war against terrorism, By offering even handed mediation. Bush only gives Arafat the benefit of a safe harbor while getting nothing in return.
Those failed could well be on his mind as American Middle East policy begins to resmble a crumbling dynasty, with each failed emissary only frittering away further the patriarch's hard won fortune as prestige. Yet it is not American prestige that is one the line. It is also the safety and security of a trusted ally who must now finds its own way to deal with terrorsit threat as serious as any faced by America.
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