International

Welcome, say rivals

By Kesava Menon

Manama (Bahrain) June 25. Both Israelis and Palestinians tentatively say that the U.S. President, George W. Bush's "vision statement'' contains much of the substance of what they desire. But the implementation of this vision will depend largely on the words that Mr. Bush did not utter — the name of the Palestinian Authority President, Yasser Arafat.

With Mr. Bush specifying that a real change in the Palestinian leadership must be the first stage in the long march to a two-State solution the ball is in the hands of the Palestinian leader... . Or perhaps in the hands of fate, and that means no one's, because there is no alternative Palestinian leadership in sight.

The Palestinian Minister for International Co-operation, Nabil Shaath, has stated that Israel also has a large stake in the success of a democratic Palestine. He noted that Mr. Bush had spoken of the need for Israel to pull its forces back to the positions they held before the outbreak of the current intifada on Sept. 28, 2000, as security improved and for an immediate end to the construction of colonies. Mr. Shaath also noted that Mr. Bush had expressed his support for the key elements of the Palestinians' bundle of objectives vis-a-vis Jerusalem, the refugees, statehood and borders. But it must be noted here that Mr. Bush's formulations were somewhat more nebulous than suggested by Mr. Shaath's optimism. However, Mr. Shaath's final word on the subject, presumably after he and the rest of Mr. Arafat's aides had studied the statement, was that "we can live with it''.

Israel has even more reason to be satisfied with Mr. Bush's speech since it was a virtual endorsement of its views that negotiations will not start till there is an end to violence and that the U.S. does not believe there will be an end to violence so long as the Palestinian leadership remains unchanged. Ergo, the leadership must change.

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