At this point, it is far from clear if President George W. Bush’s visit to Israel and Palestine will have tangible results. Certainly his rhetoric was strong and Presidential rhetoric matters.

“There should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967. The agreement must establish Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people, just as Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people. These negotiations must ensure that Israel has secure, recognized, and defensible borders. And they must ensure that the state of Palestine is viable, contiguous, sovereign, and independent," he said.

Bush stated that the issue of Jerusalem must, like all the other issues, be resolved in the context of negotiations.

He also persuaded Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Mahmoud Abbas to begin talks on “core issues”—rather than defer them to the end of the process—and pushed Olmert to dismantle illegal settlements.

Nevertheless, the Bush visit won’t rate more than a footnote in the history books unless real changes occur on the ground fast. That will require considerably more than one or even two Presidential visits. Change will require a sustained American presence to ensure that progress is made. It will also require an end to the subversion of peace efforts by high-ranking US officials whose views on the Middle East are to the right of Olmert’s, let alone their bosses, President Bush and Secretary Rice. 

Change is a big word these days. First Senator Obama, then Senator Clinton and Governor Huckabee, and now pretty much all of the Presidential candidates are invoking the change mantra in every speech.  Who can be against change?

In most areas, no one. But when it comes to Israeli-Palestinian issues, candidates tend to hide behind ritualistic “pro-Israel” formulas. It is as if the Israeli-Palestinian issue is the only one in the world about which calling for change is bad and, even more significantly, dangerous.

The Israeli-Palestinian issue was hardly ever mentioned during the dozen Presidential debates that have taken place so far this year. That is because candidates fear that the only people who care deeply about the issue are those who want Israel to hold on to the West Bank forever and never, ever, to concede anything to the Palestinians.

Of course, those people constitute only a small minority of the pro-Israel community.  However, they do speak much louder than the pro-negotiations majority and also carry a much bigger stick. Candidates fear crossing them. And Israelis, Palestinians, and Americans have all paid a heavy price for that timidity.

Since 2000 Israelis and Palestinians have been enduring violence, terrorism, and hopelessness. As for the United States, continuation of the conflict has done terrible injury to all of our interests in the region.

Even some Israeli hardliners are saying it.

Dov Weisglass was Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s top advisor, and his intermediary with the United States government. Needless to say, he is not a man of the left but rather of the right. He is a strong supporter of the security fence and believes that its completion is essential to Israel’s security. During Sharon’s term in office, no Israeli played a larger role in keeping the US-Israel relationship afloat. 

It is therefore significant that this week he wrote a column in Yedioth Achronoth demanding urgency on Israeli-Palestinian issues. He says that he is tired of discussions about procedure and he’s had it with “festive steps.” He wants to see change now.

These are his recommendations:

Israel should “immediately evacuate all the unauthorized outposts. . . It should remove or relocate remote and isolated settlements. . . The IDF should be withdrawn from Palestinian population centers and troops shifted west toward the fence area in such a way as to safeguard central Israel. . . ”

“Roadblocks and barriers should be removed, Palestinian towns and cities should be linked again and the mistake of 1967—annexing crowded areas that have no links to Jerusalem—should be rectified.  Areas that are vacated should be given to the PA to administer while keeping Israeli security measures. . . In parallel, Israel should work together with the world's nations to develop the Palestinian economy, to raise the standard of living. . . ”

Weisglass calls these “small steps.”  I’m not so sure.  In an area where we have become accustomed to speeches and symbols as substitutes for real change, the Weisglass plan would amount to a major move toward ultimate reconciliation. But he’s right to say that these steps could be realized quickly and without endangering Israel’s security. On the contrary, they would enhance it.

Weisglass isn’t alone either. Dennis Ross, the American mediator, wrote in The New Republic last week that “it is not enough to simply launch a process. . . Exhortations won't produce a change in behavior either. Nor will whitewashing the obligations or explaining away non-performance. Instead, why not ask each side to take steps they are capable of taking and that could still be meaningful to the other side? For example, on the Israeli side, a meaningful freeze on settlement activity—certainly in all areas close to Palestinian cities, towns, and villages—is within Israeli political capabilities and would be recognized by Palestinians. On the Palestinian side, a sustained and public effort to stop incitement in the media, schools, and mosques, is something Palestinians could do and that the Israeli public would notice.”

Ross, like Weisglass, prefers concrete steps to arguing over Roadmap phases.

The bottom line is that the Roadmap has become a "stairway to paradise" rather than an action plan. This does not mean we should forget about it. It is still the best vehicle out there. But why not actually do something on the ground rather than argue about modalities for implementing it. And, for God’s sake, enough with the “you first” nonsense.

It is clear that both sides know how to create stalemate. What is not clear is whether they know how to do anything else. That is why the Bush intervention is so welcome.

Obama’s Faith

I don’t usually use IPF Friday to address questions and comments that come into our office. But this one needs a response here, where many people will see it.

There is an effort by right-wing activists to convince the Jewish community that Barack Obama is a fanatical Muslim, a Manchurian candidate who is hiding his true colors until he gets into the White House where he can de-recognize Israel and hand America to Al-Qaeda.

It’s hard to imagine that anyone would believe that life-long churchgoer Obama is a Muslim or that a guy with a pro-Israel record is a secret agent of terrorists but, nonetheless, people are calling and asking. 

It was Joseph Goebbels who said that little lies are never as successful as the "big lie." That is why the swift-boating of John Kerry succeeded. The far right portrayed him as a coward when he was actually a decorated combat hero. The lie worked because it was so egregious and counter-intuitive that some people decided it had to be true.

Like all "big lies," this particular one is also being disseminated in pseudo-intellectual form (by Daniel Pipes, no surprise there).

In any case, in the words of the Anti-Defamation League, "Senator Obama is not a Muslim; he is a Christian who attends the United Church of Christ." Not that a candidate's faith, gender, sexual orientation or ethnic background should ever be relevant.