"Touch it and die"; Washington & the I/P Conflict.....

[Englander]

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3482.shtml
Mark Perry, Palestine Report, 6 January 2005

Writing about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is like writing about the "theater of the absurd": it means penning reviews on tragicomedies that reflect the impermanence of values that question the validity of structured conventions and highlight the precariousness of human life. The shocking truth about such theater is that its dark and brooding mien serves as a thin cover for its laugh-out-loud quality.

A review of the past year provides a number of skits from a particularly inspired performance. It featured a telephone call from a senior Israeli official inquiring about Yasser Arafat's failing health ("I do hope it's not serious," he said. "Is there anything we can do?"), a US president who publicly warned Iran about "the dangers of meddling in Iraq," a US State Department envoy who toured the region talking about democracy ("Islamists will not be included," he opined), and a CNN anchor who informed viewers that Arafat's death would mean a violent succession struggle in the West Bank and Gaza - but was then reminded that the last political assassination in the region took place in 1996. In Israel.

The current year promises no contrary coda to this absurdity. While the passing of Arafat provoked public relief in Washington, US officials were loathe to criticize a man whom they grudgingly described as "the last great revolutionary of the twentieth century," and the administration expressed its "deepest condolences to the Palestinian people." Arafat's death, George Bush said, however, marked "a significant moment" in the history of the region and provided "a real chance for peace." With Arafat's death, he said, the international community could guarantee that there would be a Palestinian state. Such a state could finally be established, he optimistically predicted - "in 2009."

That this "significant moment" came and went in barely the blink of an eye may have come as a shock to Middle East leaders, but it was hardly news in Washington. At a private dinner in the Washington home of a prominent policymaker, a gathering of former and current Middle East analysts reviewed the administration's views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and concluded that very little progress would be made during the years ahead. Surprisingly, the reasons given for this prediction had less to do with the influence of the administration's pro-Israel neo-conservatives, or the succession of a new Palestinian leadership, than it did with the "thin calculus of constituent politics" that motivates the White House.