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by Dr. Bernard Sabella

Special to the G21

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BETHLEHEM, WEST BANK - Transitions are part of our lives: President Bush's reelection and President Arafat's illness are but two examples. For many there may be no connection between the two transitions but for us Palestinians we see them as intricately interrelated.

Could the second term in office for President Bush signal the implementation of his declared intention, not to say promise, for the establishment of a Palestinian State in 2005? For long, the successive US Administrations have neglected the gross injustice that befell the Palestinians as a result of the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. For us Palestinians, the US Administrations have never played the role of impartial go-between between Palestinians and Israelis. The pro-Israel sentiments in the White House, in Congress and in other important US sectors are an important input influencing US foreign policy as it relates to the Middle East, in general, and to the Arab-Israeli conflict, in particular.

As President Bush moves into the White House for another four-year term, our expectation as Palestinians is that no dramatic change [will] take place in US policies towards the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict to make the declared intention of Mr. Bush of a Palestinian State a reality in 2005 or even in 2006.

Israel would not help Mr. Bush to make his declared intention a reality. The disengagement from Gaza, if it takes place, would be a ploy to affirm and reaffirm Israel's virtual control of the West Bank through the illegal settlements there. The West Bank has been virtually sub-cut and subdivided by Israel into Town-Bantustans comprising Jenin, Nablus, Qalqilya, in the north, and Bethlehem and Hebron in the south with Ramallah at the geographic center. No physical contiguity would exist between these Town-Bantustans not to speak of the complete physical separation of the Gaza Strip from the West Bank.

If we add to this the full control of Israel of Palesti nian borders, resources, population movement and air space, among other [things], then the Palestinian State -- if it would see light, given these conditions -- would be a paralyzed state from its very inception.

President Arafat, gravely ill at the moment [of this writing], has insisted on the "Peace of the Brave." He was always citing the late Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, as a leader with whom he himself could have continued on the road to peace. Simply put, Rabin, a tough military figure and a decorated war hero in Israel's wars, had come to the realization that peace with the Palestinians invoked territorial compromise and the return of most of the West Bank.

The present right-wing Israeli government, even with the Gaza disengagement plan of Prime Minister Sharon, is in no position to follow in Rabin's footsteps. On the contrary, the primary consideration is supposedly that of security and accordingly peace with the Palestinians would simply mean

• the concretization of the separation wall;
  
  
• the cordoning off of the Gaza Strip after disengagement, if it takes place;
  
  
• the continued control of Palestinians, their resources, borders and territories and;
  
  
• the consolidation of Town-Bantustans in the West Bank,?side-by-side with the preservation and strengthening of Israeli settlements there.

President Arafat, given this Israeli position, did not have any possibility for political maneuvering or for convincing his people of the utility of peace with the Israelis. While Israel and the US have argued that he could have stopped the militarization of the Intifadah, in reality the policies and practices adopted by Israel on the ground denied him the leverage and the tools needed to transform the Intifadah into a nonviolent movement.

Israel, since September 2000, when the second Intifadah started, has set on a course of destroying the service infrastructure of the Palestinian National Authority by leveling administrative buildings, destroying police compounds, wrecking statistical records and interfering with [the] ordinary day-to-day running of Palestinian institutions. The message from Israel to the Palestinian people is simply: we can do whatever we wish and there is no one to stop us.

Could anyone then blame Mr. Arafat?

Some may think that the grave illness of President Arafat would herald a transformation in leadership among Palestinians. This, according to those some, would then make the ground for peace more feasible. This is a reductionist position which basically says that all the problems of the Arab-Israeli conflict lie in the nature of the Palestinian leadership. This position neglects the systemic nature of Israeli control of everything Palestinian. This control together with continued military occupation of Palestinian lands makes it impossible for any Palestinian leadership to come forward with a dramatically different position than that of Mr. Arafat.

Changes are necessary on all sides in order for peace to become a realistic proposition:

• President Bush needs to propel his new administration into a position of impartiality that would gain credence with both sides;
• Prime Minister Sharon needs to widen his disengagement plan from Gaza into a disengagement plan from the West Bank as well;
• Palestinian leaders need then to revise their position and undertake steps that would show the genuine interest of their people in a lasting and just peace.

As my prayers and thoughts go to my ailing President, I like at the same time?to wish the incumbent President in the White House the integrity that could help change America's image in the Middle East and that could help make peace between Palestine and Israel a reality in our times.

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BERNARD SABELLA came to the US to study at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania, and he did his doctorate in Sociology at the University of Virginia. He teaches Sociology at Bethlehem University and his sociology textbook is the most widely used in the Arab world. Dr. Sabella is Executive Secretary of the Department of Services for Palestinean Refugees of the Middle East Council of Churches. This is Dr. Sabella's third article for The World's Magazine.