Arafat is willing, but is the US?

The most recent United States intervention in the Middle East and the visit of Secretary of State Colin Powell faces serious obstacles, partly due to reasons right here and partly due to internal American politics. The overriding concern, however, is that the intervention simply came to late.



The fact that this visit came after Israel had already made the sweeping move of reoccupying all of the West Bank Palestinian territories has complicated the task of Colin Powell. Palestinian President Yasser Arafat had no problem accepting the three-fold plan presented by Colin Powell. The secretary of state, on the other hand, had no problem understanding the difficulties experienced by Palestinians and their leadership over recent weeks. Both are in agreement that the plan Powell has to get out of this crisis remains impractical as long as the whole of the Palestinian territories are under Israel's occupation. Therefore, the first hurdle facing Colin Powell's diplomacy is the new fact created by Israel and its invasion.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon seems to be insisting on continuing this invasion, however, offering two "reasonable" excuses. The first is that as long as there is no political process, there naturally will be no end of violent confrontations because the logic of the relations between the occupied Palestinian people and the Israeli occupiers can only be one of peace negotiations or confrontation.