A week ago, the situation was quite worse. Israeli troops and armed forces had invaded almost every city in the West Bank and surrounded about 200 Palestinian fighters barricaded inside Bethlehem's sacred Church of the Nativity. Anti-American demonstrations in Cairo, Beirut, Amman and other Middle Eastern capitals were making it impossible for Washington's Arab allies to stay neutral. Egypt cut some ties with Israel and warned the White House that the rest could be in jeopardy. Oil prices spiked to $28 a barrel, and the stock market plunged. Anti-semites vandalized synagogues in France and Belgium. American embassies told Washington that they might be the next targets. And White House officials were pouring over satellite pictures from the region: Syria was moving its troops in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon in anticipation of Israeli strikes across the border.
It was after all this had occurred that the White House decided to take a stance. Ending nearly a year of Middle East detachment, President George W. Bush demanded that Israel "withdraw without delay" from the West Bank region and that nations in the Arab world "stand up and condemn terrorism." He sent Secretary of State Colin Powell to the region in order to seek a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "The storms of violence can not go on," Bush said. "Enough is enough," echoing the words of former Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin.
"If the United States continues to act in a biased and unbalanced manner as the mediator in the Israel/Palestine conflict," said Freshman Sadiq Zaghab, "they risk completely unraveling any steps made towards peace made in the two decades. The United States, as Israel's long-standing friend, must declare that all settlement building and expansion is to stop, that all military personnel must withdraw from areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority, that people within areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority must be allowed to exist with dignity and self determination, and finally, that all United Nations Security Council recommendations concerning Israel and the Occupied Territories must be implemented without delay."
And indeed, Arab officials gathered in Beirut last week said that if the Bush Administration wants to maintain its war on terror, the U.S. had better intervene soon. Indeed, many Arab nations continue to condition support for an attack on Iraq on American-led progress towards a settlement of the dispute. Bush's recent pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his decision to send Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni in the area led Israel to pull out of two West Bank cities, Qalqilya and Tulkarm, in a move the U.S. said it hoped signaled the beginning of a wider pullback.
"It's the U.S.'s responsibility to condemn the recent suicide bombings," said freshman Roi Meirom. "As far as out-and-out resolution is concerned, I feel it's something we are years away from. The perspective must be shifted so that short term goals can be accomplished, in hopes that they will help further long term goals. There needs to be peace now, cease-fires now and concessions further on down the line. If the interest is to stop bloodshed, it can only come through direct dealings between Sharon and Arafat with U.S. support. But if the U.S. is simply trying to craft a deal in order to return to its disengaged policies, the death toll will continue to rise."
The question of how foreign involvement will play into a possible solution is also one left in the air. The Bush administration can do its best to straddle the fence, and condemn violence on both sides, but Arab nations pressured by their Palestinian populations have an even tougher approach to brokering peace. With Saudi Arabia taking a leading role in the process, a peace initiative has been drafted offering Israel, in one shot, peace with the whole Arab world.
"The United States must continue to support peace initiatives such as the one proposed at the Arab League Conference by Saudi Arabia, so that a viable and lasting solution may be found to stop the violence and blood shed," said Zaghab. But the peace initiative is no panacea to the current violence. The initiative asks for concessions that would lead to the uprooting of over 216,000 Israeli settlers, the forfeit of East Jerusalem and the sapping of the Jewish majority as a result of returning Palestinian refugees to their homes in Israel, concessions Sharon's Israel is not willing to make.
In fact the only thing agreed upon in these times is the U.S.'s need to pressure both parties in ending the violence. It is hoped that Powell's visit will mark the end of U.S. disinterest and help further movement towards cease-fire. With 1,238 Palestinians and 422 Israelis already dead, the US is better late then never.
