What Does the Bush Victory Mean for Israel and the Mideast?

Henry Srebrnik, [Calgary] Jewish Free Press

Let's get right down to it: When Israelis heard that George W. Bush was re-elected president of the United States, there was dancing in the streets.

On the other hand, there were plenty of long faces in France, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe, where public opinion overwhelmingly lined up behind John Kerry. I suspect not too many people were smiling in Damascus, Ramallah or Tehran, either.

From Prime Minister Ariel Sharon down to the person on the Egged bus, American foreign policy, especially as it will impact the Middle East, was naturally first and foremost on their minds.

Whether it be the continuing chaos and savagery in Iraq, the nuclear ambitions of a very threatening Iran, the support given to terrorist groups like Hezbollah by Syria, or the situation of the Palestinians in a post-Yasser Arafat world, the attitude of the American administration will be paramount.

Washington has in recent months directed a series of warnings toward Syria, which is facing the prospect of U.S. trade sanctions, and to Iran, which has been heavily criticized for pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

Bush will certainly pay less attention than Kerry would have to European criticism of Israel and will also increase the pressure on Arab states to rein in Islamist terrorists.

Obviously, most Europeans are in no mood to help the U.S. effort in Iraq. But would France and Germany (not to mention Canada) have really been all that willing to heed Kerry's plea to commit forces to that war? It's unlikely, to say the least!

While the leaders in most Arab capitals looked at another four years of Republican rule with resignation, at best, interim Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi, not surprisingly, had a different take, praising Bush, again, for liberating his country from Saddam Hussein's grip.

But he is being a bit too polite. If Iraq is indeed to be set on the road to democracy, or even stability, in advance of that country's scheduled elections in January, the U.S. must set its mind to forcefully crush the terrorists and Ba'athists who control so much of the Sunni heartland. Otherwise the war will indeed have been in vain. And once that's done, it should hand power over to an Iraqi government, and leave quickly, lest that new regime loses legitimacy.

The Palestinians too were less than pleased with Bush's victory. "We hope there will be a change in the policy which gave support for Israeli Prime Minister Sharon and refused cooperation with President Arafat," remarked the Palestinian foreign minister, Nabil Shaath.

The PLO head had been treated as a serious partner for peace by Bill Clinton, rather than as the corrupt impediment to progress he has shown himself to be. But unlike his predecessor, Bush did not meet with the late Palestinian leader even once during his first term.

Bush also opposes a Palestinian "right of return" to areas they fled in 1948, which would effectively mean the end of Israel, nor has he criticized the building of the security fence. But he did reiterate, following his re-election, that he will "continue to work for a free Palestinian state," as part of the "road map" to peace first unveiled in 2003.

With Arafat's departure, the Palestinian leadership will now be preoccupied with an inevitable power struggle, which might even descend into armed conflict, to replace him. In Gaza, especially, the extremists in Hamas might attempt to take power.

Arafat's place has been taken by the current and former prime ministers of the Palestinian Authority, Ahmed Qureia and Mahmoud Abbas, who have divided Arafat's responsibilities between them. The Bush administration regards both as suitable partners in any peace talks. Abbas supports a two-state solution and signed the Oslo Accords on behalf of the PLO in 1993.

Obviously, these remain perilous times for Israel. The day following Bush's victory in the U.S., Sharon also faced an important vote, this one in the Israeli Knesset. With the backing of opposition parties, he won a 64 to 44 vote to fund the evacuation, resettlement and redeployment of Jewish settlers and Israeli troops from Gaza and parts of the West Bank beginning next summer, as part of his unilateral disengagement plan unveiled last February.

Sharon told Israelis that "painful compromises" were required. He said that he feared for the demographic future of Israel if millions of Arabs remained under its rule. But the Gaza settlers feel betrayed by their former champion.

Sharon's own Likud Party remains deeply divided on the withdrawal, and 17 of its 40 members cast their votes against the funding bill. Nationalist and religious parties, usually allied with the prime minister, also refused to support it. Since June, he has led a wobbly minority government which could fall at any time. So he definitely needs Washington's support.

But what else is new? "The sentiment against Israel is powerful throughout the Arab world and on that score the United States is always dragged in as a champion of Israel." So noted a New York Times editorial--of September 3, 1951!

But it was a sad commentary on the American Jewish community's diminished sense of solidarity that while Israelis were hoping that Bush would be re-elected, most American Jews voted against him.

Preliminary data indicates that Bush achieved roughly a five point increase over the 19 per cent he won in 2000 but Republicans had hoped for bigger gains. So three quarters of American Jewish voters supported Senator Kerry.

Whatever one may think of the current war in Iraq, it should be recalled that Kerry in 1991 voted against liberating Kuwait from Saddam Hussein's occupying armies. Did American Jews not remember that Saddam lobbed 41 missiles at Israel during that conflict?

How has it come to this? Have we once again entered a period in North America where most Jews are, despite their "official" line that "we are one" with Israel, really "non-Zionists?" After all, only since World War II and the terrible lessons of the Holocaust did Jews unite completely behind the Jewish state. Sometimes I wonder whether this is still the case.