[International Herald Tribune] David Makovsky - The Hamas-sanctioned rockets and the Israeli retaliation are actually at the core of Secretary of State Rice's inability to move the peace process even one inch forward since it was launched in Annapolis last November. Stop the rockets, and the process could move. Now the idea of land for peace has been replaced by land for violence and vulnerability. And if Israelis do not like the book in Gaza, why would they want to see the movie in the West Bank, from where Kassam rockets could reach much of Israel? Until now, Rice's Gaza strategy has been to leverage a diplomatic breakthrough on the broader conflict, including the fate of the West Bank. She believed Abbas could use this to bring about his re-election, and thus achieve the political reunification of Gaza and the West Bank. But things are not likely to get that far. Abbas cannot reach a deal because of the ongoing violence, and Israelis will see Gaza as a cautionary tale against any deal over the West Bank. The writer is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
2008-03-05 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive