For those who managed to tear themselves away from the David Blunkett saga on the new More4 channel on Monday night, there was drama of a different kind on BBC2. Elusive Peace charted the story of Bill Clinton’s failed attempt to resolve the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, a struggle that reached its dismal climax at Camp David in 2000. The latest effort by the remarkable filmmaker Norma Percy, who has created her own sub-genre of TV diplomatic history, featured interviews with all the key players — Ehud Barak, Yasser Arafat, Clinton himself — telling the inside story of midnight talks, eavesdropped conversations, last-minute panics and, tragically, the inability to move that final inch toward what might have been a deal.
It was compelling television, but also instructive. For it showed just how much has changed in the intervening five years. Arafat is dead; Sharon is no longer the rabble-rouser whose walkabout on the Temple Mount did so much to derail the peace process, but prime minister; Clinton is the elder statesman, his former residence occupied by a man whose Middle East focus has not been peace in Israel-Palestine but war in Iraq. It’s not just the personalities who have changed. The past five years have also seen a wider shift, away from the across-the-table negotiations of the Clinton era toward a newer, more enigmatic model. The days of bilateral talks and mutuality have gone. Now we are in the age of unilateralism.
As if to underline the point, Sharon and the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas were due to meet yesterday for a summit. For the second time in as many weeks, they called it off. So much for those who thought that Israel’s August withdrawal from Gaza — the prime example of the new unilateralism — would trigger a return to the negotiating table and rapid progress toward a signed agreement.
That’s not how it is any more. Yes, Gazans are relieved to be shot of the Israelis at last. And yes, Israelis — despite some persistent violence, with Palestinian rockets fired across the new “border” — still believe the pullout was the right move. But that does not mean the two sides are about to reach across the divide and touch each other. Instead they are looking inward.
For the Israelis, that’s a matter of politics. Sharon’s concern now is not Abbas, but his Likud rival, Benjamin Netanyahu. A fortnight ago he successfully fought off a leadership challenge from Bibi, and he wants to preserve that advantage; he will do nothing that might hand his rival ammunition. He will not release Palestinian prisoners, nor bow to Abbas’ request for more weapons for his security forces — nothing, in other words, that will allow Bibi to accuse Sharon of treachery. That’s why the summit with Abbas could not go ahead: there was nothing Sharon was willing to give his Palestinian counterpart.
Meanwhile, Abbas is in a strikingly similar hole. Challenged by Hamas, who pulled in a quarter of the vote in recent municipal elections on the West Bank — a creditable score, given that their political base is Gaza — Abbas could not afford to return from a summit empty-handed. He has a genuine fight on his hands with Hamas — one that could explode into a civil war that his own threadbare forces could lose. The sense that the Palestinian Authority writ does not run in Gaza, that either anarchy or Hamas rules there, is proving deeply damaging — suggesting the Israeli withdrawal has not helped the Palestinian Authority, but undermined it. The result is that Abbas too is devoting the post-Gaza lull to securing his own internal position, rather than hatching grand schemes for an accord with the enemy.
This phase of introspection reflects the broader trend. I spoke yesterday with Eival Gilady, who served as a close adviser to the Israeli prime minister on the Gaza disengagement. His message was clear: The ball is now in the Palestinians’ court. Under the internationally endorsed road map, the next step is for the Palestinians to put their own house in order, starting with a crackdown on terrorism. If that were to happen, then Israel might make a further move. Revealingly, Gilady cites the unilateral disarmament steps taken by Mikhail Gorbachev, which paved the way for a mutually agreed arms pact later. “When you act unilaterally, it doesn’t stay unilateral,” he says. In other words, Israel moves first on Gaza. Then Abbas stabilizes the PA. Then Israel will act again. Not a peace process exactly, but a series of one-sided moves: call it sequential unilateralism.
Under that logic, what would Israel’s next act be? In the past few days, the Israeli press has been bubbling with hints from key officials at further unilateral pullouts, this time from the West Bank. The scenario seems to be that Sharon sits tight for now, sees off Bibi, fights, wins an election next year — and then stages a series of mini-disengagements. Dr. Gary Sussman, an analyst at Tel Aviv University, says the map for those withdrawals is already laid out. “The fence is the border,” he says, confident that Israel would pull back, more or less, to the line traced by the wall, or security barrier, it has built through the West Bank. That would entail dismantling a few isolated settlements — and keeping the large settlement blocs.
Such a move would see Israel out of, perhaps, 50 percent or 60 percent of the West Bank. Combined with Gaza that would represent the de facto Palestinian state, promised by the road map and now routinely demanded by George Bush, Tony Blair and everyone else.
The old guard of Palestinian leaders, including Abbas, are said to be deeply depressed at this prospect. For such an entity would leave them no access to Jerusalem and would represent substantially less territory than the Clinton parameters promised in December 2000. It would not be the two-state solution they sought for two decades but, says Sussman, something less: “A one and three-quarter state solution.”
What’s more, Sharon would make this move and win not just international acceptance but praise. The Gaza withdrawal won plaudits from the UN and EU; even Pakistan broke Muslim ranks to start a diplomatic engagement with Israel last month. If there were to be more pullouts in the West Bank, Sharon would be a hero once more. There would be no pressure on him; it would all be on the Palestinians, who would rapidly be cast as grudging and difficult for not receiving these chunks of the West Bank with gratitude.
No wonder the likes of Saeb Erekat and Hanan Ashrawi are said to be glum. They must realize that in the new game of sequential unilateralism they are being outplayed by an Israeli prime minister who is proving a far cannier strategist than anyone expected. They should avoid watching Elusive Peace; it will only make their moods darker. There they will see how much better they might have fared under the old game.
Clinton recalls a proposal he made in late 2000 that would have split Jerusalem and given the Palestinians sovereignty over the upper Haram Al-Sharif, with Israeli control over the lower Temple Mount. “Who could accept this?” says Arafat, from the grave. Now his people may have to brace themselves for accepting much less.

After the disaster
Claude Salhani

CALL out President George W. Bush’s new secret weapon, the one meant to convince the sceptic Arab and Islamic world of America’s good intentions. Send the super diplomat post haste to the Pakistani regions devastated by Saturday’s mega-earthquake. I am referring to Ambassador Karen Hughes, the administration’s new Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, nominated by President Bush last June to help portray a gentler image of the United States to the rest of the world. Her assignment, as outlined on the United States Department of State web site, explains that: “Ms. Hughes leads efforts to improve America’s dialogue with the world.”
Hughes has already undertaken a whirlwind tour of some Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries in September. The results of her diplomacy were tepid at best, indifferent according to some while a total write-off according to other reports. The disaster caused by Saturday’s 7.6 magnitude quake offers the United States an opportunity to demonstrate “how to improve dialogue.” This is where Ms. Hughes could show off her skills; strap on her superhero’s cape and undertake an immediate tour of Pakistan’s worst hit areas and offer instant relief in the form of monetary aid, supplies and military and medical assistance. There are ample supplies of troops and transportation vehicles, from heavy-duty troop carriers to CH46 Sea Knight and CH53 Sea Stallion helicopters, to C130 transport airplanes in nearby Afghanistan.
Those could be used for humanitarian purposes while the war is temporarily placed on hold. Odds are the terrorists are just as inconvenienced by the quake as everybody else. Except with the Pakistani army pulled out of border duty for rescue duty permits al-Qaida’s men unhindered access back and forth between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The roads are difficult to negotiate, filled with debris. Bridges are unusable, so chances are the terrorists will be as affected. And they have no helicopters. They might well be tempted to shoot one or two down, but given that these choppers will be ferrying both Pakistani troops and wounded civilians, they would find it ill advised to do so and to risk the wrath of already angry villagers.
More American troops on the ground in Pakistan means more Pakistani troops can return to their primary task of border monitoring. Have Karen Hughes arrive in the worst affected areas accompanied by several field hospitals, fully equipped and able to begin caring for the wounded, of which there must be hundreds of thousands. The M.A.S.H. units can be set up in very little time. Have the US military send giant tents to house those who lost their homes in the disaster. Then assign the US Army Corps of Engineers to begin — alongside their Pakistani colleagues — clearing roads and rebuilding bridges. If they do that, Ms. Hughes will find that suddenly some of the bridges she had initially set out to cross may have become much shorter and easier to traverse.
This is an opportunity which the Bush administration must not lose. The US government should show its generosity and donate not only large sums of money, but dispatch rescue personnel to the worst areas, demonstrating to the Pakistani people their friendship and to show that the United States does care for them. Let Karen do her job, but please Ms. Hughes, do bring more money. The initial financial offer from the US was a mere, pitiful, $100,000. Now compare that to the $50 million offered by the US government in exchange for the capture of a single individual: Osama bin Laden.
Congress passed legislation Under the Rewards for Justice Program last November allowing the State Department to double the current $25 million reward for information leading to the capture of Bin Laden to $50 million. The big donors this time turned out to be fellow Muslims: Kuwait and the UAE each gave $100 million. Canada, Japan and the World Bank each gave $20 million. Lesser amounts came from the Asian Development Bank, $10 million; Australia $7.6 million: China, $6.2 million; the EU $4.4 million, Britain, $3.5 million; and South Korean gave $3 million. However by Tuesday, the US had raised its contribution to equate Bin Laden’s bounty — an even $50 million.
President Musharraf said there was a need “for large supplies of medicines, tents and cargo helicopters to reach out the people in far-flung and cut-off areas, the bigger these copters the better.” The Pakistani president warned of difficulties in the operation. The roads leading to Muzaffarabad were wiped out, allowing only helicopters to take aid in. With help being slow in reaching outlying areas, villagers struggled to dig out victims still trapped under toppled buildings. Help was offered by Britain, China, Russia, Japan, France and Germany, and the United States has already dispatched eight choppers from Afghanistan. India, Pakistan’s archrival has also offered assistance. The two countries, both in possession of nuclear weapons, were brought closer by this disaster affecting both their countries. “These are the difficulties that we are coping with,” Musharraf told the nation. “And the entire nation should understand that.” But with the super powers Karen Hughes possesses thanks to the financial, operational and military backing of the world’s only super power, she can accomplish two things; alleviate the suffering of the Pakistanis worst hit by the disaster while helping to improve America’s image in a part of the world where it currently needs improving. Who knows, after a super show of generosity, Bin Laden might even be handed in for far less than $50 million? It’s certainly worth the investment.


Bird Flu: No justification for Hitchcockian scenarios
Marc Siegel

This past week, my patients seemed more nervous than usual. In addition to concerns about chest pain, coughs and fevers, there were also the sudden, uneasy questions about bird flu. “Should I be taking Tamiflu?’’ several asked. “Can you prescribe it so I have a supply on hand just in case?’’ My answer was always the same. “No. Tamiflu is an antiviral drug that has not yet been proved effective against bird flu. And even if it worked, there’s still no bird flu to treat.’’ The difficulty with informing the public about a potential pandemic is that the uncertainty about when or if it could occur breeds fear. Scared people overpersonalize the news, and their worries increase. Fear is a warning system intended to alert us to impending danger.
The facts are these: The current H5N1 avian influenza virus has not mutated into a form that can easily infect humans, and the 60 people in the world who have died of this bird flu have done so not because this bug is on the road to mutation but because millions of birds throughout Asia have been infected, and the more birds that have it, the more likely that an occasional human bird handler will be infected. Most human influenzas begin as bird flus, but many bird flus never change to a form that can harm us. Although flu pandemics occur on the average of three times per century, and we are clearly overdue (the last was in 1968), there is absolutely no indication that the transformation to mass human killer is about to happen. The threat is theoretical. Unfortunately, the attention it has received makes it feel like something terrible is inevitable.
Why the overreaction? For one thing, direct comparisons to the Spanish flu of 1918, a scourge that killed more than 50 million people worldwide, has alarmed the public unnecessarily. In fact, there are many scenarios in which the current bird flu won’t mutate into a form as deadly as the 1918 virus. And even if we accept the Spanish flu scenario, health conditions in 1918 were far worse in most of the world than they are now.
There were no flu vaccinations, no antiviral drugs, and containment by isolating infected individuals wasn’t effective, largely because of poor information and poor compliance. Today’s media reach could be a useful tool to aid compliance. Of course, the concern that air travel can spread viral infections faster may be valid, but infected migratory birds were sufficient in 1918. Unfortunately, public health alarms are sounded too often and too soon. SARS was broadcast as a new global killer to which we had zero immunity, and yet it petered out long before it killed a single person in the United States. SARS was something to be taken seriously, but the real lessons of SARS, smallpox, West Nile virus, anthrax and mad cow disease weren’t learned by our leaders — that potential health threats are more effectively examined in the laboratory than at a news conference.
With bird flu, scientists have been working on the structure of the viruses in an attempt to protect us. Studies published in the journals Nature and Science over the last six years have given scientists a road map with which to track the current bird flu and alert health officials if it mutates further. It is reasonable to try to control the bird flu while it remains in the bird population. There is great value in improving our emergency health response system and upgrading our vaccine-making capacity. Government subsidies in these areas could make the public safer. But, right now, there is no value in scaring the public with Hitchcockian bird flu scenarios. The public must be kept in the loop, but potential threats should be put into context. The worst case is not the only case.