POWELL'S PARTING GIFT TO ISRAEL

Analysis: Powell's parting gift to Israel
Fairly or not, US Secretary of State Colin Powell has been perceived in Jerusalem over the last four years as the administration's "bad cop," at least in regard to Israel. He was seen as the multilateralist, interested in bringing the Europeans into the Middle East peace process. He was perceived as the representative of an organization where pro-Arab positions had, because of the nature of that particular bureaucracy, become deeply entrenched. When it came to formulating US policy, Powell was widely seen as the foil to the "good cops" – Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice. ...

At other times, Powell was seen as extremely helpful. The best example was during the last-minute haggling with the White House over the language of Bush's famous commitments to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in his letter last April. Powell was instrumental in bringing to light that letter, which included US assurances that Israel would not have to withdraw to the pre-1967 borders or accept Palestinian refugees. On Monday, Israel got a final glimpse of the Powell it likes, the soldier true to his commander-in-chief's marching orders.

Powell was the first of a cavalcade of foreign ministers set to descend on Jerusalem, all seeing Yasser Arafat's death as an opportunity to move the diplomatic process forward – and to get their feet in the door. Over the next two weeks Sharon will be meeting the foreign ministers of Russia, Britain, and Spain. Meanwhile, the Quartet – the US, EU, UN, and Russia – is back in form, meeting in Sharm e-Sheikh, champing at the bit to get a piece of the action. All of which worries Sharon, who has expressed concern the Europeans will try to shortcut the step-by-step process he fought so hard to get on the international agenda, and will try to leapfrog over Phase 1 of the road map – which calls for the PA to stop terror and incitement – right into Phase 2, calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state. Sharon is also worried about new European initiatives that could come from an international Mideast conference that Israel would, or perhaps would not, be invited to attend.

And then comes Powell, on his final visit to the region as secretary of state, who states explicitly that the US will have none of this. "The road map is the way forward – the only way forward – and it is nothing that can be jumped into, it has to go step by step. I will be communicating this to my Quartet colleagues when we meet in Sharm e-Sheikh tomorrow morning," he said at his Jerusalem press conference, obviously delighting officials in the Prime Minister's Office.

And that's not all. Asked if it is time to put forward a new cease-fire initiative, Powell sounded downright Sharonesque in his reply. "What we really need is for the Palestinian side in this new era to speak out clearly against terrorism, and to gather in all of the elements of the Palestinian community and make it clear to them that it is time to stop all incitement, to stop all violence," he said. "And, if they do that, they do that effectively, and if they also create the institutions that can impose that policy, then we, in effect, have a cease-fire and, what I have heard from my Israeli colleagues this morning is that they will act in kind... That's what we are looking for, for both sides to be able to act in concert with one another and in a responsible manner.

"Right now, I don't see a need to talk about any sort of formal arrangements because it is not arrangements that count, it is actions that count, and we are looking for those actions."

Sharon couldn't have asked for a better farewell gift from the outgoing secretary of state, especially as he braces to meet the Europeans.