Change from 'Standing Aloof' to 'Getting Involved': AnalysisThe raging flames of the Palestine-Israel conflicts that have been burning for nearly nine months have now eventually cooled down.A favorable turn appeared in the Palestine-Israel conflicts came after the continual occurrence of the two cases of serious Netanya and Telaviv "suicide explosions" within Israel. In order to prevent the escalation of the Palestine-Israel conflicts, the various parties have intensified mediation efforts, this has instantly livened up the Middle East diplomatic stage. The severity of the situation and the unanimous firm attitude of the international community have enabled Palestine and Israel to become more sensible and cool down. The advance of Palestine-Israel conflicts toward relaxation is, besides the exercise of certain restraints by the two parties concerned due to internal needs, inseparably related to the active mediation effort of the international community. In addition, the adjustment of new US government's Middle-East policy has also played a role that cannot be overlooked. At the beginning of his assumption of office in the White House, US President George W. Bush was far less enthusiastic about the Middle-East issue as was Bill Clinton then in power, the policy Bush adopted was relatively "relaxing hold" and "standing aloof". However, along with the passage of time and the development of the situation, the new Bush administration has gradually come to realize that the Middle-East question is unavoidable, so he began to change this policy to a certain extent, and turned round to get himself to be more involved in the peace process of the Middle East. He did this mainly out of the following considerations: First, the United States has major economic and strategic interests in the Middle East, maintaining relative stability in this region conforms to US interests. If Palestine-Israel conflicts go on without end, the Mid-east situation will deteriorate and will inevitably jeopardize US interests. Second, the United States has always adopted a policy of partiality to Israel, Bush's "standing aloof" attitude has made the right-wing Sharon administration feel that with US backing it has nothing to fear, he was thus suspected of "connivance" in the eyes of the Arab people. In the Palestine-Israel conflicts, although the United States criticized the Israeli troops for renewing their occupation of the Palestine-controlled areas and their dispatch of F-16 fighters for wanton bombings of the Palestinian autonomous regions, however, it was against the United Nations' resolution on censuring Israel's excessive use of force and tried every possible means to obstruct the United Nations from sending international peace-keeping force to Palestine. This was regarded as a typical example of the United States' use of "double standards" in the field of human rights. This has aroused the vehement resentment of the Arab and Islamic world and the condemnation of many countries. Third, Israel is the United States' special ally and biggest recipient country in the Middle East. Only when the United States applies adequate pressure on Israel is it possible to effectively promote the Middle-East peace talks. Otherwise, the Middle-East peace talk process will come to a standstill because Israel refuses to make concession. Because the United States consistently sits by and does nothing about the Middle-East situation, The Arab side who was greatly disappointed about the United States had no other alternative but turn to the European Union and Russia for more support, the EU and Russia, on their part, are trying to expand their influence in the Middle East, this will constitutes a challenge to the US position in the Middle East. So long as the United States does not want to give up its vested interest in the Middle East, it will absolutely not give away its role in directing the Middle-East affairs. Recently, the United States did have taken a positive step forward in stamping out the Palestine-Israel conflicts, for instance, it published the "Mitchell report", and put forward concrete measures for Palestine and Israel to re-establish trust; and appointed US Ambassador to Jordan as Assistant Secretary of State to take charge of Near East affairs and to assist other senior officials in mediating Palestine-Israel disputes; it decided to postpone implementation of the related law for the moving of US embassy in Israel from Telaviv to Jerusalem for six months; it sent CIA director George Tenet to conduct intense mediation between Israel and Palestine, and finally persuaded the two sides to "accept" the US "cease-fire proposal", and brought Palestine and Israeli senior security and military officials together for talks. At present, both Palestine and Israel have declared cease-fire, the crisis seems to have been brought under temporary control, but the situation remains to be grim, skirmishes between both sides broke out from time to time, the radical forces of both sides, in particular, still watch for a chance to provoke incidents. Given this situation, the cease-fire implemented by Palestine and Israel is very fragile. At present, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is visiting the United States, and Colin Bowell also arrived in Egypt on June 27 to continue mediation in an attempt to consolidate the fruit of Palestine-Israel cease-fire, and urge both sides to seize the opportunity to return to the negotiation table as soon as possible. This indicates that the United States no longer rests content with helping Palestine and Israel to resume security cooperation, but rather it will strive to do something to promote the Palestine-Israeli peace process. What will be the results, let people wait and see. |
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