Yorkshire Post

09/11/2005

Bush waits for God's word in a war without end

By Ahron Bregman

Ahron Bregman is the author of Elusive Peace: How the Holy Land Defeated America (Penguin, £8.99). Text:

THE other day, I visited Waterstone's. It is always a great pleasure to visit a bookshop after one's book is published. Writing a book is hard work - seeing it displayed on tables and shelves is a rewarding moment.

Elusive Peace: How the Holy Land Defeated America tells the story of the Middle East peace process from 1999 to 2005, and is as much the work of colleagues at Brook Lapping, the production company responsible for the BBC TV series, Elusive Peace, of which my book is the companion.

We spent 11 months together, on and off aeroplanes and flat-sharing in Jerusalem. Between us, we interviewed nearly 100 top decision-makers and officials, often off the record, and on film. Then we each took our piles of transcripts home, they to edit a series of documentaries, I to write a book.

We unearthed so much new, never-before-published material that we were at a loss as to which of the stories in the programmes and book would eventually catch the headlines.

It turned out to be - as is now well known - the story about George W Bush and God.

In a meeting with Palestinian leaders, as they told us, Bush said to them: "I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me 'George, go fight those terrorists in Afghanistan' and I did, and I was able to vanquish them, to end terrorism.

"And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did. And now again I feel God's words coming to me: 'Go get the Palestinians their state, and the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.' And, by God, I'm gonna do it."

A participant in this meeting, who prefers to remain anonymous (that's why he is not on the TV programmes, but only cited as an "anonymous source" in the book) went on to describe Bush's conduct in this meeting:

"Bush kept spinning around on his chair, like a child … spinning round and round... it was embarrassing. He was saying things like 'You have got to kick their asses!' of Palestinian terrorists, and 'We are gonna get those bastards' of al-Qaida."

The BBC subtitled the series Israel and the Arabs, but I felt it was not bold enough and went on to subtitle the book How the Holy Land Defeated America - and for good reason.

Under President Clinton, from 1999 to 2001, Washington tried to lend a hand to Israelis and Arabs in brokering peace, but failed disastrously. Then it simply gave up.

When Bush came to power, America stood back, intervening only when faced with no other option. From this point of view, the Holy Land has, indeed, defeated America.

And this is very sad, for without a bold United States intervention there will never be peace in the Holy Land.

The US, the sole remaining superpower, is the only country with enough clout to bang heads together and move things along in the Middle East.

Just before finishing the project, I travelled to the US with the production team to interview Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon who happened to be in New York to attend an important session at the United Nations. We usually interviewed participants in their own language and, as my mother-tongue is Hebrew, it was I who interviewed Sharon.

It was a nerve-racking experience. I had a long list of questions to ask Sharon, both for the TV series and for the book, and was given only 25 minutes to do so; a typical interview for our documentaries would last from two to five hours.

To make things even worse, I had all of Sharon's aides around me, tapping their feet nervously, concerned that I would take the liberty of asking the Prime Minister sensitive questions. After all, in their eyes, I was the "anti-Israeli" BBC.

After the interview, when I was standing with the Prime Minister for a photo opportunity, I said to him: "That was a bold withdrawal." I referred, of course, to the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, which Sharon had carried out a few days before in face of fierce opposition at home.

"It was tough," he replied.

I asked: "Should we expect more withdrawals?" wondering if he might pull out army and settlements from the West Bank as well. He answered with a smirk which I took to mean neither yes nor no.

And that, of course, is what we - the so-called "experts" - keep asking ourselves.

Would the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza be the first step to further withdrawals, particularly from the West Bank?

Would the Gaza withdrawal be the beginning of the end of the 57-year war between Israelis and Palestinians?

We simply do not know. For now, peace in the Middle East seems as elusive as ever.

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