The Art of the Possible Peace

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will travel to the Middle East this weekend and hold a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Her stated purpose is to discuss permanent-status issues with an eye toward producing an agreement on a political horizon for ending the conflict. For many, such a political horizon has been long overdue; with it, they argue, both Israelis and Palestinians will know how the conflict ends and find it easier to confront those who oppose peace.

Many, including Rice, see Saudi, Israeli, Egyptian and Jordanian leaders as sharing a perception of Iran as a threat. With such common fears, the thinking goes, the leaders should be willing to accept the necessary hard compromises and end the Palestinian conflict (or show how it can be ended) so Iran can no longer exploit the conflict to build its following and put the region's moderates on the defensive.

The assessment of the common threat perception is correct. But basing policy only on this misses an important regional reality. Priorities differ on how best to respond to the Iranian threat. For the Saudis, weaning Hamas away from Iran and producing intra-Palestinian peace is more important than trying to forge peace between Palestinians and Israelis. For the Israelis, however, an intra-Palestinian peace that entails accommodating Hamas (and that does not require Hamas to change its hostile posture toward Israel) is hardly a basis for reaching out to Palestinians in a way that would satisfy the Saudis, Egyptians and Jordanians.

And one sure way to threaten intra-Palestinian peace is to push now for a political horizon that inevitably will mean Palestinian compromises on core issues such as refugees. Will Hamas accommodate giving up the Palestinian right of return? A political horizon that purports to outline the endgame will require such a concession, and Hamas is not going to accept it or a process likely to produce it.