Open Arafat thread

Feel free to comment on the significance of Yasser Arafat’s death here. In particular — is it good for the Palestinians? If this Glenn Kessler story in the Washington Post is any indication, the Bush administration is intent on making progress on the Israeli/Palestinian issue:

President Bush yesterday signaled deeper U.S. engagement in Middle East peace efforts, saying he sees an “opening for peace” now that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is near death dead. When the new Palestinian leadership requests assistance, he said, the United States “will be more than willing to help build the institutions necessary for a free society to emerge.” Bush’s comments, the most extensive on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since his reelection, reflect a growing realization by administration officials that Arafat’s death would provide a rare diplomatic opening. One administration official said the president has come to understand that much of the opportunity depends on how the United States responds in the first days and weeks after Arafat dies, because it might ensure that moderate leadership takes hold in the Palestinian Authority. “The vision is two states, a Palestinian state and Israel, living side by side in peace,” Bush told reporters as he met with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. “I think we’ve got a chance to do that, and I look forward to being involved in that process.” ….Two senior White House officials met last Friday on short notice with European officials to lay out administration thinking on the next steps in the Middle East, which include building on the planned Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and following the path outlined in the U.S.-backed peace plan known as the “road map.” But they told European officials it would be a mistake to leapfrog a deliberative process and move directly to trying to settle vexing “final status” issues, such as Jerusalem. An administration official said the meeting, conducted by National Security Council staff members Elliott Abrams and Daniel Fried, was intended to begin discussions on the issue at an early stage with European officials, rather than have administration decisions dictated to allies after the fact.

Assuming that Arafat’s successor recognizes the futility of the second intifada, one wonders whether, to use a crude analogy, the Palestinians will be to Bush what the Soviets were to Reagan — an implacable foe that was transformed into a near ally after a display of toughness on the U.S. side and a change in leadership on the other side. Of course, this requires a Palestinian version of Gorbachev. I leave it to the commenters to comment on the odds of that happening.