Acting too soon!

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Israel is still dealing with the Middle East peace process with the mentality of a usurer who wants to make the most profit at the least cost. Last Thursday, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon stood at the UN to tell the world how painful the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza was, while calling on the Palestinian Authority to dismantle the infrastructure of terror (i.e., the legitimate Palestinian resistance to Israeli military aggression). In defiance of the international community, Sharon pledged to keep building the separation wall. That's the same wall the International Court of Justice and at least one Israeli court ruled illegal. Yet Israel is being rewarded for its withdrawal from Gaza, even when Gaza remains besieged from air and sea, and isolated from the West Bank and the outside world.

Israel is asking for rewards from the international community and getting more than it bargained for. Qatari Foreign Minister Hamad Bin Jasem Al-Thani met Silvan Shalom. This encouraged a number of non-Arab delegations to voice support, however indirectly, of Israel's policies. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf shook hands with Sharon at a public reception, just two weeks after he sent his foreign minister to Istanbul for talks with the Israelis.

Arab diplomacy could not have done worse. With an Arab summit expected soon, perhaps we could have waited for that summit to comment on the Gaza withdrawal. Some people can't wait. In return for WTO membership, Saudi Arabia has agreed to start trading with Israel. Dubai will soon have an Israeli trade office. Mauritania is normalising ties with Israel. And both Qatar and Iraq's transitional government are eager to get in on the action.

Israel, meanwhile, has scorned the Arab peace initiative made in Beirut in 2001. If Israel wants to live in peace with its neighbours, it should at least accept the Arab peace initiative, which offers full normalisation in return for Israel's full withdrawal from Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian lands.

There is much Israel can do to earn Arab acceptance. For starters, it can agree to final international borders drawn by a UN committee in line with UN resolutions 138 and 242. It can agree to the removal of all weapons of mass destruction from the region, scrapping its massive arsenal of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Israel can also declare that its withdrawal from Gaza is simply a part of the roadmap and that moves towards a final settlement will be accelerated.