STATE DEPT. LINKS IRAN AND ISRAEL
WASHINGTON — The State Department has decided to link Iran's nuclear
weapons program with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Officials said the department has drafted talking points for officials
and ambassadors that connect any coalition against Iran's uranium enrichment
program to efforts to achieve Israeli-Arab peace. They said the United
States would support an international drive to stabilize the Palestinian
Authority and establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"A key response we're getting in our efforts to form a coalition against
Iran is that the Israel-Palestinian conflict cannot be ignored," an official
said. "Our response is that there could be a dual track that employs the
same international assets to solve both issues."
On Sept. 15, State Department counselor Philip Zelikow said the Bush
administration has linked Iran and the Arab-Israel conflict. In an address
to the Washington Institute, Zelikow, senior policy adviser to Secretary
State Condoleezza Rice, said an international coalition against Iran
depended on
what he termed progress in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.
"For the Arab moderates and for the Europeans, some sense of progress
and momentum on the Arab-Israeli dispute is just a sine qua non for their
ability to cooperate actively with the United States on a lot of other
things that we care about," Zelikow said. "We can rail against that belief;
we can find it completely justifiable, but it's fact. That means an active
policy on the Arab-Israeli dispute is an essential ingredient to forging a
coalition that deals with the most dangerous problems."
Zelikow said without progress in Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts,
Washington would be hampered in efforts to recruit international support
against Iran's nuclear program. The State Department official said the U.S.
linkage was also in Israel's interest.
"If Israel, for example, is especially worried about Iran and sees it as
an existential threat, then it's strongly in the interest of Israel to want
the American-led coalition to work and an active policy on the dispute with
the Palestinians that begins to normalize that situation more that dampens
that down is important," Zelikow said. "So it's an essential glue that binds
a lot of these problems together."
Zelikow's statement alarmed Israeli diplomats. Over the weekend, Israel
ambassador to Washington Danny Ayalon discussed the speech with senior
administration officials.
"There will be no linkage between the Iranian issue and the Palestinian
one," Ayalon said.
[On Monday, PA security officers opened fire outside the Palestinian
Legislative Council in Gaza City to disperse a violent protest. Bodyguards
of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh injured a protest leader as she and
hundreds of other unemployed workers tried to block his motorcade.]
Officials said the State Department's approach has not been adopted by
the rest of the Bush administration. But they said Ms. Rice, who heads U.S.
policy toward Iran, has supported the Israel-Iran linkage and urged Bush
to do the same.
On Tuesday, Bush was scheduled to address the United Nations General
Assembly and the following day would meet Abbas. On Monday, Ms. Rice met
Abbas and Israeli Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni in New York.
"A lot of what is taking place now is political posturing meant for the
General Assembly meeting and its aftermath," an official said. "The White
House, however, largely believes that the diplomatic effort to resolve the
Iranian nuclear issue has been exhausted."
