Arab leaders, for their part, viewed Jerusalem as their gateway to Washington. This was an important catalyst for moderates like Jordan's Hussein, Egypt's Anwar Sadat and Morocco's King Hassan in breaking Arab ranks and opening up to the Jewish state. In February, feeling the heat of Bush's reform zeal, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak improved ties and invited Sharon--whom he had fiercely criticized before--to attend a peace convention in Egypt. Tunisia's despot, Zine Ben Ali, followed suit and sent Sharon an invitation to an international technology conference. The story leaked and prompted student rage in Tunisia, showing once again the disparity between rulers' and the Arab public's attitudes toward Israel.

Despite the affinity between Sharon and Bush--for which the United States is heavily criticized in the Arab world and Europe--the U.S.-Israeli dialogue ignores regional reforms, revolving almost entirely around resolving, or at least managing, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. There are several reasons for this. The U.S.-Israeli strategic dialogue has dried up in recent years. More importantly, the Bush Administration sticks to the age-old U.S. Middle East policy, which has always sought to distinguish between its incompatible goals of keeping a stable oil flow and securing Israel. Therefore, Israelis are excluded from the American-sponsored Broader Middle East and North Africa regional reform initiative (BMENA). The official excuse is that Israel, being a democracy, does not need any additional help. A more convincing explanation, however, is the fear of using Israel's participation as a pretext for Arab reluctance to join the initiative, or of turning the process into another stage for polemics.

The U.S. approach is not unreasonable. Efforts to include Israel in regional cooperation forums, which peaked in the mid-1990s, have largely failed. As Oslo soured, so have the five multilateral tracks of the Arab-Israeli peace process, launched in 1992. The EU's Barcelona process, or "Euro-Med partnership", launched in 1995 at the height of Arab-Israeli rapprochement, tried to combine Arab political and economic reforms with acceptance of Israel. Both sides were invited to participate, but the partnership had virtually no success in either field. The Europeans gradually marginalized the Barcelona process in favor of parallel but separate bilateral agreements with Israel, the Palestinian Authority and several Arab states. NATO has recently upgraded its cooperation program in the Middle East, but it appears to be a public-relations trick, rather than a serious effort to boost regional security.

From the Israeli perspective, the exclusion from BMENA could be convenient. Sharon believes that "there are no free lunches" in international relations and detests multilateral forums, where Israel is almost always isolated. Why join a process in which Israel might be pressed for concessions just to keep it going while getting little in return? But this attitude is shortsighted. Avoiding the issue will only complicate matters, since the U.S. separation policy allows the Arab participants to hold on to their rejectionist policies toward Israel, regardless of their awaited domestic changes.

In the Bush design for a better Middle East, Israel's main role is to facilitate the creation of an independent Palestinian state. Thus, it will defuse one of the major pretexts for Arab despotism. Apparently the Americans believe that both efforts will eventually converge: Israel will compromise with the Palestinians, and the new Arab democracies, including yet-to-be-born Palestine, will be less threatening and more ready to accept their Jewish neighbor. After all, two democracies have never waged war against each other.

Crucially, the long-term threat to Israel may not come from Arab armies, but from Arab efforts to undermine its identity through peaceful means and portray it as racist. Arab democracies may accept Jefferson and Montesquieu, but why should they also embrace Theodor Herzl? Adopting political freedom does not necessarily mean accommodating Zionism in the same package. The recent Arab development report made this distinction clear, as it criticized not only the post-1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, but also "the creation of Israel on Palestinian soil" in 1948 and its ensuing Western support. The report's polling indicated widespread support for "setting up a democratic state in Palestine", which should be read as the deconstruction of Israel and the "two-state solution" in favor of a single state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean eventually ruled by an Arab majority.

Israel is facing a growing threat to its legitimacy. The recent four-year intifada prompted an international debate over Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. Arab Israeli politicians, Palestinian and Arab officials, and European and American intellectuals have all debated Israel's self-declared national identity, advocating a binational state "for all its citizens" or a "one-state solution" instead of the mainstream ethnic partition ideas. The subtext is that getting rid of Israel would free the world from a perpetual headache while doing justice for the Arabs. Combined with Palestinian demands for refugee return, these calls alarmed the Israeli government, which asked for and received assurances from Bush for preserving Israel's Jewish identity. They also prompted Israel to stiffen its immigration laws in response to the growing "Arab demographic threat."

Arab democracies could use their new-found liberal credentials to target the Law of Return, which grants automatic Israeli citizenship to Jews and their relatives while subjecting non-Jews to more restrictive legislation. Currently, Israel ranks high above its neighbors in any political or economic development index. But this superiority cannot be guaranteed indefinitely, and Israel must prepare itself for its possible erosion, especially if the Arab world embraces reform.

All this has several policy implications for Israel. First, it should be more open to recognize changes in the regional environment. Second, a reasonable compromise with the Palestinians--and a future deal with Syria--will fix Israel's borders, strengthen its legitimacy and supply it with a better moral standing for the challenges ahead. Third, Israel should insist on not being left out of the BMENA and other regional reform programs. If the Arabs insist on blaming Israel for their domestic troubles, then Israel should also be part of the broader solution, as an equal member in the regional club. Fourth, Israel should defend its identity and character; it is entitled to be Jewish just as its neighbors are Arab. And fifth, given the uncertainties and instabilities involved in the transformation of the Middle East, Israel will have to rely in the foreseeable future upon its deterrent capabilities and economic superiority. Unfortunately, there is no better way for survival in a tough neighborhood.

Essay Types: Essay