President Bush apparently has taken my job.

By Saeb Erekat*, The Washington Post

Accountability?without a doubt -- unless you are Ariel Sharon, in which case you may freely conduct assassinations, build walls and settlements, oppress an entire population and then be rewarded with unquestioning support.

 Until the Bush-Sharon press conference on April 14, I was the chief negotiator for the Palestine Liberation Organization, the only internationally recognized entity that has a mandate to negotiate a

permanent peace with Israel. But then Bush appeared on television, standing at the White House next to a beaming Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel, and announced that he had accepted Israel's claim to illegally occupied Palestinian land. He further determined that Palestinian refugees would never be allowed to return to their homes in Israel and would instead have to be resettled in a Palestinian state, vast tracts of which he had just given away.

In so doing, Bush reneged on the 1991 U.S. Letter of Assurances provided to the Palestinians by his father's administration; the letter said that "no party should take unilateral actions that seek to predetermine issues" and that "the United States has opposed and will continue to oppose settlement activity in the territories occupied in 1967." Bush, as the self-appointed Palestinian negotiator, finally exposed the "Middle East peace process" for the charade that it has become -- a mechanism by which Israel and the United States impose a solution on the Palestinians.

In this era of unmatched and unchallenged U.S. power, Bush abandoned America's historical role as facilitator and mediator of Middle East peace and instead simply adopted the positions of an expansionist, right-wing government in Israel. It is mind-boggling that an American president, often citing the rule of law, would use the power of his position not to enforce international law against illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory but instead to legitimize them as "currently existing Israeli population centers," thereby giving Israelis an incentive to build even more. It is mind boggling that a president who supports equality and non-discrimination would dismiss the rights of Christian and Muslim refugees to return to their homes in the "Jewish state" -- a term often repeated but never defined or even left to the parties to negotiate. And it is mind-boggling that the leader of the free world, the president of a nation whose very existence is based on liberty and justice, would act so callously to deny liberty and justice to the Palestinian people.

The positions taken by Bush are completely contrary to, and thus seriously undermine, the expressed objectives of American policy of democratic reform in the Middle East. Freedom? Of course -- unless you are a Palestinian, in which case your rights must be approved by Israel. The rule of law? Absolutely -- unless you are Israel, in which case you need not concern yourself with U.N. resolutions, the Fourth Geneva Convention, international refugee law or human rights treaties.

Accountability? Without a doubt -- unless you are Ariel Sharon, in which case you may freely conduct assassinations, build walls and settlements, oppress an entire population and then be rewarded with unquestioning support.

Bush wants to reform the Arab world while serving the Washington a franchise for an Israeli government bent on the expropriation of Palestinian land and the domination and humiliation of the Palestinian people. As long as the United States refuses to play an evenhanded role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as long as it continues to cede its Middle East policy to the Israeli government, U.S. efforts to win the war on terrorism are seriously undermined.

Israel's non-negotiated disengagement from Gaza will cause many Palestinians to conclude that violence, and not negotiations, is the only option for securing their rights. The majority of Palestinians who support a peaceful, negotiated two-state solution now see that Palestinians are no longer even welcome at the negotiating table. Israel is now negotiating peace with the United States -- not with the Palestinians. It is impossible to describe how deeply this has undermined Palestinian moderates, such as myself, who have continued to argue for a solution that is based on reconciliation and negotiation and not on revenge and retaliation.

The primary beneficiaries of these developments are extremist groups throughout the Middle East. The leaders of such groups could not have invented a better method of recruitment than the Bush-Sharon press conference. The reality is that as a result of the positions taken by the Bush administration, we are farther away from a permanent peace than we have ever been, and many innocent people on both sides will die in the coming months and years as a result.

My role as chief Palestinian negotiator may have been taken from me, but I retain my role as a Palestinian father. I am determined to teach my children that violence is not the answer. President Bush has not made my job any easier.

* The writer is chief negotiator for the Palestine Liberation Organization.