Eliminating options.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Navigating the treacherous diplomatic minefield between Israelis and Palestinians has become considerably more complicated for the United States since the militant Hamas movement won a decisive victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections in February.

The U.S. commitment to a negotiated two-state solution is imperiled by the Hamas leadership's refusal to renounce violence or to recognize Israel's right to exist. No one should expect Israel to negotiate with a Hamas-led Palestinian government unless the hard-line Islamist organization changes its charter and accepts existing treaties between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Rescuing the receding hopes for a viable Palestinian state will require cautious, delicate diplomacy. President Bush finds himself in the position of one of those unlucky GIs in a World War II combat flick assigned to rid the road ahead of land mines. Crawling on his stomach, gingerly probing the dirt with his bayonet, he can push forward just one excruciating inch at a time. A single careless move and it could be all over.

But Bush suddenly seems to be reading from a different script. Instead of snaking gingerly ahead on his elbows, he has decided to bound heedlessly down the mine-laden road. Newly elected Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has somehow managed on his first official trip to Washington to prod the U.S. president into a qualified endorsement of Olmert's controversial plan to unilaterally withdraw from some West Bank settlements and establish Israel's permanent borders behind a wall of barbed wire and concrete.

It is folly to take seriously Olmert's obligatory assurances that he remains open to negotiations with the Palestinians. He can offer such assurances with impunity because he is firmly convinced that the Palestinians are incapable of producing a credible negotiating partner. Of course, if Israel is the sole judge of who is or isn't credible, there's no need for further discussion.

Realistically, Hamas' intransigence and continuing support for terrorist attacks on Israel may ultimately force Olmert or a future prime minister to take unilateral action. But such drastic measures should come only after the United States, Europe and Israel's Arab neighbors can see that all options for a bilateral, negotiated peace agreement have been exhausted. It's absurd for Olmert to insist that a decision to impose a one-sided solution must be made within nine months.

Olmert's plan builds on the realization of his predecessor and mentor, the ailing Ariel Sharon, that demographics, economics and politics argue forcefully against continuing to occupy and defend much of the territory Israel seized in the 1967 war. Sharon orchestrated the first-ever dismantling of Israeli settlements and the relocation of more than 8,000 Jewish settlers from Gaza.

Phase 2 of his plan calls for pulling some 70,000 settlers out of the West Bank, relocating them behind the separation barrier and turning the land over to the Palestinians. But these territorial concessions don't represent a legitimate effort to resolve the conflict.

Olmert's proposal would take one-tenth of the Palestinian's land in the West Bank and put it behind the separation wall. As many as 30,000 Palestinians would be absorbed in this annexation, and many more would live in Balkanized pockets surrounded by Israeli territory. Long fingers of Israeli land would stretch far into the West Bank, segmenting Palestinian territory and seriously hampering the movement of people and goods.

Even the most moderate Palestinians - and moderates are in the majority - would never accept Olmert's plan as an end to the occupation. The international community outside the United States believes the best hope for peace hinges on Israel's return to pre-1967 borders. Indeed, Hamas leaders have hinted that a path to peace could be found if the territories occupied in 1967 were released to form a Palestinian state.

Olmert's plan offers Palestinians no hope, no dignity and no justice. It removes any incentive for Hamas to moderate its position or for mainstream Palestinians to demand that their leaders enter negotiations.

President Bush should have privately told Olmert that the United States viewed his West Bank plan as an absolute last resort. Publicly, Bush should have signalled to the Israeli and American public that nothing short of a negotiated two-state solution was under consideration.

Now, everyone must wait to see if Bush's premature endorsement of an unfair option blows a hole in the prospects for peace.