As a Middle East analyst and self-described evangelical
Christian, Michael Evans has been hard at work promoting President
Bush’s plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The president of the Jerusalem Prayer Team, Evans has written
two New York Times best-selling books in the past year and pens a
weekly column for an online newspaper, in which he promotes
Bush’s policies for the region.

Among the policies that Evans advocates is Bush’s refusal
to deal with Yasser Arafat, president of the Palestinian
Authority.

“Fundamentally what you have with President Bush is a zero
tolerance for terrorists,” Evans said, calling Arafat
“the godfather of terrorism.” He added that
Bush’s policy forced Palestinians to seek representation from
more moderately aligned politicians.

For Evans, a Kerry administration means a repetition of policies
pursued by former President Bill Clinton — the first
president to invite Arafat to the United States for peace
negotiations.

“Clinton began negotiating with a terrorist. That is an
appeasement policy … providing an open door to terrorists
like Arafat,” Evans said. “That policy has been totally
embraced by Kerry.”

But Kerry’s website states that the Democratic
presidential candidate will continue to push for reformed
Palestinian leadership, saying Arafat is unlikely to be an ally in
the peace process. The Massachusetts senator has also said he
supports the construction of an Israeli wall in the West Bank as a
defense against Palestinian attacks and has condemned the
International Court of Justice ruling that the wall violates
international law.

Ron Stockton, a political science professor at the
University’s Dearborn campus, said U.S. policy in the past
has been to “intensely engage” in the conflict,
including recognizing Israel, as it existed prior to 1967 —
the year Israel occupied territories in the West Bank and Gaza. He
said Kerry’s plan was favorable.

“Bush has backed off and left it to Sharon. This is a
major diversion from existing American policy,” Stockton
said.

“(We) have to work with the Israelis as well as the
Palestinians, so I do think (Kerry) would be more active in
engaging both sides,” he said.

Stockton added that Bush was too close to Sharon to enact policy
satisfactory to both parties. “He basically endorsed
Sharon’s building of the barrier and his involvement in
Gaza,” he said.

Kerry has been somewhat inconsistent in his proposals for
resolving the Mideast conflict, especially with regard to the
security wall. While he has voiced support for the security wall,
he also told the Arab American Institute last year that the
building of the wall was “counterproductive.”

“I know how disheartened Palestinians are by the Israeli
government’s decision to build a barrier off the ‘Green
Line,’ cutting deeply into Palestinian areas,” Kerry
said last year. “We do not need another barrier to
peace.”

For this reason and others, Evans said, “the best hope for
the conflict is under Bush.”

While sensitive issues such as the refugee problem, construction
of the wall in the West Bank, the status of Jerusalem and
Israel’s pullout from the West Bank and Gaza remain to be
solved, the primary issue that must be settled is how negotiations
will begin and proceed.

Despite Kerry and Bush both expressing pro-Israeli sentiments,
support for the Security Wall as well as a need for new Palestinian
leadership, Evans represents Republicans who fear that Kerry may
take a Clinton-esque approach of getting Arafat on the negotiating
table, sending mixed signals to “terrorists,” and
undermining the importance of reforming Palestinian politics before
embarking on the roadmap to peace.

This roadmap is the official document approved by the United
States, United Nations, European Union and Russia in 2002 to
implement peace within the region in three steps: transformation of
Palestinian government, transition to democracy and finally
Palestinian statehood.

Although the original plan scheduled the third step to be
underway by this year and completed by 2005, in reality the peace
process has been stuck at step one with experts predicting that it
will stay that way until Arafat is unseated, allowing more moderate
politicians to rise to power and reform Palestinian politics.

But opponents argue that the United States, along with th rest
of the international community needs to play a more dominant role
in transforming Palestinian politics.

Another point on which Kerry will be strong is enlisting the
help of other countries to deal with the problem, Stockton
said.