Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will complete his term in January 2009 and has already announced he will not seek another term; no one knows who will replace him and whether his successor will share the same commitment to peace. In the meantime, no matter who the next American president will be, he or she will not hurry to engage in this very sensitive region, which has proved such a disappointment to previous administrations.

Bush’s years in the White House were difficult years for the Middle East... Former prime minister Ariel Sharon did not believe in negotiations with the Palestinians, and he succeeded in convincing Bush that Arafat was another Osama bin Laden and that boycotting him was part of the war against terror. For their part, the Palestinians did their fair share as well, refusing to cooperate with any attempt to calm the area.

Bush’s few attempted efforts at advancing Israeli-Palestinian peace were ill-witted and ultimately deleterious. Bush’s support for Sharon’s problematic idea of a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and his insistence on allowing Hamas to participate in the Palestinian elections ultimately hurt — rather than helped — the prospects of peace in the region. The road map, which is an international initiative only by name since it was conceived and drafted mostly in Washington, was yet another colossal failure. Officials on all sides may continue to spout its name, but it is destined to be off the table the very moment that Bush leaves the Oval Office... For this reason, if his visit is to be of any consequence, Bush must bring with him more than empty words — he must bring a plan of action.

Such a plan would be the setting up of a regional headquarters charged with dealing with all aspects of the process during the next 12 months. This American headquarters for peace would deal with the security and military aspects, helping primarily to build up a Palestinian security mechanism; monitor the two sides’ implementation of their commitments on the ground (including the settlement freeze and the struggle against the armed militias); and ensure the continuity of the diplomatic negotiations while presenting bridging proposals, if necessary.

Excerpted from an article by Yossi Beilin, a former justice minister and the architect of the unofficial Geneva Initiative, in the January 9 issue of Haaretz