This conflict's too tricky for ham-handed Bush team

After four years mucking up Iraq, President George W. Bush is calling an American-led "international meeting" on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

Please, Mr. President, let it be, bad as it is. Go fishing, send Dick Cheney hunting, whatever. Don't blunder again in a region in which you and your neoconservative advisers have zero credibility.

The much-abused Israelis and Palestinians deserve an honest broker.

Events in the region have deteriorated since Israel's victory in the 1967 war resulted in control and eventually occupation of those lands left to Palestinians after creation of the state of Israel.

Reporting from the West Bank in 1982 for King Broadcasting, I concluded a 30-minute documentary: "The occupation has taken the land, diverted the water, and filled village life with tension and conflict. Palestinian boys leave to become guer-rillas, for there is little reason to stay under the guns and in the prisons of occupation. This is an occupation financed and forgotten by Americans. But while it continues, there will be no peace, on the land or in the souls of the people."

Shortly after the documentary aired, Israel invaded Lebanon and drove the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) into exile. Two Islamic organizations — Hamas and Hezbollah — emerged in the chaos, and now dominate the Palestinian cause. Palestinians were overwhelmingly secular in 1982 — the only PLO element with religious overtones was a Christian militia. Gradually, Palestinians turned to Islamists because nothing else worked.

With the exception of the Oslo agreements in 1993, events have gone downhill in the past 25 years, directly related to the building of permanent Israeli settlements (now 271) in Palestinian territory. Jerusalem is ringed by fortresslike settlements, a 30-foot wall is sealing off the West Bank, and a network of roads exclusively for Israeli settlers carves the West Bank into a series of isolated and impoverished enclaves.

Some 400,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.5 million West Bank Palestinians, but control more than 40 percent of the land. Israeli soldiers protect them, staff some 500 roadblocks and checkpoints, and control much of West Bank life.

These "facts on the ground" must be addressed along with the violence from both sides if any progress is to be made. The policy of the Bush administration has been to turn a blind eye to expansion of Israeli settlements while condemning Palestinian violence. Our Cheney-driven policy is black-or-white, us-or-them, good-or-evil, in a region where everything comes in shades of gray.

We have not helped our cause by promoting democratic elections in Palestinian territories and then refusing to accept the overwhelming victory of Hamas in a free and fair election. Just as our invasion created al-Qaida in Iraq, isolating and demon-izing Hamas may create a branch in Gaza.

Israel "gave" Gaza to the Palestinians in 2005, an overcrowded slum with no jobs and with borders sealed off by Israel. No one wanted Gaza — it has no religious significance — and its predictable implosion gave Israel an excuse not to yield on the West Bank.

Politics have failed on both sides. Israel's vibrant and democratic politics have been captured by right-wing religious zealots and sometimes-violent settlers. Among Palestinians, the Fatah government has been ineffectual and corrupt, and educated secular professionals have emigrated to find a better life, leaving a gap that has been filled by violence. Ordinary people on both sides want peace and support a two-state future.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas holds the shredded cloth of secularism, but is increasingly unpopular. Hopes for reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah remain, but lack a leader.

Israel is releasing some Fatah prisoners, but not Marwan Barghouti, perhaps the only Palestinian with the street credibility to unite Palestinians. Israel says Barghouti "has blood on his hands." Indeed. No major player in the dispute has clean hands. In 2006, according to B'tselem, an Israeli human-rights group, Israeli forces killed 660 Palestinians; Palestinians killed 23 Israelis.

My dictionary defines terrorism: "The use of violence or threats to intimidate or coerce." There is terrorism on all sides. Palestinians carry suicide bombs and lob mortar rounds into Israel. Israeli soldiers raid Palestinian neighborhoods and shell from the air. One terrorist wears a robe, the other a uniform.

Earlier this month, departing British Prime Minister Tony Blair was named a special envoy to the Middle East. Better to give Blair a chance rather than turn this vital area over to the tender mercies of Bush, Cheney and the neocons. They need to make a genuine effort to get Syria and Iran to help extricate us from Iraq, not look for one more place to intervene.

Floyd J. McKay, a journalism professor emeritus at Western Washington University, is a regular contributor to Times editorial pages. E-mail him at floydmckay@yahoo.com