Q. What is the significance of today's Sharm al-Sheikh summit?

A. Four leaders--Israeli PM Ehud Olmert, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Egyptian President Husni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah--are meeting to discuss ways to strengthen Abbas' grip on power in the West Bank, promote some sort of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation and negotiation process there, and weaken Hamas in Gaza. The meeting is important because it follows so closely on Hamas' takeover of the Gaza Strip and seeks both to exploit the opportunities opened up thereby and to counter the dangers.

One significant aspect of this meeting relates to the parties not present. Saudi Arabia is absent not only because it wants to avoid a direct and open meeting with Olmert, but also due to ongoing support among some of its leaders for the Mecca formula of a Fateh-Hamas unity government. In this regard, the Saudis are at odds with their Egyptian and Jordanian neighbors, who by and large are supporting Abbas' refusal to restore the unity government. Hamas, seeking to avoid isolation, wants to reactivate the Saudi-mediated unity formula with Fateh now that it has defeated it in Gaza.

Also not present is a high-level American representative. Abbas and Olmert both have President Bush's blessings for a new attempt to work together on the West Bank, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was originally scheduled to be in the region. Her absence at Sharm al-Sheikh appears to reflect the administration's overall downgrading of expectations from any sort of Arab-Israel process as it concentrates increasingly on Iraq and Iran. Note that Bush also cancelled his speech commemorating the fifth anniversary of his "two state vision". The Quartet, too, is absent, reflecting a generally low level of expectations or "wait and see" attitude in Europe, alongside Russian and UN reservations regarding the plan to quarantine Hamas.

Another very significant aspect of this summit is that it reflects the new risks that Egypt and Jordan now confront on the Israeli-Palestinian front. The ordnance deployed and capabilities demonstrated by Hamas' security forces in defeating Fateh reflected an abject Egyptian failure to properly police the Gaza-Sinai border and prevent the entry of arms and the movement of Hamas fighters to and from training bases in Iran. Now not only Israel but the US Congress is pressuring Egypt on this issue, and there are signs that Cairo has finally woken up to the dangers posed by the presence of a Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood mini-state on Egypt's border.

Amman, for its part, appreciates that the alternative to successful rule by Abbas in the West Bank is a Hamas takeover there as well, on Jordan's western border. Hence it is increasingly willing to consider closer involvement in PA security and economic affairs on the West Bank.

Still, the outcome of the Sharm al-Sheikh summit can be no more positive than the strengths of the leaders who attend. Of the four, only Abdullah currently projects an image of authority and strategic understanding. Yet he represents a weak country that is besieged by Iraqi refugees and has few options or resources for dealing with the Palestinian issue. The aging and ailing Mubarak will not be taken seriously until and unless he seals off Gaza. Olmert has his government's backing to offer Abbas money and possibly security concessions, but the Israeli prime minister is still serving on borrowed time with little public support. Finally, Abbas has until now consistently failed to capitalize on the good will of others.

Q. Now that Hamas rules unchallenged in Gaza and in view of the Qassam rockets that continue to fall in and around Sderot, why shouldn't Israel simply reoccupy the Strip? What are the dangers?

A. To reoccupy Gaza would play right into Hamas' strategy. As a guerilla/terrorist organization fighting Israel in an asymmetrical warfare mode, it seeks nothing more than to draw the IDF into again occupying territory populated by a hostile population. Here we must recall that, from Hamas' religious/ideological standpoint, there is no difference between the long-term status of Gaza and of sovereign Israeli territory--both are sacred Islamic lands destined to be comprised in a Palestinian Islamist state.

Nor would it be correct to theorize that an IDF reoccupation of Gaza would be acceptable to Fateh in the West Bank. The latter continues to consider the Gaza Strip a part of the territory of a unified Palestinian state-in-the-making, and would be bound to protest the occupation and might even cite is as grounds for ceasing cooperation with Israel.

Then there is the anticipated internal Israeli price of reoccupation: military losses that would exceed several dozen soldiers killed, followed by steady attrition as the occupation is extended; months of tracking down Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters in the warrens of the Strip's teeming refugee camps; and angry opposition within Israel, including the possibility of a movement of soldiers refusing to participate in a seemingly endless and pointless military task. The risk of a "supportive" Hezbollah attack on Israel from the north would grow, not to mention an all-out Hamas rocket offensive on Sderot in the early stages of the Israeli offensive. And the financial burden incurred by the reoccupation would not be confined to military costs; international donor agencies that currently help feed more than half the Gazan population might now insist that Israel pick up the tab.

Finally, there is the regional and international cost of an IDF reoccupation of Gaza. Current close coordination of Palestinian policy with Egypt and Jordan (see above) would be severely impaired, while the international community would have little patience with Israel's protests that it was responding to Hamas aggression in the most legitimate way.

In short, almost any alternative to reoccupation is preferable. There is no acceptable military "solution" to the Hamas presence in Gaza. The only development that might conceivably justify consideration of reoccupation would occur if Israel were confronted with a genuine military/terrorist threat from Hamas in Gaza in the form of rocket attacks or Iran-aided offensive preparations that it could neither ignore nor neutralize by alternative means. Even then, reoccupation would in the long term generate at least as many negative as positive ramifications.

Q. How did the air escape so quickly from Olmert's trial balloon of negotiations with Syria?

A. The Olmert-Bush meeting with the press last week, prior to their private talks in the White House, produced an exchange regarding negotiations with Syria that appeared neatly to encapsulate the issue:

Bush: [The Israelis] can handle their own negotiations with Syria. If the prime minister [Olmert] wants to negotiate with Syria, he doesn't need me to mediate.

Olmert: As for Syria . . . the Syrian leader said that he is against any preconditions from the Israeli side, but he's certainly for preconditions from the Syrian side. One of the preconditions is that he wants President Bush to. . . be the mediator. And the president said correctly, this is not the. . . job for the president of the United States. . . . I don't think, if someone wants to speak directly, he needs the involvement of America in order to allow these negotiations to take place. I am not certain that the understanding of the president of Syria can lay the foundations for immediate discussions between Syria and Israel.

A number of interesting insights emerge from this exchange. First, while Bush may be prepared to step aside and let Olmert negotiate with Syria despite American reservations, he is not prepared to host the talks, as the US did throughout the 1990s. Secondly, Olmert believes Israel can negotiate directly with Syria, without Americans in the room, while Syrian President Asad appears to insist on an American role.

It is not clear from this conversation what Asad replied to Olmert's queries regarding Israel's need for Syria to put on the table its relationship with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas. Yet Olmert appears to be casting doubt on the likelihood of talks with Syria based on the American factor. In this respect, it seems more than likely that the Syrian reply to Olmert's queries was not enticing enough to prompt the Israeli prime minister to exert himself to persuade Bush to give the project his blessing.

Syria's vision of peace talks with Israel has always included the United States. This is not necessarily a positive element--Israel's breakthroughs to peace with Egypt, Jordan and the PLO all took place without Washington's knowledge. But Syrian-Israeli talks have long since passed the "breakthrough" point in a process that in many ways is different from any other Arab-Israel peace talks. Besides, Israel and its Arab interlocutors have always sought to recruit US backing and involvement in the later stages of their peace talks. Bush in effect sent a message to Bashar Asad in Damascus that, given the circumstances in Iraq and Lebanon, no one can promise him the breakthrough in Syrian-US relations that he seeks--even if he makes peace with Israel on a completely bilateral basis.

So Bush appears to have vetoed Israeli-Syrian peace talks. At a time when Israel seeks close strategic cooperation with the US on issues ranging from Iran to Palestine and with Bush committing to raising Washington's annual defense aid to Israel from $2.4 to $3 billion, Olmert can hardly protest in public. But he certainly should do so in private, in view of the critical importance of an Israeli-Syrian peace to the confrontation with Iran.

Olmert's recent desperate quest for a regional peace "agenda" with which to persuade the Israeli public to support him has, since the Hamas takeover of Gaza, been focused on Mahmoud Abbas and the West Bank. Right now he doesn't appear to need Syria as badly as he did a few weeks ago. Sadly, this approach reduces Israel's quest for peace with its neighbors to little more than "spin", opinion polls and PR. But that is how Olmert operates.