War against Iraq is inevitable. What is still up for grabs is the attitude of the Bush administration towards the Israeli - Palestinian conflict after they have dealt with Saddam Hussein. It seems both Palestinians and Israelis speculate that the U.S. will either seek to mend the fences with European and Arab nations by pressuring Israel for concessions or continue its tilt towards Israel by treating Arafat as an outcast. Realizing these options, both Arafat and Sharon have been reshuffling their positions to gain favor with the Bush administration while ensuring their political survival domestically.

Arafat has taken two steps that he hopes will be looked favorably upon: first, he officially announced that he will appoint a prime minister, a U.S. demand, and second, he fully accepted the draft road map, backing off previous objections. Of course, for any of this to mean something, the appointment of a prime minister must be more than a cosmetic change. Arafat needs to appoint someone credible in the eyes of the international world and be willing to share power with that person. However, he must balance acquiescing to international demands while ensuring his political survival domestically. With Salam Fayyad unequivocally ruling himself out as a candidate, the list of viable options is shrinking. Two front runners emerge, Mahmoud Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, is Arafat's veteran deputy in the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Ahmed Qureia, known as Abu Ala, who is the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Sharon also finds that he has a tricky balancing act on his hands. At pains to align Israel as America's chief ally in the war against terrorism, Sharon is wary of creating obstacles that the U.S. would frown upon, namely setting up an extreme right wing government that would ensure the road map's failure. To this end, Sharon has been courting the Labor party by leaking to the press his 'high level' talks with Palestinians, though needless to say nothing fruitful has come out of these meetings. Furthermore, he has succumbed to allowing Palestinian officials to travel to the London meeting taking place this week.

Sharon though remains uncertain of succeeding to lure Labor into his government and therefore can not abandon his ties to the extreme parties as he attempts to build his coalition government. To that end, he has been mercilessly attacking Gaza with 27 Palestinians being killed by Israeli forces since mid Sunday. Moreover, in a move that will be welcomed by Sharon's staunchest supporters, the Israeli settlers, Israel gave formal notice that it is seizing three and half acres of land in Bethlehem. The Israeli army informed Palestinians that large chunks of their property would be requisitioned to build a 25-foot high barrier that will effectively split Bethlehem to safeguard Jews coming to pray at biblical Rachel's Tomb.

In this game of high stakes political maneuvering, it is sadly the case that the people suffer the consequences of their leaders' charades. Though perhaps, not to be overly pessimistic, we should await the outcome of Arafat's announcement and hope that it manages to boost the excruciatingly slow paced road map to peace.