Arabs, at least at the nonofficial level, were quick to hail President George W. Bush’s midterm electoral defeat and the humiliating downfall of his war architect Donald Rumsfeld, but cheering the Democrats’ victory has yet to wait and may not be voiced at all.

The US veto at the UN Security Council of a draft resolution condemning the Israeli attacks against the Palestinian civilians on Saturday was exactly the timely reminder needed to alert Arabs to the fact that historically both Republicans and Democrats have been essentially united on a bipartisan agenda in the Arab world, particularly on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Skeptics should consult bipartisan voting record of Congress in recent years on Middle East issues.

Reviewing US voting records at the Security Council reveals Saturday’s veto as the 30th anti-Palestinian vote and the 42nd anti-Arab out of more than 80 US vetoes.

True, Democrats are back in power in the House and Senate after 12 years, but dramatic changes in basic US foreign policy are unlikely, particularly in the “war on terror” and combating “Islamic radicalism,” on which there is a bipartisan consensus.

De-ideologization of US foreign policy into a “realistic” one has a long way to go. The “war team” — Bush, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice — is still in the driving seat and has the veto power on war and peace issues; Democrats have yet to lay their hands on the steering wheel of their country’s international policies.

Both Democrats and Republicans are expected to play politics more than they will plan policies until they settle the leadership dilemma in 2008 election; the future of military occupations and peace making in the Middle East will have to wait until then.

Rep. Tom Lantos, the Democratic lawmaker set to take over leadership of the International Relations Committee of the House, told AP Wednesday: “You won’t see a sudden change. We (Democrats and Republicans) basically share the same goals and objectives.”

Meanwhile Bush is turning to his father’s men to help him clean his mess in foreign policy: Robert Gates, elder Bush’s CIA director and James Baker, his friend and secretary of state. They are the architects of Iraq containment policy and Madrid-Oslo peace processes of 1991 and 1993.

Dennis Ross — who was a Middle East envoy for the elder Bush and successfully dragged Palestinian-Israeli years-long negotiation into its current deadlocked situation — said: “It is pretty clear the neoconservative agenda on regime change and democracy promotion will take a back seat to stability and less pressure on regimes to open up their political systems.” However a full-fledged Democratic victory in 2008 will not hold a lot of promise or hope for Arabs. The US foreign policy vis-à-vis the Arab-Israeli conflict has been one of either inaction or action to put in motion this or that form of a “peace process” with the aim of managing the conflict and not resolving it, mostly to trick Arabs into appeasement.

This strategic US-Israeli alliance has pre-empted and will continue to pre-empt all American proposals for a two-state solution, though the Security Council Resolution 1515 invests the proposal with legitimacy. It was responsible for the demise of the peace process sponsored by Bill Clinton. Bush’s two-state “vision” will meet with the same fate.

With Nancy Pelosi as the would-be speaker of the Congress, “Jewish activists and officials are confident that the US Congress will remain strongly pro-Israel ...I’ve heard her say numerous times that the single greatest achievement of the 20th Century was the founding of the modern State of Israel,” Amy Friedkin, a former president of AIPAC, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA). Pelosi has reiterated on record that the key issue in the Middle East is Israel’s survival, not its occupation.

In the entire midterm campaign, the Democrats did not offer one specific plan to resolve issues like Iraq or the Arab-Israeli conflict.

This leaves Israel with the upper hand in the occupied territories, or more accurately the only hand there given the absence of outside influence to balance Israel’s crushing military superiority.

On Iraq, Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy summarized his party’s stance: “I was personally opposed to the war but that was yesterday; I think that what we are trying to do now is (decide) how we proceed now. That’s really the challenge.” (The Washington Post, Nov. 9) The election to a large extent became a national referendum on Iraq, but it is becoming clear the Democratic leaders are drifting away from the anti-war demands of their constituencies.

A slight difference in approach is however discerned: Democrats may push toward engaging Syria and Iran instead of antagonizing them in Iraq, but within the framework of “Iraqization” of the war there and without any departure from Bush’s end goal of installing a pro-American regime in Baghdad.

On other Arab issues like Syria, Sudan’s Darfur and Lebanon the bipartisan agreement is evident.

The Israeli-Jewish factor figured very high in the Democrats’ campaign: Rahm Emannuel and Chuck Schumer are the new brains of American politics. They are given credit for Democrats’ victory; they are both Jewish and ardent supporters of Israel with strong Zionist convictions.

At least six Jews are among the 25 new Democrats sweeping into the House; that brings to 30 the total number of Jewish representatives. In the Senate, Jewish senators increased their numbers from 11 to 13 — a record high; “all but one of the Jews elected or re-elected to the House and to the Senate on Tuesday were Democrats or pledged to vote with the Democrats,” Cleveland Jewish News online reported on Nov 11. Infiltration of the top echelons of the Bush administration by pro-Israel strategists is also a public knowledge.

The “independent” Jewish agenda is very well represented by the Democrat Sen. Joseph Lieberman, who waged a campaign against the will of the Democratic Party as an independent and prevailed as a de facto Republican candidate. He is Jewish, extremely pro-Israel and pro-war in Iraq and expected to be the most powerful power broker in the Senate for the next two years.

All this works against historical friendships between Washington and several Arab regimes, discredits Arab liberals and creates the ideal political environment for extreme anti-Americanism. Arab disillusionment with US will reinforce the trend further.

— Nicola Nasser is an Arab journalist based in Ramallah, West Bank.