The holes in Israel's road map

Monday, Jul 21, 2003

Despite the declaration of a unilateral Palestinian ceasefire with Israel, and the frequent meetings between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, the "road map" for peace is in serious trouble. This is because the Bushadministration, the plan's chief sponsor, has allowed Israel to reinterpret it so that it is gutted of the elementsthat offered hope of progress.

Two elements distinguish the road map from the failed Oslo process. First, it requires Israel to freeze allsettlement construction in the occupied territories at the outset and to remove all colonies established since March2001. Second, the road map spells out explicitly the objective of the peace process: an end to Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory; and two states, Palestine and Israel, living side by side.

Because Israel depends on the US for the military and diplomatic backing that allows it to continue its occupation ofArab land indefinitely, the success or failure of the plan lies in Washington's willingness to confront an Israelthat remains committed to the settlements and opposed to a genuinely independent Palestinian state.

The first signs that President George W. Bush would not follow through on his verbal commitment to the statedobjectives came in his closing statement at the June 4 summit in Aqaba, Jordan, to launch the road map. While Mr Bushdemanded that Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian prime minister, concentrate on ending any and all Palestinian resistance toIsraeli occupation, he allowed Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, to commit to far less than the plandemands.

Mr Bush welcomed Mr Sharon's "pledge to improve the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian areas and to begin removing unauthorised outposts immediately". In this way, Mr Bush conceded to Mr Sharon the right to decidewhat constitutes an "unauthorised" settlement - a distinction that does not exist in international law, which is clear that all the settlements are illegal. Israel has made a great display of removing a few outposts, mostly empty trailers and water tanks. In one case, The New York Times reported a scuffle between supposedly angry settlers andIsraeli soldiers removing an outpost, which was interrupted so that the antagonists could share refreshments. As thesesham efforts went on, Mr Sharon told his cabinet that the settlers could continue to build but should do so quietly. Theresult, according to Israel's Peace Now, a pressure group, is an increase in the number of outposts by at least twosince Mr Bush made his statement.

More significantly, Israel has continued to carry out substantial construction projects in the occupied territories. It has accelerated work on a four- metre-high concrete wall that has in effect annexed large swaths of the West Bank to Israel and cut off many Palestinian towns and villages from the rest of the occupied territories.

These facts on the ground make a genuine two-state solution increasingly unattainable in practice. But, politically, the road map has already been emptied of the content that would make such an outcome possible in the first place. Byrecognising Israel within its 1948 borders, Palestinians have already conceded 78 per cent of historic Palestine - inwhich they were the overwhelming majority until Israel's creation. In exchange, they expect full independence andsovereignty in the remaining 22 per cent - the whole of east Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In this goal, they are supported by a vast body of international law and United Nations resolutions.

Yet when Mr Sharon stated in Aqaba that "we can also reassure our Palestinian partners that we understand theimportance of territorial contiguity in the West Bank for a viable Palestinian state", he was essentially rulingout a full Israeli withdrawal. "Contiguity" is an issue only in the context of a continued Israeli presence onPalestinian land. Mr Sharon is willing to call an arrangement in which Palestinians are given limited self-governmentwithin a greater Israel where they have no civil or political rights a "state". Many Palestinians compare itto apartheid.

These developments, along with Mr Bush's oblique endorsement of Israel's rejectionist position towards the right of return of Palestinian refugees, do not add up to what is desperately needed: a serious and rapid effort to end the occupation completely and restore to Palestinians the basic rights they have been denied for so long. Hence there islittle to build or sustain support for the process among Palestinians.

As the Bush administration does nothing to check Israel - and simultaneously piles pressure on the deeply unpopularMr Abbas, whose appointment as Palestinian prime minister it engineered - it is only a matter of time before thesituation explodes in a new and sustained round of violence.

Perhaps the only hope of saving the process lies with strong intervention by the European Union, which nominallyco-authored the road map. Hitherto, the EU has acquiesced in US leadership, even when it has disagreed with USpositions. And the US has been willing to ignore Europe on those rare occasions when it has asserted itself, as the Iraqcrisis demonstrated. But, ironically, US difficulties in Iraq may give Europe the leverage to demand real action towardsPalestinian freedom and Middle East peace as a prerequisite for help in extricating the Americans from their ownunravelling occupation of Iraq.

Hasan Abunimah is former ambassador and permanent representative of Jordan at the UN. Ali Abunimah is co-founder ofwww.electronicIntifada.net

Hasan Abunimah and Ali Abunimah