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May
6, 2003
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May
6, 2003
Warning: Pile-Up Ahead!
A Roadmap to
Nowhere
by KATHLEEN CHRISTISON
The "roadmap" to peace between Israel
and the Palestinians, finally released with little fanfare or
enthusiasm on May 1 after almost a year of aimless wandering
, is surely doomed. Near fatal internal flaws and severe political
constraints on its implementation render it a roadmap to nowhere,
destined for the same junk yard where the Mitchell Plan, the
Tenet Plan, and the Zinni Plan have rusted for the two years
of the Bush-Sharon stewardship over the so-called "peace
process."
The roadmap, first drafted in the fall
of 2002, is the joint product of the Quartet, the informal diplomatic
combo made up of Colin Powell for the U.S., Kofi Annan for the
UN, Javier Solana for the EU, and Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov
for Russia. Further refined last December, the roadmap calls
for a first phase, to last through May this year, in which Palestinians
unconditionally cease all violence and institute political reforms,
appoint a prime minister, draft a constitution, and hold elections,
while Israel withdraws from areas occupied since the beginning
of the  intifada in September 2000,
dismantles settlements built since March 2001 (since Ariel Sharon
took office), and freezes all other settlement activity. Needless
to say, even if the deadline for this phase were not now a mere
three weeks away, there would be little hope of accomplishing
these substantial goals in the near future.
In the second phase, from June through
December 2003, the Quartet is to call an international conference
to launch a negotiating process leading to establishment of an
"independent Palestinian state with provisional borders
and attributes of sovereignty." The third and final phase,
involving a second international conference, envisions an end
to Israel's occupation and establishment of an "independent,
democratic and viable Palestine" at some undefined point
in 2005. The final peace agreement will resolve all outstanding
final issues, including borders, settlements, the status of Jerusalem,
and the disposition of refugees. The plan also calls for "Arab
state acceptance of full, normal relations with Israel"
at the end of the negotiating process but lays out no specifics.
Although the roadmap is the joint product
of the Quartet, the United States essentially controls its content
and timing and will be the final arbiter, in cooperation with
a very reluctant Israel, of its implementation. This would seem
to be the kiss of death. Israel has made it known that it has
one hundred proposed changes to the roadmap and is already interpreting
the plan according to its own lights, particularly on whether
it calls for parallel or sequential implementation of its demands
on each side. Although the plan clearly states that in each phase
"the parties are expected to perform their obligations in
parallel, unless otherwise indicated," it later conditions
Israeli action on prior Palestinian action, calling on Israel
to withdraw from areas occupied since September 2000 but only
"progressively" and only "as comprehensive [Palestinian]
security performance moves forward." Colin Powell has offered
the unhelpful view that the roadmap's steps "will be parallel,
but they will not exactly be in synchronization with one another."
A Palestinian suicide bomber has already
given Israel an excuse for delay by launching a terrorist attack
on the day the new Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas,
was installed. Sharon then guaranteed further Palestinian terrorism,
and thus the failure of "comprehensive security performance"
by Abbas, when Israel launched attacks in Gaza the very day after
the roadmap's release. This particular attack killed 13 Palestinians,
mostly civilians and including a two-year-old, a couple of young
teenagers, a mentally retarded man, a woman, and a 75-year-old
man.
This tactic is standard operating procedure
for Sharon. By well-timed assassination operations and supposedly
"retaliatory" attacks and incursions in Palestinian
areas, he's managed to upset every pending peace move in the
last two-plus years. He upset at least two mediation missions
by special envoy Anthony Zinni in 2001 and 2002 with assassination
operations that directly provoked suicide bombings; preempted
the Saudi/Arab League peace initiative in March 2002 with a major
incursion into Palestinian refugee camps that also led to a suicide
bombing; overturned a pending cease-fire agreement involving
Hamas by bombing a Gaza apartment building and killing 14 sleeping
civilians, half of them children, in July 2002; and undermined
every attempt by Yasir Arafat to impose a cease-fire by launching
multiple incursions into Palestinian areas while Palestinians
were maintaining quiet. Most observers except those in the Bush
administration have accurately labeled these actions as the provocations
that they are, but Bush and his team persist in viewing Sharon
as a "man of peace" and will undoubtedly continue to
do so when he successfully provokes enough terrorism to derail
the roadmap.
The U.S. did not accede to Sharon's demand
for changes in the plan before releasing it, but Bush has made
it clear that both sides can negotiate over the plan's provisions,
a certain ticket to endless crippling delays. Bush himself and
the administration are clearly unenthusiastic about the plan
and apparently only released it at all, after a six-month delay,
in order to accommodate Tony Blair's need to show his domestic
opponents some sign of movement toward peace in the Middle East
after his unpopular participation in Bush's war in Iraq.
Colin Powell is evidently the roadmap's
only champion inside the administration, which probably further
dooms it. Most Bush policymakers and senior advisers do not even
acknowledge that the territories under discussion are "occupied
territories" and actively oppose any requirement for Israeli
withdrawal. Donald Rumsfeld famously referred to the territories
as "so-called occupied territories" last year; Richard
Cheney has not put himself on record so explicitly but, as a
long-time board member of such stridently pro-Israeli right-wing
organizations as JINSA, clearly is not a fan of the concept of
Israeli territorial compromise; other administration heavyweights
such as Douglas Feith and Richard Perle at the Defense Department
or on its periphery and Elliott Abrams on the National Security
Council staff have long openly advertised their belief that Israel
owns the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem by biblical right
and must always retain control. No roadmap to peace there.
Having caved in so easily in the internecine
battle over the Iraq war, Powell would seem to be totally incapable
of withstanding, and perhaps not even willing to put up a fight
against, the internal pressures against the roadmap.
The pressures on Bush and company from
outside the administration are even more intense. Israel is launching
a heavy lobbying effort against the roadmap, at least as it stands,
in conjunction with AIPAC, other major Jewish organizations,
and the large Christian fundamentalist community. Israel's tourism
minister, one of several strong advocates of "transfer"
(i.e., expulsion of Palestinians) in Sharon's cabinet, is now
in the U.S. for the specific purpose of generating an anti-roadmap
campaign outside the administration. Much of the groundwork has
already been laid for him: 88 senators and 316 congressmen have
already sent letters to Bush. Instigated by AIPAC, such letters
express serious reservations about the roadmap because of the
pressure it puts on Israel, and several Christian fundamentalist
leaders have spoken out stridently against the roadmap. Many
among the Christian right, including both evangelical preachers
and congressmen and other politicians, have been quite clear
about their support for Israel's retention of the territories
and for Palestinian expulsion.
On the other side, a group of 100 American
rabbis and a separate group of 14 major Jewish philanthropists
have also sent letters to Bush supporting the roadmap and urging
that he implement it immediately. But these are voices in the
wilderness in comparison with the forces arrayed against the
plan. Nor are the other Quartet members likely to be strong enough
to press the U.S. to follow through. The bottom line is that
Bush will be extremely reluctant to confront Sharon, whom he
apparently likes and with whom he feels great rapport. And, perhaps
most significant, even were he inclined to press ahead with a
genuine peace effort, he would also be extremely reluctant, as
the next election looms , to confront the pro-Israel/Christian
fundamentalist lobby.
Even without the virtually insurmountable
opposition the roadmap faces, it is a badly flawed document.
On paper the roadmap says many of the right things It recognizes
that there is an occupation and calls for an end to it. It demands
an Israeli settlement freeze. It appears to demand simultaneity
in implementation by both sides, basing a future peace agreement
on UN Security Resolution 242 and the principle of land for peace.
It recognizes the need for viability for a Palestinian state.
Nonetheless, overall it's a non-starter.
The long time frame and the phased approach
are major shortcomings. Palestinians are rightly fearful of any
phased approach because Oslo gave them the clear message that,
without strong U.S. pressure, Israel will turn any interim (and
therefore from the Palestinian standpoint unsatisfactory) phase
into a permanent arrangement. This is a particular danger with
phase two of the roadmap, which calls for an "independent
Palestinian state with provisional borders and attributes of
sovereignty." Apart from the obvious fact that, if borders
are provisional, there can be no true state, no independence,
and no sovereignty or even attributes thereof, the real danger
here is that having accomplished what Israel, the U.S., and the
rest of the world will surely call "independent statehood,"
no matter what the reality, the powerless Palestinians will have
no possible way to exert pressure to move on to the next stage.
A peace agreement and Palestinian statehood
scheduled no sooner than 2005, in a situation in which the plan
at its inception is already six months behind? This leaden pace
itself guarantees a death warrant for the plan.. Unless Israeli
settlement-building, road-building, and confiscation of Palestinian
land are stopped now, there will be nowhere to put either a provisional
state this year or a real state two years hence. Israeli land
seizures are proceeding at such a relentless pace and the West
Bank is being paved over with huge settlement blocs and limited
access highways to such an extent that the West Bank is likely
to be totally absorbed into Israel before the roadmap can ever
find a route to genuine peace.
Philip Wilcox, a former consul in Jerusalem
and now head of the Washington-based Foundation for Middle East
Peace, recently observed that it is impossible to get a proper
idea of the scale of the settlements project and the speed with
which it is going forward without being there to see what is
happening. Few Americans, including policymakers, even read texts
and see maps; fewer still, again including policymakers, have
ever seen the situation on the ground.
The lack of enforcement provisions, and
the likelihood that no U.S. government will ever exert enough
pressure on Israel to implement the steps it must take to move
the process along, are also severe impediments. Despite the call
for parallelism, the roadmap is vague enough on timing and unspecific
enough on sequencing that in practice all the burden is placed
on the Palestinians. Palestinians have already been required
to reform their administration, and Israel is explicitly demanding
Palestinian compliance on stopping all violence before it takes
any steps. The Bush administration will almost certainly not
object to this, and will no doubt also wink at the kind of provocations
that Israel launched last week.
According to the Israeli commentator
Akiva Eldar, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer, gave
a talk in Israel last year about the roadmap and, in a near-criticism
of Bush and the administration, quoted one of Yogi Berra's aphorisms:
"You've got to be careful if you don't know where you're
going, because you might not get there." Yogi had it right;
the roadmap seems clearly headed for a massive pile-up on the
superhighway of the U.S.-Israeli relationship. All available
evidence indicates that the Bush administration will accept that
pile-up rather than damage the relationship.
Kathleen Christison also worked in the CIA, retiring in 1979. Since
then she has been mainly preoccupied by the issue of Palestine.
She is the author of Perceptions
of Palestine and The
Wound of Dispossession.
She can be reached at: christison@counterpunch.org
Yesterday's
Features
Ron
Jacobs
Tears of Rage: Remembering May 1970
Elaine
Cassel
William Bennett, a Freudian Perspective
Sam
Hamod
Understanding the Shi'a of Lebanon
Scott
Fleming
Getting Shot on the Oakland Docks
Mickey
Z.
Cuba and Puerto Rico: 100 Years of Terror
William
S. Lind
Don't Take Col. John Boyd's Name in Vain
Dr.
Bruce Blair
The New Nuclear Terrorism Threat
Joanne
Mariner
Cluster Bombs Over Iraq
Anthony
Gancarski
Hot Fun in the Summertime
Ilian Pappe
Searching Jenin
William
MacDougall
America's Kids Are All Right: Pre-Teen Conservative Commentators
Seth Sandronsky
Incarcerated and Invisible
Rich
Procter
Over Our Dead Bodies
Lenni Brenner
How Bob Dylan Found His Voice
Adam
Engel
American Bulk
Poets'
Basement
Reiss, Guthrie, Albert
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 5/0
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