Israel Matzav

The 'Quartet' destroys what's left of the 'roadmap'

Hillary Clinton attended a meeting of the 'Quartet' this week. As you might recall the 'Quartet' consists of the United States, the Soviet Union, the European Union and the United Nations and is meant to bring 'peace' to the Middle East. The 'Quartet' was set up under the 'road map' in 2003. The 'road map' is meant to provide a way to a 'Palestinian state' and was accepted by the Sharon government in 2003 with fourteen reservations. The 'Quartet' specifically rejected those reservations in its statement on Thursday. Here's the key passage in the 'Quartet' statement:

The Quartet shares the sense of urgency expressed by President Obama and fully supports the steps ahead as outlined in his statement to the UN General Assembly on September 22. The Quartet calls on Israel and the Palestinians to act on their previous agreements and obligations--in particular adherence to the Roadmap, irrespective of reciprocity--to create the conditions for the resumption of negotiations in the near term. The Quartet urges the government of Israel to freeze all settlement activity, including natural growth; and to refrain from provocative actions in East Jerusalem and calls on the Palestinian Authority to continue to make every effort to improve law and order, to fight violent extremism, and to end incitement.

But when Sharon accepted the road map, he and his government made the following reservation:

1. Both at the commencement of, and during the process, and as a condition to its continuance, calm will be maintained. The Palestinians will dismantle the existing security organizations and implement security reforms during the course of which new organizations will be formed and act to combat terror, violence and incitement (incitement must cease immediately and the Palestinian Authority must educate for peace).

These organizations will engage in genuine prevention of terror and violence through arrests, interrogations, prevention and the enforcement of the legal groundwork for investigations, prosecution and punishment. In the first phase of the plan and as a condition for progress to the second phase, the Palestinians will complete the dismantling of terrorist organizations (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front, the Democratic Front, Al-Aqsa Brigades and other apparatuses) and their infrastructure; collection of all illegal weapons and their transfer to a third party for the sake of being removed from the area and destroyed; cessation of weapons smuggling and weapons production inside the Palestinian Authority; activation of the full prevention apparatus and cessation of incitement.

There will be no progress to the second phase without the fulfillment of all above-mentioned conditions relating to the war against terror. The security plans to be implemented are the Tenet and Zinni plans.

The 'Palestinians' have never fulfilled Phase One of the 'road map.' And now the 'Quartet' - including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - has said they don't have to.

What could go wrong?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:58 PM