Go back to the roadmap?
Calling it 'Bush's gift to Obama,' former AIPAC foreign policy chief Steve Rosen urges the Obama administration to give up the grandiose dreams of ending the Israeli - Arab conflict and instead to push the ball ahead by going for the 'interim state' called for by Phase II of the roadmap. Abbas accepted the Quartet's Middle East Roadmap in 2003 knowing that it called very clearly and explicitly for an interim arrangement with a Palestinian state having "provisional borders and attributes of sovereignty ... as a way station to a permanent status settlement." The Roadmap made this interim Palestinian state Phase II of the process, after Phase I ("Ending Terror and Violence, Normalizing Palestinian Life, and Building Palestinian Institutions") and before Phase III ("Permanent Status Agreement and the End of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.") During Phase II, the Quartet members are to "promote international recognition" of the provisional state, "including possible U.N. membership." And during this period of the Palestinian state with provisional borders, the Arab states are to "restore pre-intifada links to Israel (trade offices, etc.)" and "revive multilateral engagement" with Israel "on issues including regional water resources, environment, economic development, refugees, and arms-control issues." In other words, the Palestinians have already accepted the idea of "interim arrangements." (Palestinian objections to interim agreements have been a continuing feature of Middle East diplomacy, but the record is replete with past examples where they did in fact agree to the step-by-step approach.)Rosen argues that the roadmap is "the only document providing a pathway to a Palestinian state ever accepted by all the parties involved in Middle East peace negotiations."
It was issued by the Quartet, consisting of the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the secretary-general of the United Nations on April 30, 2003. Then it was endorsed unanimously by the U.N. Security Council (including Syria!) in Resolution 1515 on Nov. 20, 2003. It was endorsed again by the Quartet on March 19, 2010. It was accepted "without any reservations" by Abbas at the Middle East peace summit in Aqaba, Jordan on June 4, 2003. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon accepted it on May 23, 2003, and Sharon's government, by a majority vote, accepted it on May 25, 2003. Both sides are bound by the Roadmap, and it does not require a fresh endorsement by either. It is one of the signed written commitments of the Palestinian government on which the peace process is based today.Rosen conveniently ignores the fact that Israel did not accept the roadmap 'without reservations.' Israel made fourteen detailed reservations, which the other parties have since chosen to ignore. Israel should continue to assert those reservations. For example, there cannot be an 'interim state' before the 'Palestinians' dismantle their terror organizations, something they have never even made a pretense of attempting to do.
Moreover, why should Obama find the patience to follow the roadmap when Bush himself tried to short-circuit it by going directly to the third phase (without the first two having even been remotely close to being fulfilled) at Annapolis at the end of 2007. What makes anyone think Obama will shoot for the stars any less than Bush did - particularly when making a deal (as unlikely as that is) would enormously help Obama's re-election prospects (Bush was not and could not be running at the end of 2007). Why should Obama instead take a step backward from Phase III to Phase II? And why should Israel go along when even Phase I (with or without the fourteen reservations) has not been fulfilled?
Read the whole thing.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:50 PM
3 Comments:
Good for you Carl.
In your assessment, you hit the nail right directly on the head.
Indeed, to know where we are going, we must know where we came from and why.
There will be no Palestinian state. And since America chose to pretend all of its own assurances to Israel that formed the basis of Israel's acceptance of the "roadmap" no longer exists, there's no reason in the world why Israel should continue to adhere to a commitment when others cannot remember theirs.
For this and other reasons, the "peace process" is a dead letter. It seems other parties want it more than Israel and the Arabs do.
Figuratively the peace process is a dead letter NormanF, I'll give you that. However as long as the Peace Process remains #1 on the hit parade in just about every capital city in the world, especially the U.S, it is far from dead.
The 'illusion' of peace or lack there of is backed by the oldest living hate on record in the world. It is an obsession without end. Tell me, how else can a dead horse continually be beat into the ground yet come back each and every time for air??
As for the other parties who want it more is insignificant. Not a moment passes where a Jew does not pay. Not a moment goes by where the existence of Israel is not in question.
... the screws turn until there is a Palestinian state. Sorry to say.
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