[lbo-talk] "The Guaranteed Failure Of The Road Map" by Tanya Reinhart

[Bryan Atinsky]

The Guaranteed Failure Of The Road Map
Tanya Reinhart
Yediot Aharonot, May 14, 2003


Every few months, a "peace plan" is pulled out of the drawers of the white
house and keeps the public discourse busy for a few weeks. Although this
ritual has a fixed pattern and predetermined end, it is curious that many in
Israel are still tempted to believe that this time it is different.

The Road Map announces that this time "the destination is a final and
comprehensive settlement of the Israel-Palestinian conflict by 2005". To
check if it offers anything concrete in this direction, it is necessary to
first get clear regarding what the conflict is about. From Israeli discourse
one might get the impression that it is about the right of return: the
Palestinians are trying to undermine the mere existence of the state of
Israel with the demand to allow their refugees to return, and they are
trying to achieve that with terror. It seems that it was forgotten that in
practice this is a simple and classical conflict over land and resources
(water).  The Road Map document as well manifests complete absence of any
territorial dimension.

The demands from the Palestinians are clear: to establish a government that
will be defined by the U. S. as democratic, to form three security forces
which will be defined by Israel as reliable, and to crush terror. Once these
demands are fulfilled, the third phase is to begin, at which the occupation
will miraculously end. But the document doesn't put any demands on Israel at
this third phase. Most Israelis understand that there is no way to end the
occupation and the conflict without the Israeli army leaving the territories
and the dismantlement of settlements. But these basic concepts are not even
hinted at in the document, which only mentions freezing the settlements and
dismantling new outposts, already the first stage.

The first stage is more substantial, because it repeats the Tenet plan. In
this stage Israel is expected also to "withdraw from Palestinian areas
occupied from Sept 28 2000... [and to restore] the status quo that existed
then". There is no doubt that fulfillment of this demand can contribute
greatly to establishing some calm, even if a temporary one. Had I believed
that the European representatives in the quartet could bring this plan to
implementation, I would have welcomed it. But there is no basis for such a
belief. The Tenet plan has come into the spotlights many times before. The
last round was what appeared to be an American cease-fire initiative in
March 2002, for which Zinni and Cheney were sent to the region. Already then
Sharon clarified that he does not agree to this demand, and he only agrees
to easing the conditions for the population in areas in which quiet will be
preserved (Ha'aretz, Aluf Ben, 19.3.02). This did not prevent the U.S. from
pointing at the Palestinians as the side that refused the cease fire. With
the end of this initiative, Israel embarked on the "Defensive Shield" spree
of destruction, with the blessing of the U.S.

Israel responded also to the Road Map with the same old objections. It
further emphasized that a negotiated halt to terror is not sufficient and
what is required is a visible clash between the new security forces and the
opposition organizations (namely, a civil war). Israel even demands that a
Palestinian declaration of end of conflict and renunciation of the right of
return must be given as a precondition at the beginning of any process, and
not at the end. Again, none of this undermines the U.S. position that Israel
is the side that is seeking peace, the side "whose security is the key to
the security of the world", as Condoleezza Rice put it. The U.S. is ruled
today by hawks whose vision is an unending war. Israel, whose leaders are
always eager to go on another war, is an asset in this vision. There is
therefore no basis for the belief that the U.S. will allow anyone to force
Israel to make any concessions.

In March 13, 2002, at the eve of Zinni's peace visit in the previous round,
the Israeli army welcomed him with an attack on the Jabalya refugee camp in
Gaza, in which 24 Palestinians were killed in one night. Now it has welcomed
Powell with a wave of arrests and deportation of international peace
activists. In the Pax Americana, there is no room for peace activists.
Peace will be brought by the tanks.