Thema: Roadmap
AN ISRAELI VIEW
A road map to the house next door
[HEBREW]
by Yossi Beilin
Yossi Beilin was Justice Minister in the government of
Ehud Barak, 1999-2001, and an architect of the Oslo peace process.
My support for the new road map presented by the United
States on behalf of the Quartet to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is being
given to one of the less creative, more problematic and clumsier documents
that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has known.
I would support any proposal that returns the two parties to
the negotiating table in anticipation of a permanent status agreement and
that puts an end to the nightmare that the two peoples have been enduring
for the past 25 months. But one might have anticipated that the combined
efforts of the United States, European Union, Russia and the United Nations
would produce a more intelligent document than this patchwork paper with an
ambitious title.
Take, for example, the determination that the two sides are asked to
undertake 13 highly important activities between October and December
2002--while American emissary William Burns asks them to present their
comments on the document only in December 2002! People who show no respect
for the document they are presenting can hardly expect the recipients to
respect them. Thus the process must be postponed for two months, and anyone
who recalls what happened to the Mitchell Report and the Tenet ideas can
rest assured that Bush's road map has an even better chance of receiving the
same treatment.
The road map proposes three phases, some of which are divided into
sub-phases, in order to reach a permanent settlement that includes a
Palestinian state in 2005. In the interim the parties implement
confidence-building measures, cease the violence, and cooperate between
them, while the Palestinians carry out reforms, hold elections, appoint a
prime minister and even take official possession for the first time of the
brainchild that has been offered them: a state with provisional borders that
will exist for two years. During this period two international conferences
will be held to encourage the sides in their difficult tasks.
Anyone reading this plan can justifiably ask themselves why we need a road
map to reach the house next door. All we need to do is return to the
negotiating table, continue the effort made at the Taba talks that were
stopped in January 2001, reach a permanent agreement based on the Clinton
Plan (or the Bush vision) and implement it.
The road map comprises no original proposal that could help us more easily
overcome the bloody cycle of terrorism and retribution. The notion of
prolonging the interim period through 2005 contradicts the perception of
many on the left and the right that the interim period in effect provided an
opportunity to the extremists who sought to torpedo the process, and that it
would be preferable to forego it completely and move straight into
negotiations on a peace agreement. An additional extension will only enable
the opponents of peace to redeploy their forces.
The proposal to establish temporary borders for the Palestinian state is
particularly problematic: here we have a double negotiation--once for an
interim settlement, and again immediately thereafter. I would assess that
the first negotiation will not be any easier than the second, nor will it
facilitate agreement in the second round. We are liable to face a situation
in which, once the temporary borders are fixed, some in Israel will feel
that they have solved the demographic problem, and will have no incentive to
enter negotiations over permanent borders. Meanwhile, on the Palestinian
side frustration and disquiet will grow, thereby producing renewed violence
as a consequence of the loss of trust between the two parties. For those who
seek peace on both sides, the temporary borders are the biggest landmine
buried in this road map.
An international conference is likely to be a festive event that binds the
two parties and enables them to justify breaking the cycle of violence that
they have been swept into. But such a conference is also liable to be an
impediment, due to the disagreements that will inevitably arise over its
composition, its authority and decisions regarding its content. Two such
conferences during three years look good on paper, but are liable to delay
realization of the political process rather than facilitating it.
Worst of all--both sides have received the new document and have been asked
to present their comments. They are undoubtedly engaged at this very moment
in preparing them. Within two months the Americans will receive dossiers of
reservations, thicker than the plan itself. Each party will like in the plan
what the other party rejects, and at the end of December we are liable to be
in a situation similar to December 2000, when both sides accepted the
Clinton Plan, but through their reservations transformed their support into
negation.
My support for the road map reflects solely the fact that it is
preferable--if accepted--to the existing situation. But whoever wants to get
to the house next door, and believes in their objective, can simply leave it
at home.
bitterlemons.org
2002
hagalil.com 13-04-2003 |
