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Roadmap
or Road Kill?
The
Devil in the Details
The
Jewish people began their search for freedom more than 3,000 years
ago. From the struggle of the Exodus, to the miracle of the
Maccabees, to the horrors of the Holocaust, to the creation of the
democratic State of Israel, Jews have faced and survived many
challenges… Many Jewish Americans serving in our Armed Forces who
are working to rid the world of terror and bring freedom and justice
to the oppressed.1
-
George W. Bush on Jewish Heritage Week, 2003
The
message that they [the Israelis] are getting now, is that the
Rumsfeld-Richard Perle school of thought is now in charge, people
who were against the Oslo peace process, people who don’t trust
the Palestinians, people who feel that after what they did in Iraq,
the Palestinians must go after and crack down hard on Islamists, the
radicals, the terrorists… They know that Sharon has raised the
required threshold to so high a level that it is unrealistic to
believe any Palestinian could reach it. 2
-
Akiva Eldar, Ha’aretz Commentator
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The
US: An honest broker? |
On
April 30, Israel and the Palestinians were formally presented with
the so-called “roadmap for peace” developed over the last few
months by the United States and signed onto by Russia, the European
Union and the United Nations. The group - known as the quartet -
came together in August 2002 at the height of the international
crisis that resulted from Israel’s re-occupation of the
Palestinian cities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but then the US
insisted on postponing the release of its final draft until the Iraq
war was over. Given that the Iraq war was waged without UN
consultation and against the wishes of the other quartet members, it
became evident that the “roadmap” would eventually turn out to
be much closer to a solo act led by the US with three backup singers
who are unwilling to change the rules of the game. 3
In
essence, the “roadmap” can be seen as part of a US public
relations campaign in the Middle East, to try to convince skeptics
that the US is indeed engaged in the quest for Middle East so-called
peace. The roadmap claims that it seeks reciprocal Palestinian and
Israeli steps towards peace - beginning with Palestinian reform, an
unconditional end to all Palestinian resistance to Israel, Israeli
troop withdrawals, a freeze on settlement activity (not the
dismantling of existing illegal settlements), and proceeding
eventually to negotiations on an interim arrangement that would
create a Palestinian state with provisional borders.
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The
roadmap came just after the US extended its imperial reach
into the heart of the Islamic work |
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What
is more striking is the timing of the roadmap’s release, which
came just after the US managed to extend its imperial reach into the
heart of the Islamic world by overthrowing the regime in Baghdad,
allowing the sacking of Iraq’s cities and much of its ancient
history, and devastating the civilian population of the country. The
US then crowned its triumph by reminding Syria of its unbridled
power through Colin Powell, who said that the US president would
have “all the options on the table,” should Syria ignore US
demands to stop aiding anti-Israeli Islamist groups in Lebanon and
Palestine. 4
Despite
the ongoing Israeli carnage in the Palestinian cities, towns and
villages for over 32 months, the insistence on presenting the
roadmap at this exact time is no doubt intended to reflect the
pro-Israeli regional power shifts of the post-Saddam Middle East of
2003. This bears striking resemblance to the 1991 Madrid Conference,
which was launched only when Iraq had been defeated and the PLO was
most isolated and marginalized. In short, US peace initiatives are
usually invigorated at critical historical junctures when the Arab
system is recovering from defeat and is in a position of exceptional
weakness vis-à-vis Israel and the United States. The roadmap is no
different - it is an important piece of the new Middle East puzzle
being constructed in the imperial offices of Washington.
A
Framework for Failure - Wrong Map for the Wrong Road
The
framework for all US-instigated “peace initiatives” is always
elaborated such as to guarantee that the US and Israel will be
pulling the strings all the time, for it is up to both to decide if
Palestinian “terror” has stopped and if the Palestinian
Authority is serious enough about fighting it. As the statement made
by the Council on Foreign Relations suggests: “the US
administration and its Quartet partners must insist on a 100% PA
effort to end violence that is unconditional and independent of
actions demanded of Israel.” 5
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US
policy has always attempted to cover up for Israeli
intransigence or justify its brutal policies |
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In
contrast to US and Israeli pressure on the Palestinians to
unconditionally accept the dictates of the roadmap, US policy has
always attempted to cover up for Israeli intransigence or justify
its brutal policies. Despite the Israeli military’s devastation of
Palestinian homes, its cold-blooded murder of tens of innocent
Palestinians (including 13 in a single raid on Gaza City on May 1)
since the roadmap was released and its imposition of the tightest
crackdown on Palestinian travel since the uprising began, Colin
Powell hailed Israeli pledges to ease Palestinian suffering as
“very promising. 6” A similar sentiment was expressed by Colin
Powell in his last visit to Cairo, when he belittled the importance
of Sharon’s refusal to explicitly accept the roadmap, saying that
it made “no difference” whether Israel declared it accepted the
document or not.7
Sharon’s
strategy is to raise a number of divisive issues that will buy him
enough time to drag discussions into the US presidential election
year, when few American politicians would want Israel to make tough
concessions. Examples of this strategy are his refusal to give in to
US demands to freeze settlement building, in order to fulfill his
long- term goal of making it impossible for the Palestinians to
establish a territorially contiguous state, and his request that the
Palestinians give up the right of return for their refugees. 8
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Abu
Mazen and Arafat are frequently at odds
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Whereas
the Palestinian Authority fully accepted the roadmap, Sharon
insisted that there would be another discussion with Washington over
Israel’s 15 reservations on the published roadmap before he would
submit it to his government. 9
Chief among them is Israel’s
insistence that the process proceed “sequentially” rather than
“in parallel,” with the focus only on Palestinian steps to halt
“terror” ahead of any Israeli withdrawals, settlement freezes or
relaxation of the closure.
Given
the presence of a Likud-minded administration in the White House,
the Palestinian negotiator will be left to not only negotiate from a
unique position of weakness vis-à-vis Israel, but to encounter the
unjust dictates of a superpower claiming to be an “honest
broker” but in reality being the staunchest supporter of Israel.
The
Grand Deception - Reading Between the Lines
Despite
President Bush’s claim that “there can be no peace for either
side unless there is freedom for both,” the roadmap’s
recommendations concerning the restructuring of the Palestinian
government and security apparatus are the total antithesis of
freedom and democracy. Interestingly, the six-page document
allocates more than two pages for a detailed discussion of necessary
Palestinian reforms and security measures in the first phase, but
only half a page discusses Israeli obligations in largely ambiguous
terms.
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The
roadmap reflects the twisted view that Palestinian
resistance is the root cause of the conflict |
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A
quick glance at the document gives the impression that it is the
Palestinians who are occupying, killing and blowing up the homes of
the Israelis, rather than vice versa. The document reflects the
twisted view that Palestinian resistance is the root cause of the
conflict, and that progress on the “security front” must precede
all other aspects: “As comprehensive security performance moves
forward, IDF withdraws progressively from areas occupied since
September 28, 2000.”
Even
if the Palestinians are able to miraculously concede to the demands
of the document, they are simply promised a return to more talks on
final status issues and the re-establishment of the conditions
prevailing prior to their uprising - a solemn reminder that those
who drafted the document remain oblivious to the epic Palestinian
sacrifices which took place over the 32-month Intifada. More
specifically, the Palestinians are dictated as to what kind of
government to install, whom to elect, when to elect them, why to
elect them, and what kind of policies to practice. 10
Consider the
Palestinian Authority’s new office of Prime Minister, which was
created primarily because the US was interested in sidelining
Arafat, rather than establishing a new post that would act as the
embodiment of the collective will of the Palestinian people.11
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Dahlan
has come under scrutiny for his lavish spending
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The
new Palestinian government has not only ignored the wishes of the
Palestinian public, but also the younger generation within the Fatah
movement itself, and has done nothing but reshuffle the old guard -
as Yasser Arafat had a hand in selecting 20 of the 24 cabinet
appointments. 12
In addition, no effort has been made to clean up
rampant corruption and cronyism among the Palestinian elite. A case
in point is Mohamed Dahlan, the new Security Affairs Minister
preferred by Israel, the United States, and some Arab governments,
who is known to have built a home in Gaza worth $600,000 during the
Intifadah.13
In fact, leaflets continue to circulate in the West Bank
detailing his extensive bank accounts and lavish lifestyle.14
More
importantly, the US and Israel are interested in establishing a new
security-based Palestinian government that will be “cultivated”
to suit the new security requirements demanded by both countries,
even if measures taken by Abu Mazen and Mohamed Dahlan would
eventually lead to confrontation with Palestinian militants and
heighten the risk of a Palestinian civil war. Reports suggest that
Colin Powell offered the new Palestinian leadership CIA help and
millions of dollars in military aid to restructure Palestinian
security forces for use against resistance groups such as Al-Aqsa
Martyrs, Hamas and Jihad - largely popular among the Palestinians.
In addition, Egypt and the US agreed that Egyptian security forces
would train their Palestinian counterparts on fighting
“terrorism.” 15
A few weeks earlier, a personal envoy of Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak had twisted Arafat’s arm to get him to
accept the new Palestinian cabinet lead by Abu Mazen and Dahlan.16
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The
roadmap clearly offers Sharon the ambiguity he needs to rob
the document of any meaningful sense of direction |
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Setting
aside the recipe for a Palestinian civil war embedded in the
roadmap, there are many serious problems, deficiencies, omissions
and loopholes in the roadmap that would allow Israel to reproduce
its brutal occupation in a multitude of different forms. While
“ending occupation” is an implicit objective, the details of
doing so are not clearly defined in the document. This would allow
Israel at any point to claim that the occupation is over even while
maintaining permanent control of huge settlement blocs throughout
the West Bank and Gaza, and control of Jerusalem as Israel’s
permanent capital. 17
In many instances in the document,
there are
specific references to several UN resolutions - 242, 338, and 1397 -
but none to the broader requirements of compliance with
international law, or the obligations of Israel as the occupying
power to implement the Geneva Conventions. Furthermore, by failing
to explicitly stipulate Israel’s withdrawal to the lines of June
4, 1967, the roadmap clearly offers Sharon the ambiguity he needs to
rob the document of any meaningful sense of direction, and a golden
opportunity to reinterpret its essence according to his expansionist
agenda, while still paying lip service to the document.18
In
addition, there is no discussion of the right of return for
Palestinian refugees, other than the Oslo-style deferral of the
issue to the final status talks that are supposed to be convened
after the potential creation of the borderless and highly elusive
provisional “Palestinian state.”
Conclusions
The
roadmap should not be seen as a visionary document innocently
subscribing to the notion of peace between two peoples, but rather
as part and parcel of America’s hegemonic designs for the Middle
East after its war on Iraq and its explicit threats to Syria. Edward
Said rightly noted that “America’s program for the Arab world is
the same as Israel’s” and that in “the process of selling its
policies in the Middle East, the US has hijacked useful words like
‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’” 19
and used them as a mask to
justify its imperial designs, unequivocal support for Israel, and
its insistence on settling scores with the Arab and Islamic world.
Despite
multiple references to the “land for peace” formula and the Arab
initiative in Beirut, in its essence the new roadmap amounts to
nothing more than a document legitimizing Palestinian surrender and
guaranteeing that Israel’s occupation and its brutal policies
remain unopposed. The sole focus of the document seems to be
guaranteeing total Israeli security - first - and then a gradual
establishment of some cosmetic changes to the lives of the
Palestinian people, and a highly elusive Palestinian state sometime
in the future, but only if the Palestinians comply fully with all
Israeli and American dictates.
The
logic of the roadmap begs the logical question: If Israel’s
security is totally guaranteed firsthand and the Palestinian
militias are disarmed, what cards would the Palestinians then have
to play in their final status talks with Israel? Obviously they
would enter those talks subject to the whims and desires of the
Israeli military and the right-wing fantasies of its Zionist war
criminals.
The
roadmap is a recipe for failure since, just like Oslo, the Tenet
Plan, and the Mitchell report, it makes the wrong assumptions, asks
the wrong questions and is devoid of any sense of justice.
Kareem
M. Kamel is an Egyptian freelance writer based in Cairo,
Egypt. He has an MA in International Relations and is specialized in
security studies, decision-making, nuclear politics, Middle East
politics and the politics of Islam. He is currently assistant to the
Political Science Department at the American University in Cairo
1-
George W. Bush, “Jewish
Heritage Week, 2003,” Proclamation – President of the
United States of America, May 5th, 2003
2-
Bradley Burston, “Roadmap
or Roadblock? Betting on Abu Mazen to Lose,” Counterpunch
May 2nd, 2003
3-
Phyllis Bennis, “Mapping
the Roadmap,” Institute of Policy Studies April 23rd,
2003
4-
“US
Hands Damascus Its Last Warning,” Jihad Unspun May 5th,
2003
5-
“Roadmap
to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian
Conflict,” Council on Foreign Relations February
2003
6-
Glenn Kessler and Molly Moore, “Sharon’s Refusal to Accept Plan
Vexes Powell Trip,” Washington Post May 13th,
2003 : A12
7-
Ibid.
8-
Mark Lavie, “Sharon
Takes Hard Line on Settlements,” Associated Press May
13th, 2003
9-
Graham Usher, “Playing
for Time,” Al-Ahram Weekly May 8th, 2003
10-
Brendan O’Neill, “Roadmap
to Nowhere,” Spiked Politics May 2nd, 2003
11-
Ibid.
12-
Jamal Hamad, “Abu
Mazen’s Mission Impossible?,” Time.com April 29th,
2003
13-
Yisrael Ne’eman, “Looking
for Food,” On Target December 4th, 2001
14-
Jamal Hamad, “Abu
Mazen’s Mission Impossible?,” Time.com April 29th,
2003
15-
“Egypt Agrees to Train Palestinian Police on Anti-terrorism,” Al-Ahram
Daily May 15th, 2003 (in Arabic) : 8.
16-
Bradley Burston, “Roadmap
or Roadblock? Betting on Abu Mazen to Lose,” Counterpunch
May 2nd, 2003
17-
Phyllis Bennis, “Mapping
the Roadmap,” Institute of Policy Studies April 23rd,
2003
18-
Azmi Bishara, “Misleading
Roads,” Jerusalem Media and CommunicationCenter
19-
Edward Said, “What
is Happening in the United States?” Counterpunch April
22nd, 2003
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