WASHINGTON: Playing off its swift victory in Iraq, the Bush administration is preparing to launch a new “roadmap” for Israeli-Palestinian peace that calls for a provisional Palestinian state this year before a final settlement in 2005.
The plan demands an end to Palestinian uprising and the freezing of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as the opening steps in a three-phase timetable.
To break a yearlong deadlock, the White House has quietly made clear, in recent meetings with Israelis and telephone calls to Arab leaders, that President Bush intends to press personally for difficult concessions from both sides, according to administration sources.
With new Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, having formed a government, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell will begin intense diplomacy in the region in May.
“The message from Bush and Powell (to Arab governments) is that this is their process too. They committed to supporting this effort at the Beirut summit (in March 2002) and we now expect them to live up to it and assist mightily in ensuring that Abu Mazen becomes an empowered, independent leader and follows through on commitments to Israel,” said a State Department official.
“The roadmap is not a complete map — we don’t look at it as the final (say) that would settle Palestinian-Israeli negotiations,” said Marwan Kanafani, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. But, he said, the Palestinians have accepted it as providing “common ground for negotiators to sit down and talk.”
The plan goes far beyond the 1993 Oslo, Norway, accords signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, which mentioned neither a Palestinian state nor Jewish settlements.
Although details of the plan have not officially been released, they have appeared in various Israeli media and been confirmed by State Department officials.
In three detailed phases, the plan lays out what each side must do to bring about Israeli withdrawals in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, ensure the Jewish state’s security, stop terrorism and establish a democratically elected, reformist Palestinian government. It was designed jointly by the so-called quartet of mediating powers — the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia — late last year.
In its first phase, the plan requires the Palestinians to reorganize security cooperation, end all violence and dismantle extremist groups. A new Palestinian government would also write a new constitution, revise electoral laws as part of broad political, economic and judicial reforms and, finally, hold free and fair elections.
If those conditions were met, Palestinians could even have a state with provisional borders sometime this year, although the breakdown of previous such timetables makes that unlikely.
Still, Washington is optimistic about making progress on the plan now because of a number of factors: its unparalleled leverage in the region after the Iraq war, the fact that the Baghdad regime — one of the Middle East’s most anti-Israeli governments — has been removed, the weakened power of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and the international community’s apparent unity behind the terms for an Israeli- Palestinian settlement.
Under the plan, as security improves, Israel would end settlement activity, dismantle settlement outposts erected since March 2001 and withdraw from Palestinian areas occupied since Sept 28, 2000. It would also end actions that might undermine trust, such as deportations, demolition of homes, or attacks against civilians.
Israel would also help restore “normal life” to the Palestinian areas by turning over their escrowed tax revenues and lifting border closures, particularly important for the work force that has been cut off from jobs in Israel.
According to the plan, the second phase would begin after Palestinian elections and end with the creation of a Palestinian state with “provisional borders” and “attributes of sovereignty” by the end of the year.
It would also include an international conference convened by the quartet to back Palestinian economic recovery and the restoration of ties between Arab states and Israel set up before the current intifada, including multilateral talks on issues such as regional water problems, environment, economic development and arms control.
The final phase, to be launched at a second international conference in early 2004, would focus on sustained negotiations to resolve the most divisive issues between the two sides: Jerusalem’s status, the right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees, and permanent borders in 2005.
During this period, the emphasis would be on consolidation of reforms and stabilization of Palestinian institutions.
The plan would also seek to “support progress” toward a comprehensive settlement between Israel and Syria and Lebanon.
But Israel has put up its own obstacles. Although Washington has said the roadmap is not negotiable, Israel claims it is.
“It’s a draft on which we have some comments and reservations,” Israeli government spokesman Ranaan Gissin said on Monday. “It’s not a final draft. It’s not a dictate that’s been laid down to the parties, take it or leave it.”—Dawn/LAT-WP News Service. (c) Los Angeles Times
