Opinion, May 25, 2003, Al-Jazeerah.info
Human Price of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine
Israeli daily aggression on the Palestinian people
Mission and meaning of Al-Jazeerah
Cities, localities, and tourist attractions
American-Israeli mindset behind the roadmap,
Musa Keilani
Jordan Times, 5/25/03
WASHINGTON HAS agreed to consider Israeli reservations over the “roadmap” for peace, but not to change any elements in the proposal, and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has pledged to seek approval from his Cabinet for the blueprint. The Palestinians, if only because of no alternatives, have already accepted it.
So far, so good. But now come the intricacies. First of all, we fail to see how Washington could address Israel's “security concerns” in the proposal without compromising over some of the basic tenets of the roadmap, including the call for an immediate suspension of settlement activity in the occupied territories. It does not need much imagination to foresee that Sharon would be pressing the US to amend this call, based on his argument that the Jewish settlements in the West Bank have been built for security purposes and they need to be consolidated ahead of a territorial “compromise” with the Palestinians.
Sharon's announcement that he was willing to accept the peace plan subject to approval by his Cabinet came shortly after his housing ministry said it had invited bidders to construct a new district in the largest Jewish settlement in the West Bank, Maale Adumim, near Jerusalem. Obviously, that move bases itself on the contention that expanding existing settlements could not be considered as constructing new colonies and that “natural growth” of settlers warrants such expansion. But then, that is a technicality since it does not change the implied reality that Israel has no intention to dismantle the existing settlements in the occupied territories.
We have gone through Israel's deceptive moves for such a long time that nothing surprises us anymore. We should expect a major catch in every move Israel makes, and the net outcome of its manoeuvrings would be in its favour. Apart from the argument of expansion as a result of natural growth, Israel has not done much towards removing what it itself describes as “illegal” settler outposts in the West Bank either. Notwithstanding our view, and indeed that of the international community, that every settlement in the occupied territories is illegal, Israel's refusal to move against its self-described illegal settlements is clearly designed to bring up the next argument — that the colonies are vital to protecting Israel's “security”. And that is where the next catch comes.
And the third catch would indeed be the result of Sharon's public manoeuvrings in his Cabinet, in collaboration with his own Likud members and the coalition partners. That would mean conditional acceptance of the “roadmap”. What would be those conditions? Sweeping changes in the proposal that would be cited by Sharon as the only way he could implement it, given that a course to the contrary could lead to the fall of his coalition government.
What would that mean? Washington would be faced with the dilemma of trying to call Sharon's bluff or accept to change the “roadmap” to suit Israeli concerns and priorities. We have yet to see any genuine posture in the US, where Washington has shown that it would call Israel's bluffs.
Indeed, we saw George W. Bush senior pressuring Yitzhak Shamir into accepting to attend the 1991 Madrid peace conference by withholding loan guarantees worth $10 billion. But then, the catch there was that Shamir gave in with an imperceptible smile within himself, due to his knowledge that the conflict with the Palestinians was so complex that he would be able to stall the negotiations for at least 10 years before making any remotely realistic move to meet Palestinian demands.
Is Sharon any different from Shamir? Sharon is worse than Shamir and Benjamin Netanyahu put together. It is obvious that Sharon, within himself, does not feel that he has to make any compromises whatsoever with the Palestinians and that the Palestinians should be thankful to him for allowing them to stay on in the West Bank, rather than getting expelled.
Indeed, there is something that does not sound right in the American promise to consider Sharon's reservations and the Israeli prime minister's move to present the “roadmap” to his Cabinet. On the one hand, Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice have said that the US recognises that Israel's “concerns” are real and that Washington “will address them fully and seriously in the implementation of the roadmap”. We are aware that Sharon has listed more than a dozen “reservations” over the “roadmap”, and we do not see how the US will be able to address them without compromising on the basic principles of the proposal.
Obviously, the inherent strategy could turn out to be that since the Palestinians have already been coerced into accepting the blueprint, they could be convinced further that “new measures” outside the proposal are essential for its implementation and that there is no other go since that is what Israel wants.
Given the realities on the ground and the continuing suffering of the Palestinian people, the Palestinian leadership would have little choice but to accept the Israeli-inspired and US-implemented changes in the “roadmap”. Isn't it a reality that Washington worked hard to produce the blueprint at a time when the Palestinian people were dealt serious blows to their aspirations and faced continued brutal oppression (not that the situation has changed today)?
Therefore, the American-Israeli mindset behind the “roadmap” is simple and clear: the Palestinians should be overwhelmed with gratefulness not only to the US but also to Israel for having worked out the blueprint in its present format and they have little right to insist that it should not be changed. After all, beggars can't be choosers, can they?
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |