US President Bush once more bowed to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s wishes, and this time not just at the expense of the Palestinians. He rebuffed a personal appeal from President Jacques Chirac and other Europeans to adopt the Middle East road map plan, thereby deepening a rift with European allies. By siding with Sharon, who does not want the plan to be drafted until after the Israeli elections on Jan. 28, Bush also delayed what is perhaps the last remaining political way out of the more than two-year-old intifada.
European officials had hoped, and in some cases expected, that the United States would be willing to publish and adopt the document on creating a Palestinian state when diplomats from Europe, Russia and the United Nations met on Friday in Washington. But the most the so-called quartet got was a photo opportunity with the American president and a meeting with Colin Powell, his secretary of state, to “discuss and develop” the road map. Bush’s delay is explained in two parts. The first lies in differences between the United States and the European Union on the peace plan. The map is expected to lay down a procedure under which Israelis and Palestinians meet certain reciprocal commitments leading to security for Israel on the one side and a state for the Palestinians on the other by 2005.
But there are differences including the scope of the quartet’s authority in the West Bank and Gaza to supervise implementation of the peace plan on the ground and the EU’s immediate demands to end construction of new Jewish settlements and to restrict Israel’s targeted hits of Palestinian militants.
Bush’s other concern is Sharon who has serious reservations about the plan. The unconditional and complete settlement freeze — with priority to ending projects that threaten Palestinian regional and residential contiguity, including the regions around Jerusalem — is coupled with a requirement for Israel to reciprocate the Palestinian ending of the intifada with the end of Israeli-initiated military attacks against Palestinians and withdrawal from Palestinian areas occupied after Sept. 28, 2000.
It is also insufficiently clear to Sharon whether Yasser Arafat would be removed as the Palestinian leader, as President Bush demanded last summer. Sharon also dislikes the participation of the Europeans, Russians and the United Nations in the drafting process.
In any event, the road map delay should not dissuade the parties concerned from the view that adoption of this new peace proposal is more urgent than ever. The EU argues correctly that the whole process needs momentum and that time is running out if the 2005 deadline for the creation of a permanent Palestinian state is to be met.
Work on the proposal is also crucial to reassure the world that the United States has a positive vision in the region beyond going to war with Iraq. Drafting the road map before the Israeli elections will not make the peace negotiations more difficult, as Sharon asserts. The peace plan should be revealed before the elections to make Israeli voters aware of the options. Revealing the plan now would put Israeli voters in a better position to decide.
