LONDON, 6 September 2003 — Now that the peace “road map” has hit a violent dead-end, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is likely to be left largely to its own grim devices while Iraq and next year’s US elections preoccupy the Bush administration.
The United States has squarely blamed the Palestinians for the deadlock in progress on the road map designed to lead to President George W. Bush’s vision of a Palestinian state.
“I don’t want to sugarcoat this,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on Thursday. “The main problem now is terrorism and violence and the Palestinian Authority needs to take hold of that problem if we are to move forward.”
Many Palestinians will take this to mean Washington has no plan to press Israel just as hard on its road map obligations to end settlement activity and violence against Palestinians. “It’s very convenient for the Americans to blame the Palestinians because the road map was not heading anywhere anyway,” said London-based Palestinian analyst Ahmed Khalidi.
He said this was not surprising given Bush’s worries over Iraq and the 2004 presidential election, and the absence of any improvements on the ground for Palestinians under occupation.
Yossi Mekelberg, an Israeli analyst at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA) in London, said the road map depended on sustained US and international energy and will.
“It needs attention for three or four years, but the international attention span is much shorter than this,” he said, citing Iraq and the US elections as key distractions.
Javier Solana, foreign policy chief of the European Union, one of the road map’s sponsors along with the United States, Russia and the United Nations, said the plan was not dead. But he told CNN on Thursday the situation was “very critical”. While the Palestinian Authority (PA) must combat terrorism and revive contacts with Israelis, Palestinians must also be made to feel the road map was benefiting their lives.
“It is very difficult to crack down with all the energy of the organization (PA) against Hamas and Islamic Jihad if the political perspective is not clear,” he said.
Israel, criticizing what it sees as President Yasser Arafat’s malign influence, blames the Palestinians for failing to dismantle militant groups as the road map demands.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas was unable and unwilling to do this by force, but persuaded the militants to accept a three-month cease-fire at the end of June.
Israel was not party to the truce and pursued assassinations of wanted militants, who hit back with an Aug. 19 suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed 21 people — and the cease-fire.
Western diplomats in the region say privately they are aghast at the way the Middle East road map is unraveling at the same time as US policy in Iraq is failing.
They complain of deep frustration that Israel has done little to help Abbas’s peace drive, while the Palestinians have allowed factional rivalries to impede efforts to end violence.
Rosemary Hollis, head of the RIIA’s Middle East program, said Bush’s public commitment earlier this year had suggested he was ready to do the “heavy lifting” needed to make progress.
“But it has gone awfully quiet and the official level of dealing with the conflict seems to have slipped below the level of (Secretary of State Colin) Powell and (National Security Adviser Condoleezza) Rice,” she said.
Hollis said it was now clear that Abbas could not function without the blessing of Arafat, ostracized by Israel and the United States, but not by the other road map sponsors.
“Arafat has legitimacy with the Palestinians not only because he is their elected president, but because his stand on these issues reflects their broad position.”
Hollis said many Palestinians felt that jailing Hamas militants would only make them easier targets for Israeli strikes and saw no reason for a crackdown while Israel builds a security barrier to tighten its iron grip on the West Bank.
“Is anyone telling Bush that the security fence is creating a new reality which cannot be agreed by negotiation?” she asked.
Mekelberg said the road map would remain on the table, but only a clearer definition of its end goals — the key issues of statehood, borders and refugees — could tap into Israeli and Palestinian majorities in favor of a peaceful settlement.
Khalidi said an international presence on the ground was needed, adding: “But I don’t think there will be the political will in the United States or Israel to pursue the process no matter what problems the Palestinians have among themselves.
“The more likely scenario is continued uncertainty, laced with violence, at least during the next 14 months of effective political paralysis due to the US elections.
