President Bush continues to slam one door after the other not only in the face of the Palestinians but also at whatever peace prospects remain. In expressing skepticism about an independent Palestinian state by 2005, he has administered the Palestinians one more body blow and might in fact be looking for the ultimate knockout.
The president based his judgment on the fact that two years ago the creation of a Palestinian state in 2005 seemed tenable but now things have changed. In fact, even two years ago, the situation was anything but rosy. Bush ought to be reminded that the uprising was then in full swing. The Oslo Accords, upon which so many hopes were built, had all but crumbled. First Tenet and then Mitchell made plans which ended in no progress made. Yet a viable Palestinian state was, then and now, the cornerstone of any just Middle East peace plan.
President Bush is wrong. A state in 2005 is more than realistic. The accords of Wye River, Camp David, Sharm El-Sheikh, all called for a state. Of course, a state cannot happen while Ariel Sharon continues to come up with unilateral disengagement plans and while Bush continues to support him and his machinations. But the big change that sent Palestinians reeling last month was the US president’s unprecedented backing for Israel’s retention of some large West Bank settlements because “realities on the ground” had altered. At a stroke, Bush ripped up his own road map and undid almost four decades of American policy.
Israel is willing to consider every sort of peace plan, as long as it is unacceptable to the Palestinians, as long as it enables the occupation to be ever more entrenched, as long as it can be a pretext to kill hundreds of Palestinians and as long as a Palestinian state never sees the light of day. That is what Sharon’s procrastination aims at. An American administration should not think along lines that are in any way similar. Bush’s road map said a Palestinian state — with all its territory intact — would be born next year. If credibility is still coveted by this administration, its president should do his utmost to see that the deadline is met and the pledge kept. Bush cannot in one breath claim that the United States is still committed to the road map and then, in the next, give Sharon the concessions he wants so that a Palestinian state on all its rightful land can never materialize. He cannot come up with a lame admission that the date for a Palestinian state “has slipped”.
This is not the time to back away or delay. A state the Palestinians can call home has always been their ultimate objective and aspiration. For that they have fought and died for over half a century. To trample on this inalienable right, on what makes them the people they are, is to kill them without firing a shot.
