Israeli diktat?
Sharon's acceptance of the roadmap surprised many. But the most appropriate Palestinian response may well be fear, writes Graham Usher from Jerusalem
After an age of dormancy next week should see another meeting between Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen); a regional get together in Sharm El- Sheikh, possibly on 4 June, with George Bush and "friendly" Arab leaders such as President Mubarak, Jordan's King Abdullah and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah; and a summit in Aqaba between Bush, Sharon and Abbas.
The trigger for this diplomatic feeding frenzy -- unmatched by even the slightest change in Israel's military rule in the occupied territories -- was Sharon's statement on 23 May that he had received assurances from the US administration that it would "fully and seriously" address Israel's reservations about the roadmap, the latest template for ending the Israel-Palestinian conflict, this time by 2005.
Two days and six hours of grueling debate later, Sharon steered the roadmap through his cabinet by 12 votes to seven with four abstentions, including Finance Minister and former Likud Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
The cabinet's approval of the plan was conditional. "The government of Israel affirms the prime minister's announcement, and resolves that all of Israel's comments, as addressed in the [US] administration's statement, will be implemented in full during the implementation phase of the roadmap," said the cabinet communiqué.
Israel's "comments" include the demand that the PA "dismantle existing security organisations" as well as "terrorist organisations" like "Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular and Democratic Fronts, Al-Aqsa Brigades and other apparatuses"; that the PA "waive any right of return for Palestinian refugees to the state of Israel"; that any Israeli withdrawal from re-conquered PA areas be in "keeping with changes... required by the nature of the new circumstances and needs created thereby"; and the removal of all references for negotiations other than UN Resolutions 242 and 338, including "the Saudi and Arab initiative adopted in Beirut".
It was left to Israeli analyst Akiva Eldar to summarise the meaning of Israel's "reservations". They "turn... a diplomatic initiative into an Israeli diktat of Palestinian surrender", he said. Abbas was only slightly less dismissive. The Israeli reservations "don't interest me. The US told us to ignore them".
Will Sharon ignore them? There are some Israeli analysts who believe he might, following the uncharacteristic comments he made to the 40-member Likud parliamentary faction on 26 May. Distinguishing between the "bad situation" caused by Israel rejecting the roadmap and the "not very good" consequences of accepting it, the Israeli leader said: "I think the idea that it is possible to continue keeping 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation -- yes it is occupation, you might not like the word, but what is happening is occupation -- is bad for Israel, and bad for the Palestinians."
Israelis on the right were appalled by the heresy. Some on the left wondered whether the father of the settlement enterprise had become De Gaulle. Others -- mostly Palestinian -- remarked on the absolute consistency in Sharon's vision for settling the conflict on his terms rather than anyone else's.
Sharon's motivation for accepting the roadmap "as written" was tactical and strategic. He knows a confrontation with President Bush over the roadmap would endanger Israel's strategic relationship with the US administration, an alliance he sees as the major accomplishment of his premiership. He also knows there is no way Israel can end its endemic economic crisis without at least the illusion of a political horizon. "There is a direct connection between the economic and diplomatic realms," he admitted to his cabinet on 25 May. "The more we progress in the diplomatic process, the more the economic situation will improve."
But strategically Sharon's acceptance of the roadmap marks another stage in his protracted efforts to shift the destination of the conflict away from "an end to the occupation that began in 1967" (in Bush's words) to the establishment of a "provisional Palestinian state with certain aspects of sovereignty" (in Sharon's). According to the roadmap the provisional state is due to come into being in 2004 but more likely at the end of Sharon's watch in 2006. Nor is Sharon's commitment to Palestinian statehood rhetorical; it is practical and being built.
In early March -- when the world was distracted by Iraq -- Sharon quietly announced that the security barrier currently carving out chunks of Palestinian farmland near the northern West Bank border will go east, severing the central West Bank region from its Jordan Valley hinterland. In April he mused that mammoth Jewish settlements like Ariel that lie 20 kilometres within the West Bank would eventually be "on our side of the fence".
If so, these walls would cage the emerging "Palestinian entity" into three disconnected cantons in the north, centre and south of the West Bank, covering about 42 percent of its territory but hosting most of its two million or so denizens. This is the "occupation" Sharon wants to end: Israel's occupation of the Palestinian "people", not the occupation of the land and resources that is their patrimony.
"The provisional Palestinian state is a new term for Sharon's old strategy for achieving a long-term interim agreement," says PA Labour Minister Ghassan Khatib. "We know that if we get trapped in this phase we won't be able to move to the final status phase -- there is no chance Sharon will allow this. We also know that the provisional state will be autonomy in effect but occupation in practice. Only it won't be called autonomy -- it will be called statehood and Israel would be let off the hook."
Of the many reservations Palestinians have about the roadmap, the provisional Palestinian state idea is perhaps the gravest. They are aware from bitter experience that Israel's provisional arrangements have a habit of becoming permanent borders. Their quiet hope is that Sharon and the present Israeli government will collapse before that "second" phase is reached. The fear is that in accepting the roadmap Sharon is actually offering them a trapdoor, and less a brake on his colonial ambitions for the West Bank than their realisation.
