Bush's Road Map Goes Nowhere
By David Singer
30 April 2005 marks the second anniversary of the launching of the
Road Map to resolve the Israeli –Arab conflict.
This performance based and goal driven plan is yet to get off the
ground despite its sponsorship by President Bush in June 2002, and its
endorsement by Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, in
Ministerial statements made on.16 July and 17 September 2002.
The detailed plan with its clear Phases, timelines, target dates and
benchmarks was finally unveiled on 30 April 2003 by this powerhouse
group calling itself the Quartet.
All of them must now be feeling decidedly queasy at their impotence in
failing to get the plan up and running.
They only have themselves to blame for their present quandary as they
are forced to sit and watch Israel's Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, try
to put his own unilateral disengagement plan into operation.
This super-global partnership had incredibly based the foundations of
its plan on the same principles as the failed and discredited Oslo
Process, which had begun in a blaze of hope in 1993 only to sink into
oblivion in 2000.
The mistakes the Quartet repeated were many.
Firstly the Road Map was time based demanding its three complex Phases
be met by specified dates between 2003 – 2005 - an unrealistic and
unattainable goal given the 120 years that the conflict has raged and
the enmities that have been created.
Secondly the vision of the two State solution was always a misnomer.
What the Quartet actually proposed was a three State solution in the
former Mandate of Palestine by creating an additional Arab State
between Israel and Jordan, the two successor States to the Mandate
already exercising sovereignty in 94% of the total area of former
Palestine.
The framework of the Mandate had been created by the San Remo
Conference and the Treaty of Sevres in 1920 and confirmed by the
League of Nations in 1922.
The Quartet's idea of a second Arab State in the remaining 6% of
former Palestine where sovereignty still remained unallocated, failed
to recognise the legal right conferred on Jews by the Mandate and
article 80 of the United Nations Charter to reconstitute the Jewish
National Home in these very areas
The Road Map, like Oslo, simply ignored these historic, geographic,
demographic and international law realities as though they never
existed or had any relevance to the current conflict.
Thirdly weighed down by hundreds of UN General Assembly resolutions
fictitiously claiming the West Bank and Gaza Strip to be "occupied
Palestinian territory" and any Jewish presence in the West Bank and
Gaza to be "illegal", the Road Map required that no further Jews be
allowed to settle in the West Bank and Gaza and called for the removal
of the 400000 Jews currently living there.
Fourthly, absent from the Road Map was any acknowledgement that the
Jews had returned to areas of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 from
where they had been driven out in 1948 by the invading Arab armies of
Jordan and Egypt or had been massacred by marauding Arab gangs as had
occurred in Hebron in 1929.
Fifthly, the Quartet naïvely articulated the belief that the Arab
population could undertake an unconditional cessation of violence,
terrorism and incitement and restrain individuals and groups
conducting and planning violent attacks on Israelis anywhere.
Is it any wonder that this Road Map has gone nowhere when the
conditions for its implementation are so impossible and its omissions
so glaring?
So what must the Quartet now do, if they want to really try and bring
peace to the region.
Firstly, they must have realistic expectations of what they can hope to achieve.
Existing peace treaties signed by Israel with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan
in 1994 must be the building blocks for any hopes of peace in the
region.
Allocating sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza between Egypt, Jordan
and Israel will separate the Jewish and Arab populations and extend
immediate Arab Statehood in Jordan or Egypt to the presently stateless
Arab population of the West Bank and Gaza.
The introduction of each Government's, army, police and legal
structures into the West Bank and Gaza will lead to a substantial
lessening of the violence that has marked the past two years of lost
opportunity, help restore law and order and enable a return to normal
civilian life.
Secondly, no time frame should be set on completing negotiations to
achieve the above objectives.
Thirdly, substantial international financial aid should be given to
Egypt and Jordan to reconstruct the devastated Arab populated areas of
the West Bank and Gaza coming under their sovereignty and help restore
some semblance of dignity and hope for the future.
Fourthly recognition needs to be given that in core areas such as
Jerusalem, refugees and water rights, the Israel- Jordan Peace Treaty
lays down modalities that can and should be followed in trying to
resolve these issues.
Fifthly, the existing Road Map should be used as wrapping paper for
tomorrow's fish and chips.
Then perhaps we might get a credible Road Map that can lead to somewhere.
###
Submitted April 26, 2005
|
David Singer is an Australian Lawyer and Convenor of: Jordan is Palestine International - an organisation calling for sovereignty of he West Bank and Gaza to be allocated between Israel and Jordan as the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine.
|
| 
