[GushShalom] Requiem for the roadmap?

[Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)]

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     Gush Shalom
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International release
May 18, 2003

REQUIEM FOR THE ROADMAP?

[In the end of this, links are given to Avnery column (Hebrew + English) 
"The Children's Teeth" and see also: Correction from Huwaida.]

The murderous suicide bombing in Jerusalem this morning, in which 
seven people were killed, sent a chilly personal reminder to us of the 
Gush Shalom Infoteam; on visits to Jerusalem, we often happen to 
take the no.6 bus, though at a later part of the route then where the 
explosion took place today.  
Personal considerations aside, the timing of the blast could hardly 
have been better from the point of view of Ariel Sharon: a few hours 
after a futile meeting between the Israeli PM and his recently-appointed 
Palestinian counterpart Abu Mazen, in which Sharon had nothing to 
offer but which provided a cheap and easy way to appear a 
peacemaker; a few hours before Sharon was due to embark on a flight 
to Washington and a meeting with George. W., at which some 
commentators hesitantly expected the US president to apply some 
pressure on the long-festering issue of the illegal settlement outposts. 
(Now, Sharon has gotten the perfect pretext to put off that meeting.)
Indeed, so perfectly does today's blast fit in with Sharon's program that 
one is tempted to indulge in conspiracy theories. But a sober 
examination would get to the conclusion that Sharon has no need to 
do anything complicated and risky like infiltrating agents into the 
Hamas command. In the past month he had simply done again what 
he has done with extreme success again and again over the past two 
years: provoke and manipulate the 
radical Palestinian groups into doing his work for him, while sincerely believing 
themselves to be patriotic Palestinians and devout Muslims.    
In his time as Prime Minister, Sharon had already neatly disposed of numerous 
international diplomatic proposals: the Mitchell Report, the Tenet Paper and the Zinni 
Paper, the Saudi Initiative - to name only the best known. Still, "The Roadmap" initially 
seemed to tax his considerable talents: a paper bearing the combined imprimatur of the US, 
EU, Russia and the UN, which had been at the top of the diplomatic agenda for nearly a 
year, which was formally launched  with the personal sponsorship of US President fresh 
from victory in Iraq and which was immediately accepted in its entirety and without 
reservations by the Palestinian side. Yet none of this seemed to deter Sharon from 
industriously - and, as seems at the moment, successfully - subverting and overturning 
that initiative, too.
The Roadmap is a carefully crafted document, based on the assumption that Israelis and 
Palestinians would perform an intricate dance of calculated mutual gestures, Palestinian 
efforts to restrain terrorism and suicide bombings matched by tangible Israeli moves of 
easing the terrible burden of the occupation, particularly ending the construction and 
extension of settlements. Abu Mazen - the man chosen by the Americans and the 
Europeans more than by the Palestinians to lead this implementation - entered upon his 
job with low credibility and mounting suspicions among his own people. The only way he 
could have succeeded was through an abundance  of goodwill from the Israeli side, a 
speedy and conspicuous implementation of the Israeli part of the equation.
That, however, was the very last thing Sharon wanted. From the very moment of Abu-
Mazen's appointment, the army embarked on a series of assassinations of prominent 
Palestinian activists and deep invasions into the few still-unconquered enclaves in the 
Gaza Strip, such as the attack on the Sajaiya Neighbourhood in which 13 Palestinians, 
most of them unarmed civilians, perished in a single night. Meanwhile, on the political and 
diplomatic front Sharon failed to take the basic step of adopting the roadmap, as the 
Palestinians had done. Rather, he insisted on the Palestinian Authority starting a full-scale 
civil war aimed at "total dismantling of the terrorist infrastucture" before the Israeli side 
would deign to consider any concessions of its own. The visiting Secretary of State 
Powell was treated with open contempt, with hardline ministers encouraged to make to him 
tough declarations against the roadmap, and Sharon himself declaring his support for 
maintenance of the settlements and continuation of their "natural growth".  
To cap it all, Sharon's Police Minister Tzahi Hanegbi declared on the Knesset floor that 
"soon the police will enforce Jewish presence and Jewish personal prayers on the Temple 
Mount in Jerusalem", knowing full well that no other issue could so strongly inflame both 
Palestinian national and Muslim religious feeling. And at the same time, the police 
launched a spectacular midnight raid, arresting the leadership of the Israeli Muslim 
Movement - the one group which in the past two years, with West Bank and Gazan 
Muslims completely excluded from Jerusalem, took up the task of mainataining a daily 
presence at that holy site...
Altogether, today's lethal attack in Jerusalem could be considered a plant well watered and 
nurtured. And the retaliation which the cabinet will probably decide upon in its emergency 
meeting tonight might launch still another cycle of bloodshed, as happened so many times 
before.

Is it then curtains for the roadmap, into which so much efforts went and to which quite a 
few hopes - however cautious - were attached? It certainly looks like that. The only person 
who can revive that initiative's declining fortunes sits in the White House. A vigorous 
action by the US President when he finally gets to meet Sharon - with, say, a tenth of the 
energy and persistence Bush had shown in forcing through his war in Iraq and riding 
roughshod over the worldwide opposition - might suffice to give the roadmap a new lease 
of life and effect a thorough change on the ground. Not that we are likely to see anything 
of the kind.

Adam Keller
Tel-Aviv, May 18, 2003

-- Avnery column (Hebrew + English) "The Children's Teeth"
deals with the campaign against the Islamic Movement and  can be read in Hebrew at:
http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/article250_heb.html
and in English at:
http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/article250.html

-- Correction from Huwaida

On 16 May 2003, Huwaida Arraf <huwaidaa at yahoo.com> wrote:
Subject: Re: [GushShalom] From "birth right participant" to ISM
spokeswoman To: info at gush-shalom.org

Hi Adam, Beate, friends at Gush Shalom:

Thank you for forwarding this very important article, but the journalist
was wrong to identify Laura as an ISM spokeswoman and we find this
potentially negative. Laura is one of the many wonderful volunteers that
come to work with the ISM, but she does not speak on behalf of the
movement as a whole.  In the article Laura was quoted as saying that the ISM is changing 
its direction: From Haaretz: "clearly, it has become
dangerous to do direct actions, so we're refocusing our efforts on
community development - such as writing papers on the water situation in the region." 

This is an incorrect statement and not the stated position of the ISM.

I would greatly appreciate if you could include a small correction in a
future Gush Shalom update.


Thank you so much,
Huwaida
INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT
http://www.palsolidarity.org 
info at palsolidarity.org 

--
Selected articles The Other Israel April/May issue now on site:

Adam Keller's "Road Map In The Air" (lead article)
http://members.tripod.com/~other_Israel/ed.html

Saga Of The Court Martials:
http://members.tripod.com/~other_Israel/courtmartials.html

+ a lot more
One time free sample (hardcopy) via: otherisr at actcom.co.il
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