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How to Salvage the Road Map

(Jerusalem Post) - Zalman Shoval Both the U.S. and Israel have, for now, no interest in declaring the road map dead, even though the Bush administration is probably focused more on "conflict management" than on "conflict resolution." The vision of President Bush's speech of June 2002 was transformed, in conjunction with the Quartet, into a version of the road map built upon a basic asymmetry, with Israel agreeing to eventual Palestinian statehood without the Palestinians being required to do away with the so-called right of return - which means abolishing Israel as a Jewish state. Even the underlying vision of a "democratic, viable" Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel inevitably raises a question, since there is no other Arab state in the region to which these characteristics apply. What guarantee is there that the projected Palestinian state would be different? If the major flaws in the road map were corrected, our sights set a bit lower, and the difficult first stages overcome, the road map could still function as a means of forging a long-term Israeli-Palestinian modus vivendi. Though falling short of solving all the outstanding issues, it would nevertheless give the two peoples a protracted period of calm and prosperity. If this, too, should prove unattainable, one should not be surprised if there will be a growing sentiment among Israelis for unilateral separation of one sort or another. As long as the Oslo-bred illusion of having a real peace partner on the Palestinian side persisted, support for unilateral separation was weak. The Geneva accord and similar initiatives now try to rekindle that illusion, but most Israelis have learned from experience and probably will not be fooled again.
2003-11-25 00:00:00
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