Yossi Alpher on the Quartet Roadmap:
Futile, But Important
Hard Questions, Tough Answers
A weekly APN Q & A with Yossi
Alpher
October
23, 2002
Yossi Alpher
Yossi Alpher is a former senior official with the Mossad and
the former Director of the Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. He also served as a senior advisor
to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak during the Camp David summit. In collaboration with
Ghassan Khatib, Minister of Labor in the Palestinian Authority, Yossi Alpher
has created an Israeli-Palestinian internet dialogue called bitterlemons.org.
Q. Acting on behalf of the "Quartet", the Bush
administration is currently presenting Israel, the Palestinians and other Arab
parties like Jordan with its new draft "road
map" for an Israeli-Palestinian peace process. How serious is this plan?
A.In the short term, it is hard to take it seriously, but in
the long term it may be significant. The draft plan, dated October 15 and
labeled "Elements of a Performance-Based Road Map to a Permanent Two-State
Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict", includes all the elements
that Bush (in his June 24 speech) and the Quartet (the US, UN, EU and Russia)
have been discussing, as well as elements from the Saudi initiative of early
2002. Yet it is predicated on elements that seem impossible for the two
principal leaders, Yasir Arafat and Ariel Sharon, to accept.
For example, the road map calls for an immediate reduction in
Yasir Arafat's authority through the appointment of a prime minister -- a move
that Arafat recently scuttled and clearly opposes. On the other hand it does
not predicate a genuine end to Palestinian violence (but only a call by the
Palestinian leadership to end violence), thereby contradicting a key condition
presented by Sharon since he took office.
In general, these and other demands made of the parties
during the first stage of Phase I of the plan, October-December 2002, such as
the dismantling of recently built Israeli settlement outposts and a reduction
in the intensity of Israeli punitive measures, seem tailored toward achieving
that modicum of peace and quiet that the administration deems necessary for
prosecuting the war against Iraq, rather than laying the groundwork for an
immediate peace process. Thus despite the plan's tight timetable, the
administration is not projecting any sense of urgency concerning
implementation. This is underlined by its decision to send William Burns, the
State Department's Middle East point man, rather than a higher official, to present
the draft road map to the Palestinians, Jordanians and Egyptians, and by the
decision to reconvene the Quartet to hear comments from Israel and the
Palestinians only in early December -- when technically some elements of the
first phase should be nearly completed.
The plan, if executed, would provide for a settlement freeze
by May 2003, then for "other actions" regarding settlements
(presumably the dismantling of some of them) within the framework of the
establishment, by December 2003, of a Palestinian state with temporary borders.
Yet it would appear that Sharon can rest easy. Since the road map
is a "performance-based plan" (despite its tight timetable) --
reflecting a persistent demand of Sharon's -- he can always cite Arafat's
ongoing refusal to appoint a prime minister in accordance with the very first
item in the plan, or instances of incitement by Palestinian institutions (which
are supposed to cease by December 2002), as adequate cause for refusing to
carry out his part of the deal.
Meanwhile he can declare that he accepts the plan "in
principle", as he did the Mitchell Report and the Tenet Plan back in 2001,
with little fear that he will be pressured to implement it. Actually, at
present he simply claims not to have read it -- an apparent reflection of his
assessment, following last week's conversations in Washington, that the plan is either not
pressing or not important. If he so desires, Sharon can even safely highlight
his agreement to the idea, presented in the plan, of an international
conference in the second half of 2003 to discuss a provisional Palestinian
state, as a vote-getter with Israeli centrists in anticipation of Israeli
elections next year.
Alongside these built-in sticking points and limitations, the
draft plan generally parallels the earlier draft distributed by the Quartet in
September (see Q & A of October 16, 2002):
· In the first phase, from October 2002 until May 2003, the
Palestinians carry out far-reaching security, constitutional and other reforms
and hold elections (the earlier draft does not mention specific reductions in
Arafat's authority, while the new draft does); Israel freezes settlement
activity and reduces its military profile, culminating in withdrawal to the
pre-Intifada lines, while the two sides reinstitute security coordination. An
international supervisory presence is established in the territories under the
Quartet, Palestinian economic institutions are allowed to reopen in Jerusalem, and Israel transfers all frozen tax revenues
to the Palestinians.
· In the second phase, ending December 2003, an international
conference is held, and Israel and the Palestinians negotiate the
establishment of a Palestinian state with provisional borders.
· The third and final phase takes place in 2004-2005. A second
international conference ratifies the provisional Palestinian state and
inaugurates final status negotiations based on the 1967 borders ("the
settlement will end the occupation that began in 1967"). Peace
negotiations between Israel and Syria and Lebanon are commenced, and the Arab world
normalizes relations with Israel, providing "security for all
the states of the region".
Despite its seeming lack of immediacy, Sharon's casual
attitude, and the administration's obvious reluctance to make its plan a top
priority issue, there are in this road map encouraging elements and plenty of
incentives for the Palestinian leadership to work toward reforms and
independence, and for an energetic Israeli political opposition (if Labor
leaves the government coalition) to press for implementation.
The only obstacles are Arafat, Sharon and Bush.
bitterlemons.org - Palestinian-Israeli crossfire on
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"The Quartet's 'roadmap'"
October 28, 2002 Edition 39
Readers will find a copy of the roadmap at http://www.bitterlemons.org/docs/roadmap.html.
AN ISRAELI VIEW
Futile--but important
by Yossi Alpher
=================================
The road map presented by the Bush administration and the Quartet to Israel and the Palestinians is at one and
the same time futile, yet important.
It is futile because it is sponsored by an American president who is not
interested right now in advancing an Israeli-Palestinian peace process. It was
presented to the emissaries of a Palestinian leader who has no realistic
strategy for peace (or war), who is relegated by the document to a ceremonial
role, but who is not likely to step aside. And it was delivered to an Israeli
prime minister who also has no realistic strategy for peace or war and who,
like his Palestinian counterpart, has no intention of following this or any
other internationally sanctioned road map.
The government of Israel is justified in pointing out that
the road map does not require of the Palestinians a serious enough effort to
suppress terrorism. And its concerns about the ramifications of an
international monitoring mechanism are understandable. On the other hand the
document comprises measures, such as the appointment and empowerment of a
Palestinian prime minister and the introduction of performance-based criteria
rather than hard and fast deadlines for moving from one phase to the next, that
reflect Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's own policy line.
But all this is not terribly relevant. Since President Bush will not provide
the muscle to enforce this plan upon the reluctant Sharon and Arafat, the
detailed press accounts of high level discussions of its strong and weak points
appear to be of marginal importance, except insofar as they constitute part of
a diplomatic ritual apparently required by the administration during the
countdown to a US invasion of Iraq. Nor does it appear likely that, after Iraq, the Bush administration will
commit itself to the necessary total involvement in an Israeli-Palestinian
peace process. But if it does, circumstances are likely to have changed to such
an extent that new thinking, and a new document, will be called for.
Still, the draft road map of October 15, 2002 is an important document, because
its contents clearly reflect a number of positive developments in overall
thinking about a future Israeli-Palestinian peace process that have accrued in
the course of two years of violence and in the aftermath of the collapse of the
Oslo process.
First of all, the road map recognizes that United Nations Security Council
Resolution 242 of 1967 is not a sufficient basis for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Oslo final status talks, we recall, were based solely on 242, which does not
offer guidelines for resolving key issues like Palestinian statehood, Jerusalem
and the refugee question. UNSC 242 was intended by its drafters for peacemaking
between Israel and the neighboring states it
fought in 1967; it did not provide a framework for solving "1948"
issues like the right of return. This is one of the reasons the Oslo process ultimately failed. The road
map takes a step toward righting this lacuna by basing a final settlement not
only on 242/338, but also on UNSC 1397 (affirming the goal of a Palestinian
state) and on the so-called Saudi initiative, noting specifically its
revolutionary provision for "Arab state acceptance of normal relations
with Israel and security for all the states of the region." These are good
building blocks for future peace efforts.
The road map also calls for a single interim step--a Palestinian "state
with provisional borders" by the end of 2003, i.e., within about a year.
Phases and interim steps were one of the great failures of the Oslo process. They were supposed to
serve as a vehicle for building trust and confidence between the two sides;
instead, they provided opportunities for extremists on both sides to undermine
the entire process. Still, if some sort of phased process is deemed inevitable
in view of the current collapse, then the notion of a provisional state,
broached originally by Ariel Sharon himself, may be the least problematic--but
only if Palestinians receive adequate assurances that such a truncated
temporary entity does not become a dead end.
Finally, despite Israeli objections, the Quartet's "permanent monitoring
mechanism" is potentially a good idea, for the simple reason that Israelis
and Palestinians have proven incapable of monitoring their agreements on their
own. The absence of such mechanisms in the Oslo agreements was yet another fatal
drawback of the peace process that ended two years ago. Indeed, an eventual
Israeli-Palestinian final status peace treaty will have to comprise some sort
of compulsory arbitration agreement (like in the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty)
if it is to survive the inevitable disagreements over interpretation.
The monitoring mechanism for Israeli-Palestinian stabilization measures
envisioned by the road map--if properly constituted so as to provide solutions
for Israel's well-founded concerns about violent Palestinian violations (along
with Palestinian concerns over settlement expansion)--is yet another of the
long term positive contributions of this new initiative, however futile and
frustrating it may be in the near term.-Published 28/10/2002(c)bitterlemons.org.
Yossi Alpher is an Israeli strategic analyst. He is former Director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University.