A Middle East Roadmap to Where?

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A Middle East Roadmap to Where? A MIDDLE EAST ROADMAP TO WHERE? 2 May 2003 Middle East Report N°14 Amman/Washington/Brussels TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS .................................................i I. INTRODUCTION: THE ROADMAP ..........................................................................1 A. ORIGINS ............................................................................................................................... 1 B. MAIN ELEMENTS OF THE ROADMAP .................................................................................... 2 C. VIEWS ON THE ROADMAP.................................................................................................... 3 II. THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY: POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS .................7 A. PALESTINIANS LOOK BACK: A DEBATE ABOUT POLITICAL VIOLENCE................................. 7 B. THE SEARCH FOR A PALESTINIAN STRATEGIC CONSENSUS.................................................. 9 C. THE PALESTINIAN PRIME MINISTER .................................................................................... 11 1. An Empowered Prime Minister for a Reformed PA?............................................. 11 2. The Struggle Over Abu Mazen’s Cabinet............................................................... 13 III. ISRAEL: POLITICAL DYNAMICS ..........................................................................15 A. THE JANUARY 2003 PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS ......................................................... 16 1. A Shift to the Right ................................................................................................. 16 2. The Sixteenth Knesset............................................................................................. 16 B. ISRAEL’S NEW GOVERNMENT ............................................................................................ 17 1. Coalition Guidelines ............................................................................................... 18 2. Reading Sharon’s Intentions ................................................................................... 19 IV. THE U.S. ADMINISTRATION ...................................................................................23 V. OTHER INTERNATIONAL ACTORS......................................................................25 VI. CONCLUSION: CONSOLIDATING AND STRENGTHENING THE ROADMAP .........................................................................................................................................27 APPENDICES A. A PERFORMANCE-BASED ROADMAP TO A PERMANENT TWO-STATE SOLUTION TO THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT ....................................................................................... 33 B. THE PALESTINIAN CABINET ............................................................................................... 38 C. CRUCIAL ELEMENTS IN AN ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN BILATERAL AGREEMENT AND A SUPPORTING MULTILATERAL AGREEMENT ........................................................................ 40 D. ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP....................................................................... 42 E. ICG REPORTS AND BRIEFINGS ........................................................................................... 43 F. ICG BOARD MEMBERS ...................................................................................................... 49 ICG Middle East Report N°14 2 May 2003 A MIDDLE EAST ROADMAP TO WHERE? EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS After several false starts, the Middle East and Israelis to return to a genuine political process diplomatic Quartet (composed of the U.S., the EU, are organised – indeed, further justifying these the Russian Federation and the Office of the efforts by the promise of a political settlement. Secretary General of the UN) finally put its Roadmap to Israeli-Palestinian peace on the table Perhaps its most important contribution is as a on 30 April 2003. However, although the document public reminder of first principles: the need to end has received widespread international endorsement, violent confrontation, to cease settlement activity, there is also widespread scepticism about its and to rapidly replace occupation and conflict with contents, about the willingness of the parties to substantive negotiations that produce a viable and implement its provisions and indeed of its sponsors sovereign Palestinian state living alongside a secure to maintain allegiance to them. Israel. Significantly, the first obligation on the parties is for the Palestinian leadership to reaffirm The scepticism is warranted. The Roadmap its commitment to “Israel’s right to exist in peace adheres to a gradualist and sequential logic to and security” and for the Israeli leadership to affirm Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, a throwback to the its commitment to an “independent, viable, approach that has failed both Israelis and sovereign Palestinian state”. Moreover, its Palestinians in the past. Its various elements lack multinational authorship is itself an definition, and each step is likely to give rise to accomplishment, marking a break from a long interminable disputes between the two sides. There period of unilateral U.S. involvement and setting a is no enforcement mechanism, nor an indication of precedent for possible international intervention in what is to happen if the timetable significantly shepherding and supervising a final status slips. Even more importantly, it fails to provide a agreement. detailed, fleshed out definition of a permanent status agreement. As such, it is neither a detailed, Presentation of the Roadmap comes at a moment of practical blueprint for peace nor even for a relative promise that it can help solidify. The cessation of hostilities. protagonists, bloodied by two and a half years of tragic and senseless conflict, appear both exhausted Yet, these and other worrying realities do not and unwilling to surrender, yet eager to find a necessarily condemn the Roadmap to irrelevance. dignified way out. Economically, Israelis and It is important to understand what the Roadmap is Palestinians are suffering badly – far more not – but also what it can be. It should be viewed as suffering for the Palestinians in absolute terms to be a political document that – along with significant sure, but unprecedented hardship for Israelis as unilateral changes within the Palestinian and Israeli well.Palestinians are questioning the direction and arenas, and in the context of a transformed regional purpose of the uprising with rare candour and and international situation – might conceivably openness. A new government is in place, led by serve as a catalyst and vehicle to help Israel, the Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), who has Palestinians and the Arab world internalise the consistently and from the start objected to the requirements and contours of a sustainable peace militarisation of the intifada. In Israel, Prime agreement. The Roadmap can become a Minister Sharon enjoys sufficient popularity and mechanism around which efforts by Palestinians A Middle East Roadmap To Where? ICG Middle East Report N°14, 2 May 2003 Page ii credibility to take steps for peace, should he be so to denounce the Roadmap and the multilateralism inclined. of which it is a product. As for the oft-mentioned impact of the Iraq war, only time will tell, but so far The U.S., fresh from its military success in Iraq, its most notable impact has been to freeze has greater regional leverage and influence and movement on the Israeli-Palestinian during the long added reason to demonstrate that it can exercise its months leading to the war. power even-handedly. It is being pushed in this direction by the one leader on the international For better or for worse, the Roadmap is the only stage with some influence over President Bush, diplomatic instrument available, endorsed by all Prime Minister Blair, who – put on the defensive relevant international players and at least domestically and in the Arab world over the war rhetorically embraced by the two protagonists. with Iraq – has staked much of his credibility on the Today, the most important questions are those that promise of an energetic push on the Arab-Israeli relate to political dynamics – among Palestinians, front. Moderate Arab governments, challenged at in Israel and in the United States. The Roadmap’s home for their failure to oppose or prevent the war, optimal purpose is as a facilitator and accelerator of similarly need to be able to point to progress and more important developments: a decision by the may therefore be prepared to use their influence to Palestinian national movement to halt all military move the process forward. The swift U.S. victory aspects of the intifada; a decision by Israel to may also have served as a warning to radical fundamentally transform its rules of engagement Palestinian organisations and their state supporters and resume a meaningful political process; and a in Syria and Iran, reducing their ability to thwart decision by the U.S. to engage in sustained and political progress. balanced diplomacy to achieve a comprehensive and durable Israeli-Palestinian political settlement. This should not erase the reasons for scepticism. ICG, like many others, has expressed its doubts about the gradualism and sequentialism that remains at the heart of the Roadmap. While the RECOMMENDATIONS two sides undoubtedly are exhausted by the unrelenting violence, they paradoxically also have To members of the Quartet: become increasingly numb to it. The new 1. Bolster
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