THE SABAN CENTER FOR MIDDLE EAST POLICY AT THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION MONOGRAPH SERIES Number 1, December 2003 BUILDING A STATE, BUILDING PEACE HOW TO MAKE A ROADMAP THAT WORKS FOR PALESTINIANS AND ISRAELIS KHALIL SHIKAKI THE SABAN CENTER FOR MIDDLE EAST POLICY AT THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION MONOGRAPH SERIES Number 1, December 2003 BUILDING A STATE, BUILDING PEACE HOW TO MAKE A ROADMAP THAT WORKS FOR PALESTINIANS AND ISRAELIS KHALIL SHIKAKI TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION . 1 II. A GRIM SITUATION . 5 A. THREE ALTERNATIVES TO THE PA . 6 B. ESCALATION ASADOMINANT PROCESS . 7 C. ROOM FOR OPTIMISM . 9 III. STATE BUILDING . 11 A. PALESTINIAN VITAL INTERESTS . 11 B. PALESTINIAN THREAT PERCEPTION . 12 C. THE REGIONAL ROLE OF PALESTINE . 13 D. THE MEANING OF VIABLE STATEHOOD . 13 1. TERRITORIAL REQUIREMENTS . 14 2. ECONOMIC REQUIREMENTS . 15 3. SECURITY REQUIREMENTS . 15 4. SOVEREIGN JURISDICTION . 15 5. GOVERNANCE . 15 IV. PEACE BUILDING . 17 A. OBJECTIVES OF THE WORK PLAN . 17 B. CONDITIONS FOR SUCCESS . 18 C. COMPONENTS OF THE WORK PLAN . 19 1. STABILIZATION STEPS . 19 2. PALESTINIAN POLITICAL REFORM . 22 3. EARLY STATEHOOD AND ARAB CONFIDENCE BUILDING MEASURES . 26 4. PERMANENT AGREEMENT . 29 D. THE U.S. ROLE . 30 E. TIMETABLE . 31 V. DIFFICULTIES . 35 APPENDIX . 37 MAP I: WEST BANK CURRENT PALESTINIAN TERRITORIAL JURISDICTION . 38 MAP II: WEST BANK PROPOSED PROVISIONAL BORDERS WITH TERRITORIAL CONTIGUITY . 39 TABLE I:WEST BANK SETTLEMENTS IMPEDING PALESTINIAN TERRITORIAL CONTIGUITY . 40 ABOUT THE AUTHOR . 43 THE SABAN CENTER AT THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION III I. INTRODUCTION he Middle East peace Roadmap—drafted in Palestinian-Israeli political process. Serious T December 2002 by a diplomatic Quartet of doubts remain, however, regarding the willingness the United States, the European Union, Russia, of the Bush administration to invest capital and and the United Nations—seeks a “final and com- energy as implementation of the Roadmap stumbles, prehensive settlement of the Israel-Palestinian the U.S. heads into an election year, and other conflict by 2005,” including a Palestinian state officials advise the president against direct in- with provisional borders by late 2003. Despite volvement in the process lest he be seen as re- this tight timeline and despite objections from peating the “mistakes”of the Clinton administration. other members of the Quartet, the U.S. govern- ment opted twice to postpone the Roadmap’s Yet the Roadmap’s problems go beyond any lack release, not submitting it to the parties until of sustained American leadership. Although both March 2003, after the confirmation of the the Israeli government and the Palestinian Palestinian Prime Minister, Mahmud Abbas (also Authority (PA) have welcomed the Quartet’s known as Abu Mazen), the Secretary-General of Roadmap, it is doubtful that either side will be the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) able to meet the obligations outlined in the plan’s Executive Committee. These delays in turn fueled first two phases. Given the circumstances sur- Palestinian and Arab suspicions that the rounding the resignation of Mahmud Abbas as Roadmap was little more than an American ploy to prime minister and given widespread Palestinian distract the international community from the U.S. dissatisfaction with the Roadmap, it is unlikely campaign against Iraq. However, in June 2003, that the new Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed the U.S. administration demonstrated stronger Qurei will attempt to implement genuine reform leadership and determination by pressing Israel measures, which would meet tremendous resist- to declare its public commitment to the Roadmap, ance from Chairman Arafat, who will perceive albeit with a large list of reservations, and to such measures as aiming at his own marginal- organize two summit conferences in the region, ization. Power struggles within the Palestinian at Sharm el Sheikh and Aqaba. The participation hierarchy now threaten to paralyze the of president George Bush in the two summits sig- Palestinian decision making process long before naled, for the first time, a new phase in the Qurei would be able to make any serious inroads involvement of the Bush administration in the in the implementation of the Roadmap. THE SABAN CENTER AT THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION 1 Similarly, given Israel’s reluctant commitment to This paper seeks to chart a different way out of the Roadmap, and its many reservations to it, the current violence and stalemate in Israeli- and given Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s deter- Palestinian relations. But it has no illusions: mination to continue to build a separation wall almost nothing is likely to work under the pres- deep inside West Bank territory, attempts by ent conditions. Given the failure of the ceasefire Qurei to enforce and sustain a ceasefire may fail agreement reached between the PA and different in the face of determined opposition from mili- Palestinian factions more than a year after Israeli tant groups within the PA’s largest faction, Fateh, reoccupation of Palestinian cities in the West and from the Islamist groups Hamas and Bank, it is almost certain that in the short run Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ). Israeli insistence on escalation in the violence will remain the domi- building the separation wall undermines the nant dynamic in Israeli-Palestinian relations. whole logic of the second phase of the Quartet Violence cannot be fully stopped by military Roadmap with its vision of a state with provi- means alone, but a viable political process is sional borders. It will be impossible for the unlikely to take hold while violence continues. Palestinians, who fear Sharon’s concept of a mini-state as a long-term settlement, to enter- The capacity of any PA government to bring tain the concept of provisional borders while about a long-term stabilization in the security Israel continues to build the wall. Palestinians situation remains doubtful. Whether it is Abu view it as concrete evidence that what is “provi- Mazen or Abu Ala, the Palestinian prime minis- sional” today will become permanent tomorrow. ter neither has the capacity nor the resolve to do Under Sharon and his right-wing coalition, so in the absence of a greater Israeli willingness Israel may refuse to fulfill its obligations, partic- to provide him the tools to do it. In the short run, ularly in the face of spotty performance by the these tools include willingness to meet his basic PA,either to freeze settlement construction or to needs of reducing Palestinian threat perception withdraw the Israeli army to pre-September (i.e., halting the continued building of the sepa- 2000 lines and grant an interim Palestinian state ration wall, large scale prisoners’ release, with- true territorial contiguity and genuine attributes drawal from occupied cities, dismantling of set- of sovereignty. tlement outposts, evacuation of settlements that impede Palestinian contiguity, etc.). In the long The Roadmap could thus meet the same fate run, it entails Israeli willingness to enter perma- as the Mitchell report and the Tenet plan. Israel nent status negotiations building on progress might subsequently decide either to separate made at Camp David in July 2000 and Taba in unilaterally from the Palestinians or fully dis- January 2001. But because Sharon’s right-wing mantle the PA and completely reoccupy its government views political progress as a reward territories. Alternately, the United States and the to violence and in any case strongly opposes the international community might conclude that compromises entailed in Camp David and Taba, the only way to bring peace and stability to it will not entertain a return to serious perma- Palestinian-Israeli relations is by imposing some nent status negotiations. As for meeting the sort of international administration on the short-term needs of the Palestinian prime minis- Palestinian territories, such as an American-led ter, the Israeli government is unwilling to act trusteeship. Even if Israel cooperated with this generously given its fears that Hamas and PIJ will international administration, it is doubtful that take advantage of its relaxation of measures. such a process would either end the current violence or produce a legitimate, or even a For their part, Palestinians see no possibility of cooperative, Palestinian leadership. reaching any reasonable accommodation with a 2 BUILDING A STATE,BUILDING PEACE Sharon-led government and so have little without simultaneous progress in the other two. incentive to uphold a ceasefire. Worse yet, forces Indeed, this paper is predicated on the belief that on both sides who opposed the Oslo process may a negotiated settlement is the only answer to see in the present conditions an opportunity to violence and radicalism and that waiting for undo Oslo altogether. Such parties may be only violence to stop before articulating a peace vision too eager to provoke their opponents into and a work-plan would only reward, and thus prolonging the bloody game. Once the Bush accelerate violence in the hope of achieving total administration reaches similar conclusions, it victory. It would also encourage the different will be doubtful that it would continue to parties to the conflict to adopt unilateral embark on a course of action that it concludes measures, thus putting an end to any possible has little chance of success. Palestinian-Israeli bilateralism. Palestinians who initiate the violence hope to force Israel into uni- Still, should the process of escalation become too lateral withdrawal—a “separation” on which costly for one or both of the parties to bear, a Israel has already embarked by building a physi- return to the political process may be contem- cal wall of concrete and electronic measures not plated. This paper prepares for that contingency. only along its borders with Palestinian territories but also deep inside West Bank territory. Israelis We begin, then, with a basic question: Where who deny the right of the Palestinians to inde- do we want to go from here? The conventional pendence in their own state fear negotiations in answer has been either to a permanent agree- just the same way.