Does the "Road map" lead to Peace?

From AUP:
... even if the majority wants peace on both sides, it only takes a few renegades with no wish for peace to keep the kettle boiling.
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But it needn't boil over if the majorities on both sides are determined that it doesn't. In this particular case it may be that the current Israeli executive doesn't share the majority view. If that is the case it will be interesting to see how the Israeli political process handles things. Will it be necessary, for instance, to resort to Ottoman laws to keep control with the Sharonists? I'm not sure if such laws are actually aplied to Jewish Israelis.
 
The Fence

How can the Road Map Plan work when the American President doesn't exercise his power to bring this shameful fence down?

Last June, C.Rice visited Israel and she expressed her concerns regarding this... fence, concerns that they were adopted by the US President.

Now, after Sharon's visit to the White House, the wall becomes "a delicate matter that should be re-examined".

I could never imagine that the President of a Democratic country like USA, finances and supports a Wall of shame but yet, it happens.

As long as this wall exists, we cannot expect a peaceful co-existence of Israelis and Palestinians in the area.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm.../sharontellsbushisraelwonthaltitsfenceproject

Sharon Tells Bush Israel Won't Halt Its Fence Project

[...]But more than any other issue on the table today, it was the fence also referred to as a wall or a security barrier that illustrated the mistrust still permeating relations between Israelis and Palestinians. The structure, concrete in some places, wire in others, already wraps around portions of the West Bank and ultimately could be hundreds of miles long.

Israelis say the wall is a way of keeping suicide bombers and other attackers out, but it has been excoriated by Palestinians for pushing deep into what they consider their territory, dividing communities and penning them in. Even some Israeli commentators have raised questions about the usefulness of the barrier and about whether it is in effect creating new borders that give up land Israel would like to keep.

The fence is not referred to specifically in the latest peace plan, known as the road map. But it has increasingly come up in the last month as the United States mediates between the sides. On a trip to the region in June, Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites), the national security adviser, heard complaints about the wall from Palestinians, and passed them along to Mr. Sharon, who politely rebuffed her, American and Israeli officials said at the time.

On Friday, after meeting with Mr. Abbas, Mr. Bush raised the subject in remarks to reporters, and when questioned about it, said, "I think the wall is a problem," adding that he had already discussed it with Mr. Sharon.

Mr. Bush said on Friday that it would be very difficult to develop confidence between Palestinians and Israelis "with a wall snaking through the West Bank."

Today, Mr. Sharon brought the subject up when the two leaders appeared before journalists in the Rose Garden, indicating he was willing to stand up to Mr. Bush on issues he considers vital to Israel's security.

"The security fence will continue to be built, with every effort to minimize the infringement on the daily life of the Palestinian population," Mr. Sharon said. [...]
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That’s right shame on Sharon for stopping easy access to the suicide bombers!
 
Sad to say, the only interpretation of events that makes any sense is that Sharon and his people have no intention of pursuing peace. Settlements expand, confiscations continue, there's no ceasefire on the Israeli side, and life is not going to get better for the Palestinians. Just like post-Oslo, the Zionists are simply going to continue their program of establishing a Jewish majority on both banks of the Jordan. A program sanctioned by their religion. If the Palestinians can be conned into being quiet while it happens, so much the better (as from post-1967 to the first intifada, and post-Oslo until the second). When full-scale conflict - it hardly counts as 'war' - breaks out the Palestinians will yet again start from a worse position.

Whether or not Israel can hold together while this goes on - for another generation at least - is yet to be seen. On balance, I doubt it.
 
How many leaders this Hamas has?

Israel is killing a couple of them every week for months now, haven't we finished with them yet?

Does Israel chase the leaders of the terrorist group Hamas or it's the Mosaic Law that rules this country?
 
Cleopatra said:
How many leaders this Hamas has?
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Well.. leaders when? They could have as many as there are members. If you kill the president the vice president takes his place and so on.... Why would they ever run out? When there's just 3 members left someone will still be calling the shots no?
 
In order that Israel justifies those military operations it claims that the targets are only the leaders of the terrorist groups.

As you can imagine, one doesn't become a leader of such a group in a week... so the question remains, how many leaders this organization has?
 
Cleopatra said:
In order that Israel justifies those military operations it claims that the targets are only the leaders of the terrorist groups.

As you can imagine, one doesn't become a leader of such a group in a week... so the question remains, how many leaders this organization has?
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Good point Cleopatra, and the answer from Hamas was loud and clear.

I think the response to the title of this thread, so far, is that no-one has actually started down the road yet.

A rag tag bunch of extremists is hard to control at the best of times. However, the IDF is supposed to be a professional, disciplined organisation. What is supposed to be the purpose of these assasinations? What is the military goal that they will achieve?
 
Cleopatra said:
In order that Israel justifies those military operations it claims that the targets are only the leaders of the terrorist groups.

As you can imagine, one doesn't become a leader of such a group in a week... so the question remains, how many leaders this organization has?
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There's an organization hierarchy no doubt. As leaders are killed the next in line becomes a leader. I was basically making the point that I think these claims of targeting leaders are mostly propaganda. I doubt there's any real measure of who a leader is before these assasinations are carried out. I assume the value of killing these people is something else entirely, like their knowledge of chemistry and bomb making etc... or maybe even for purely political reasons like an attempt to end the cease fire.
 
a_unique_person said:

I think the response to the title of this thread, so far, is that no-one has actually started down the road yet.
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I heard someone on the radio this morning say that any attempt by Abu Mazen to rein in the terrorists would 'kill' his government. The Middle East: where metaphor and reality collide.

I think the problem is that it seems that no-one has the will, and/or the ability to deliver what the Road Map requires of them. By the way, the US State Department has the text of the Road Map here - it's useful to check the wording to see what it actually says, rather than what the two sides interpret it to say.

Some important bits of Phase I (which was supposed to be fully implemented by May of this year):
* GOI [Government of Israel] takes no actions undermining trust, including deportations, attacks on civilians; confiscation and/or demolition of Palestinian homes and property, as a punitive measure or to facilitate Israeli construction; destruction of Palestinian institutions and infrastructure; and other measures specified in the Tenet work plan.
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also:
* GOI immediately dismantles settlement outposts erected since March 2001.
* Consistent with the Mitchell Report, GOI freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements).
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Is much of this happening? Sharon is known as the champion of the settlers, but lest we forget: it was he who made the decision to remove settlers from Sinai as part of the peace deal with Egypt. Equally, post-Oslo, settlements expanded under Labor as well as Likud. So, it's not a Likud-specific problem and the precedent is there. It's not impossible that the settlement issue could be dealt with.

However, in an interesting series of articles on this subject on the BBC (cue the boos and hisses) news website there was this rather sobering quote from Shlomo Avineri, of Hebrew University:
"There are very few precedents in history where 8% of a population has been moved, which makes the reality of this happening - regardless of the legal arguments - highly problematic."
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Now for the Palestinians. The relevant bits of the Road Map are:
* Palestinians declare an unequivocal end to violence and terrorism and undertake visible efforts on the ground to arrest, disrupt, and restrain individuals and groups conducting and planning violent attacks on Israelis anywhere.

* Rebuilt and refocused Palestinian Authority security apparatus begins sustained, targeted, and effective operations aimed at confronting all those engaged in terror and dismantlement of terrorist capabilities and infrastructure. This includes commencing confiscation of illegal weapons and consolidation of security authority, free of association with terror and corruption.
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This pretty much speaks for itself. In passing, it may be worth noting that there is nothing about prisoner releases in the Road Map.

There is no provision for short-term, conditional ceasefires, that is not the Road Map. Does anyone seriously think that Abu Mazen ever had the clout, let alone the will to dismantle the terrorist organisations? As a result, the Israelis feel entirely within their rights to take out the terrorist 'leadership' themselves: the Road Map proscribes only attacks on civilians. However, their controversial assassination policy would be considered by most reasonable people to "undermine trust".

And this is still only Phase I.

Everyone knew this bird wouldn't fly without the US leaning heavily on both sides in the new Middle East. Unfortunately, the new Middle East is looking quite a lot like the old one, and the USA's attention is currently elsewhere.
 
Fair analysis. I agree and I have to add a couple of points.

Since the events in Jenin in last April, I got this strange idea that the Middle Eastern conflict is not about Middle East anymore but about the struggle of two regimes -the regime of the military Israelis represented by Sharon-and the regime of Islamic Palestinians represented by Arafat (although Arafat himself is far from being a fundamentalist it's just that these are the only groups that supported his corrupted administration) -to hold the power over their people.

As months passed this idea was confirmed and now with the Road Map Plan I think that it's obvious to everybody what is going on in Middle East.

From the one hand we have Sharon and Co that resist with all of their strength to the upcoming changes ( because there will be a change and I take bets on that) and on the other hand we have the Palestinian Fundamentalists that they are not ready forget and forgive( because as an Israeli I feel that we must apologize and to ask for forgiveness( although forgiveness is not accepted by Judaism) for the endless occasions we crossed the lines and we took "unnecessary measures" as an occupying force...)

One way or another, whether we like it or not, we will have a Palestinian State really soon and the problem for both groups is what their position will be in this State. Of course, as I have repeatedly suggested, in order to arrive to this point we need a really tragic and serious event to occur, an event that will be so serious that will make USA to withdraw its trust from Sharon and his policy ( I just hope that this won't be the murder of another politician...)

The most tragic of all, is the point--maybe the only point--that Capel Dodger and I have agreed with in these endless conversations; once the war is over, both countries will get involved in terrible civil wars and the civil war amongst Israelis will be one of the fiercest humanity will have ever witnessed.

And of course you know who has the power to prevent such an eventuality from occurring; yes the Jews and the Israelites of Diaspora.
 
This development is scarry and the future unpredictable.

Those hypocrites that have been doing nothing but boycotting Abu Mazen by helding side-talks with Yasser, now are lamenting for the future of Middle East.

Shame on them, they carry serious part of the responsibility for what happened.
 
Cleopatra said:
This development is scarry and the future unpredictable.

Those hypocrites that have been doing nothing but boycotting Abu Mazen by helding side-talks with Yasser, now are lamenting for the future of Middle East.

Shame on them, they carry serious part of the responsibility for what happened.
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I don't think this development caught anybody off guard. Abbas' willingness to compromise caused him to be viewed by the Palestines as the lapdog of the US. Once that happened, he was toast. To the Palestines, appearance is everything and they must not appear to be giving up any concessions. The only way this peace is going to happen is if the treaties are negotiated in secret and not made available to Hamas and other resistance fighters. The messages must come to "hold off", but no reason can be given. If they lose face, in their minds, they have lost everything.

Regardless of what you think about Arafat's morals and behavior, one must admit that he plays the Palestines like Van Cliburn plays a piano.
 
Tricky said:

Regardless of what you think about Arafat's morals and behavior, one must admit that he plays the Palestines like Van Cliburn plays a piano.
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He may not look so skilful if the Israelis decide to expel him, which Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz had already called for earlier this week.
 
Tricky said:
The only way this peace is going to happen is if the treaties are negotiated in secret and not made available to Hamas and other resistance fighters. The messages must come to "hold off", but no reason can be given. If they lose face, in their minds, they have lost everything.
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In 1995 Abu Mazen along with Yossi Beilin after participating in secret negotiations, put together the plan that is known as the Abu Mazen-Beilin peace plan . According to the Palestinian source I am attaching here :
It is not very clear whether [Palestinian leader Yasser] Arafat himself had seen the document or whether he was consulted.
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President Arafat mustn't have been aware of the secret talks ( Israelis suggest that he wasn't for sure) .

Why? Because Arafat and Hamas are one thing devoted to one single cause;the extinction of Israel.

I agree that President's Arafat influence on the people of Palestine is strong but leaders are judged by the effective solutions they provide for the sake of their people.

So far Arafat has achieved very little for the Palestinians. He has made them enemies with the Lebanese, he keeps them in refugee camps like animals, he supports terrorism that leads nowhere.

As I have said before Arafat, like Sharon belong to the past but where they differ is that Sharon was elected whether we like it or not.

I hope that Israel doesn't expel him. It will be a gross political mistake.

Now during the previous months that Abu Mazen was struggling to keep himself in the position of the PM , EU proved its deep anti-semitism by supporting Israel's worse enemy. EU did everything possible to undermine Mazen. European leaders were visiting Israel and the occupied territories and they were meeting Arafat instead of the PM, as a result Sharon refused to accept them and the bridges between EU and Israel were cut.

Pity. EU doesn't lose opportunity to show that the State of Israel ( one of the biggest mistakes in the post WWII History) was nothing more than a necessity.
 
Cleopatra said:


In 1995 Abu Mazen along with Yossi Beilin after participating in secret negotiations, put together the plan that is known as the Abu Mazen-Beilin peace plan . According to the Palestinian source I am attaching here :

President Arafat mustn't have been aware of the secret talks ( Israelis suggest that he wasn't for sure) .

Why? Because Arafat and Hamas are one thing devoted to one single cause;the extinction of Israel.
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I don't know that I agree with this. I think Arafat sees himself as the next Nelson Mandela, only, he is no Nelson Mandela. He can't rule his troops, and as soon as he had the chance to settle into a life of peaceful beauracratic bliss after the Camp David accord, promptly went to sleep at the wheel.
 
Since we are looking for the factors that either promote or block Peace, read this article from "Electronic Indifanda".

I particularly enjoyed the opening paragraph :

The resignation of the first Palestinian prime minister should surprise no one. The whole scheme was no more than an artificial arrangement intended to serve far more hidden, dangerous purposes than those sanctimoniously declared. It was artificial because Mahmoud Abbas was neither the choice of the Palestinian people nor that of the Palestinian Authority president. Instead, Abbas was imposed by the Americans and the Israelis to implement a plan, the elements of which were harmful to the cause of peace, harmful to Palestinian interests, and contradictory to any of the patrons' claims of introducing democracy and reform to the Palestinian institutions.
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http://electronicIntifada.net/v2/article1899.shtml


I wish to the Palestinian people to make better choices to their ...next elections...
:rolleyes:
 
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