US 'road map' was Flawed Right From the Start
The Universe
(October 12, 2003)
ONLY last week, the Israeli cabinet approved extension of the huge concrete exclusion wall and razor fence that divides Palestine from Israel.
This is supposedly to protect Israel from suicide bombers but it has so far failed to stop any. The point of this doomed project and the thinking behind it is, as the United Nations recently said, a form of annexation of Palestine territory. It is illegal and wrong.
But it is also a form of apartheid. It cuts through villages and farms of the Palestinians; it separates families and isolates and infuriates the people who have lived on these lands for thousands of years. It cuts into their territory and embraces the illegal Jewish settlements that are a form of blatant land-grabbing and stealing of Palestine territory.
No wonder that Palestinians have resorted to the only effective form of retaliation they know – suicide bombers. This is so wrong and terrible that no words are too strong to condemn it. It cannot be justified but it can be sorrowfully understood.
Nevertheless, the right wing government of Ariel Sharon is the most provocative and vindictive government that ever ruled Israel and dominated the Palestinians. His policies are aggravating and provoking more rage and hatred and this can only bring about more such bombings of innocent civilians.
The US ‘road map’ has been flawed from the beginning and the entire blame has been heaped on the elected president of the Palestinians. Yes, Yasser Arafat.
True, he has done nothing to make it work and gave little real cooperation to the Parallel Palestine Authority which the Americans and the Israelis want to recognize. But that has failed so far too and Arafat, once sidelined, is now centre-stage again. Even though many Palestinians were losing patience with his unwillingness or inability to take steps to curb the suicide bombers, he’s popular again.
Neither side has taken any of the steps to implement the road map. The Israelis were to start dismantling settlements and the Palestine authority was to curb Hamas and the bombers. This hasn’t happened.
George W Bush is no help either. He has lost the trust of the Palestinians, if ever there was any. He showed himself to be over-indulgent to Israel, which the US supports with billions of dollars.
Sharon’s vision is at odds with what is agreed already by both sides in the Oslo accords. These agreements were scuttled by Sharon when he accused a sensation by making a visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to assert Israeli power.
We can only pray that a new Israeli government will arise that sees the justice of the Palestine cause. Only by making concessions and establishing a free independent Palestinian state can peace be achieved.
