|
|
March 21, 2003/Adar2 17 5763, Vol. 55, No. 30
Time for an updated road map to peace
JONATHAN FRIENDLY
Jewish Renaissance Media
On a recent interstate highway trip, we needed to consult a somewhat aged road atlas. It wasn't much help in a couple of states where it listed the old sequential exit numbers instead of the new numbers that correspond to the distance from the state's southern or western borders.
We couldn't help thinking about that atlas last weekend in the wake of President George W. Bush's announcement that he intends to advance a "road map" for peace between Israel, the Palestinians and the Arab states. As much as we believe that peace is absolutely necessary for the Palestinians, as well as for Israel, we know that America, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union cannot impose a quick end to decades of vicious combat ignited by Arab intolerance of the Jewish state.
We also know that peace cannot be accomplished under a plan that relies so heavily on outdated assumptions about the Mideast. America and Israel will be looking for Exit 212 when the Arabs want to turn at Exit 39.
None of the particular steps of the plan - drafted by America, Russia, the U.N. and the E.U. - are mistaken in themselves. The Palestinians and the Arab states must, for example, end the violence against Israelis and affirm the right of the Jewish state to exist with Jerusalem as its capital. Similarly, Israel must work for the creation of a viable Palestinian state and must end its military presence of the areas that the Palestinians had administered before September 2000.
All of those conditions were understood as part of the hopeful Oslo process a dozen years ago and, until the Palestinians launched the current intifada, could have been accomplished. Now, however, the core of mutual trust has been shattered. And the road map makes no adequate suggestions for rebuilding it or, more likely, for replacing it.
Israel, burned by half a dozen Arab-launched wars, isn't about to compromise its security by returning to pre-1967 borders or turning Jerusalem over to international governance. Palestinian groups like Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades are not going to give up trying to attack Israelis inside and outside of the Green Line.
An effective peace plan would, for instance, have international forces disarming the Palestinian terrorists just as the U.S.-led coalition is trying to disarm Iraq's Saddam Hussein. An effective peace plan would spell out to Israel exactly what areas of the West Bank and Gaza the Palestinians must have to be a viably cohesive state.
But President Bush, preoccupied with Baghdad, has never been deeply interested in building the new relationships that could end the violence. He may believe that toppling Hussein will compel the Arab states to understand the virtues of democracy, but it is more likely to bring new instability to the region.
The Mideast is changing. The old roads seem like dead-ends. The atlas drafted in Oslo doesn't describe the routes. The Bush "road map" can stay in the glove compartment until the events of the next months show us more clearly where we really are.
Jonathan Friendly is national editor of Jewish Renaissance Media. Contact the writer at friendly@umich.edu.
|
