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Would Israel get The Road, and Palestinians The Map?
by Mohamed Elmasry
Last week, Egyptians were telling me that they're giving the
American-backed "Road Map for Peace" only a 30% chance of success; but
that's significantly up from only 10% a week earlier.
Egyptians summarize the situation through a political cartoon
character, who says the Americans are of course "serious" about
implementing the road map -- they're giving the Israelis the road, and the
Palestinians the map!
That's an ironic way of saying that Egyptians, along with many others
in the Arab world and Europe, have little faith in America's much-vaunted
impartiality: there may be still too much bias in Washington to broker a
genuine peace.
America's overwhelming support for Israel comes from both the powerful
Jewish lobby in Washington, which tends to the political right, and from
the equally powerful American Christian Zionists, who are relentlessly
pressuring both the Bush administration and Israeli government not to give
up one inch of the Occupied Territories. They would like to see Israel
cling to the West Bank and Gaza Strip until the last Jew (or close to it)
dies defending them. Only this way, they reason -- on very dubious
theological grounds -- can the second coming of Christ be hastened.
These American Christians, who belong largely to evangelical Protestant
sects, are among the most outspoken opponents of the Road Map for Peace,
yet it seems that no one is daring to call them extremists, obstacles to
peace, or for that matter, enemies of peace. Yet they are just that, in
nearly everything they say and do.
Among their leaders, Revs. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson have
frequently criticized George W. Bush's belated, but welcome vision of an
autonomous Palestinian state. There are now grounds for concern that the
President, a born-again Protestant, could be influenced to withdraw his
support of the road map under political and theological pressure from the
Christian far right.
One of these influential anti-Palestine groups, the International
Fellowship of Christians and Jews, raised $20 million (U.S.) last year to
support Israel's armed Jewish settlers. And late in June, a group
representing a congregation from Denver visited the Jewish settlement of
Ariel (named for Ariel Sharon) to plant a blessed seedling for the 18,000
Jews living there. "Pressuring Israel to do something contrary to God's
will is very dangerous," said the wife of the Denver congregation's
pastor. "We're not anti-Palestinian," explained another. "They have a
place too, just not here."
Can the road map have any chance of success under such warped
conditions? The answer is a qualified yes. There is one person who can
make or break this last-ditch bid for permanent accord between two
exhausted, but unequally matched peoples -- and he is none other than
Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon.
A three-month ceasefire has just been negotiated between Israelis and
Palestinians, with both sides appearing keen to achieve tangible results.
The Israelis have already begun their withdrawal form Gaza and some West
Bank areas they have occupied since the start of the Second Intifada. In
addition, there are promises to release thousands of Palestinian detainees
from Israeli jails and end the siege of Yasser Arafat's battered compound
in Ramallah. This hopeful detente will allow the Palestinians, with the
help of the international community, to rebuild their PNA (Palestinian
National Authority) infrastructure from the ground up after two-and-a-half
years of almost daily attack.
However, if combined American and Israeli pressure convinces
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, and his security minister
Mohamed Dahlan, to completely "dismantle" Palestinian factions --
including Hamas and Islamic Jihad -- before any final settlement, the road
map could be doomed to failure.
Israel views any Palestinian ceasefire as simply a first step in its
self-defined "true war against terror." But should the PNA not join the
"true war" on Israel's terms, Sharon has signaled that Israel will act
unilaterally within Palestinian areas, road map or no road map. Most
Palestinians still believe that Israel is not interested in a Palestinian
state, but wants instead to incite a Palestinian civil war to destroy the
fledgling state from within.
"We really have to get to the point... where the only ones with guns
and military force in any nation have to be the government," U.S.
Secretary of State Colin Powell told Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud
Abbas. Abbas agrees in general, but not with Powell's timing. Without an
internationally recognized independent Palestinian state, any temporary
ceasefire will be just that. The primary goal then must be to persuade
Israel to deliver on its part of the road map.
Among the biggest stumbling blocks to Israel's fulfillment of peace
obligations are the armed and intransigent Jewish settlers, more than
200,000 strong. Any one of them could irreparably sabotage the ceasefire
by killing even one Palestinian. Similarly, any single Palestinian,
unhappy with the ceasefire and frustrated by the slow progress toward
Palestinian statehood, could wreak equal havoc. If either scenario
materializes and is answered by a resumption and escalation of violence,
the Bush road map will fail miserably.
Most Palestinian analysts are giving credit to Prime Minister Abbas for
arriving at the current ceasefire agreement in record time. They also
praise him for delaying his trip to Washington until Israel ends its
ongoing siege of Yasser Arafat's headquarters. They also believe that this
latest truce has demonstrated the growing maturity of the Palestinian
resistance, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both of which are
transforming from shadowy paramilitary movements into the foundation for
future legitimate political parities.
Summer gets extremely hot in the Middle East. The next three months may
witness a welcome breakthrough in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- or
it could tragically disintegrate into just another season full of hot air,
and bullets.
Mohamed Elmasry
is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of
Waterloo and national president of the
Canadian Islamic Congress.
He contributed above article to Media Monitors Network (MMN) from
Ontario, Canada.
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