Tested by Zion (12 page)

In Phase III, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would end. A second international conference would be convened “leading to a final, permanent status resolution in 2005, including on borders, Jerusalem, refugees, settlements; and, to support progress toward a comprehensive Middle East settlement between Israel and Lebanon and Israel and Syria, to be achieved as soon as possible.” The Arab states would then normalize relations with Israel, and decades of conflict in the Middle East would end.

The Roadmap would be cited thousands of times in later years, even after its timeline had long passed. What did it actually contribute? To Hadley,

The Roadmap was useful because it was concrete. It starts the notion that comes to fruition in Annapolis – that in order to have credible negotiations with Israelis and Palestinians, you need to have credible progress: Palestinians need to see their life getting better; Israelis need to see their lives getting more secure. That's a principle of the Roadmap. The second principle of the Roadmap, as interpreted by the Israelis, is that there will never be a state born of terror and if you don't have progress and cooperation on terror, you won't get the state. That also is an implicit principle of the Roadmap.
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No terror, visible progress for both sides: that was Hadley's view. But Sharon took a different view all along. In a later speech he described it this way:

The Roadmap is a clear and reasonable plan, and it is therefore possible and imperative to implement it. The concept behind this plan is that only security will lead to peace. And in that sequence. Without the achievement of full security – within the framework of which terror organizations will be dismantled – it will not be possible to achieve genuine peace, a peace for generations. This is the essence of the Roadmap. The opposite perception, according to which the very signing of a peace agreement will produce security out of thin air, has already been tried in the past and failed miserably. And such will be the fate of any other plan which promotes this concept. These plans deceive the public and create false hope. There will be no peace before the eradication of terror. The government under my leadership will not compromise on the realization of all phases of the Roadmap. It is incumbent upon the Palestinians to uproot the terrorist groups and to create a law-abiding society which fights against violence and incitement. Peace and terror cannot coexist. The world is currently united in its unequivocal demand from the Palestinians to act toward the cessation of terrorism and the implementation of reforms. Only a transformation of the Palestinian Authority into a different authority will enable progress in the political process. The Palestinians must fulfill their obligations. A full and complete implementation will – at the end of the process – lead to peace and tranquility.
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According to Sharon's interpretation of the Roadmap, the Israeli role largely disappears; the elimination of terror and indeed of Arafat by the Palestinians comes first and is a prerequisite for any Israel action. This Israeli view of the Roadmap was probably inevitable given the continuing terrorist attacks. During the summer of 2002, suicide bombings had recommenced: nine were killed on July 16 and three more on July 17. On July 31, a bombing at the Hebrew University cafeteria killed 7 and injured 85 students. On August 4, 9 were killed and 50 injured in a bus bombing in northern Israel, and on the same day 2 were killed and 16 wounded by a shooting attack at the Damascus Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem. There were smaller attacks (and other attacks failed or were halted by police) each week in August, and then another bus bombing, this time in the center of Tel Aviv, killed 6 and injured 70 on September 19. Israel responded throughout the summer and early fall with attacks on
terrorists and on Arafat's infrastructure; the IDF surrounded the Muqata again on September 20 and destroyed more buildings there, withdrawing after 10 days. The next large terrorist attack came on October 21, when 14 were killed and 50 injured in yet another bus bombing. On November 15, 12 were killed and 15 injured in a shooting attack on Sabbath worshippers in Hebron. Six days later came another bus bombing in Jerusalem, this time killing 11 and wounding 50.

In the fall of 2002, as the Roadmap was drafted and its text put in final form and then leaked, Israel responded not with official comments but with a request for postponement. At the end of October, Sharon's coalition collapsed when the Labor Party withdrew – in a fight over the budget, not over the Roadmap or security issues. Sharon then argued that making the Roadmap an issue in the Israeli elections would kill it. It would become a political football, with politicians outbidding each other to denounce it and demanding that he and others do so. Without much contentious debate, the Bush administration and the Quartet agreed to postpone the release of the text. On November 5, Sharon announced that new elections would be held in January or early in February 2003. On November 14 the
New York Times
published a draft of the Roadmap (dated October 15), but the text remained “unofficial.” The Roadmap was in suspension until Israel had a new government.

Sharon kept faith with President Bush: He did not criticize the Roadmap and indeed ended the year with a conditional endorsement of Bush's goal – establishment of a Palestinian state. In a speech on December 4 to the Herzliya Conference (an annual conference on security attended by many American and Israeli officials and former officials), Sharon described a very tough version of the Roadmap, based squarely on the June 24 speech, including its rejection of Arafat and
demands for Palestinian reform. Sharon had hard words for Arafat, and for Israeli rivals of the left and right whom he accused of unrealistic assessments of where Israel's interests lay. But the bottom line was that a Palestinian state was acceptable – and this in a speech delivered during an election campaign.

First, here is what Sharon said about Arafat:

Twenty-seven months ago the Palestinian Authority commenced a campaign of terror against the State of Israel. This campaign of terror was not coincidental; it was meticulously planned and prepared by the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority.…The achievement of true coexistence must be carried out, first and foremost, by the replacement of the Palestinian leadership which has lied and disappointed, with different leadership which can – and more importantly – is willing to achieve real peace with the State of Israel. Unfortunately, there remain a few in Israel who believe that Arafat is still relevant. However, the U.S. Administration – with the world following in its footsteps – has already accepted our unequivocal position that no progress will be possible with Arafat as the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority. This man is not – and never will be – a partner to peace. He does not want peace.…The reconstruction of a Palestinian government should commence with governmental reforms which will ultimately lead to the establishment of a new, honest and peace-seeking administration,
the removal of Arafat from his command of power and sources of financing, and from the decision-making process, and his relegation to a symbolic role.

Given this accusation that Arafat was behind the murders of so many Israelis, it is remarkable that Sharon was not calling for him to be sent into exile once again, much less for his incarceration. Instead, this was a “Hirohito strategy” – stay in place but with a symbolic role only, as power is given to others.

Then came Sharon's endorsement of the Bush vision for the Middle East and of Bush as well:

On June 24th this year, President Bush presented his plan for a true solution to our conflict with the Palestinians. The peace plan outlined in the President's speech is a reasonable, pragmatic and practicable one, which offers a real opportunity to achieve an agreement. We have accepted in principle the President's plan and the sequence presented therein.

Sharon then presented his understanding of the Roadmap
, emphasizing Palestinian responsibilities:

The U.S. Administration has understood and agreed that the only way to achieve a true peace agreement with the Palestinians is progress in phases, with the first phase being a complete cessation of terror.…Only after a cessation of terror – and this is already agreed by most world leaders – will the commencement of peace negotiations between the parties be possible.…The American plan defines the parties’ progress according to phases. The transition from one phase to the next will not be on the basis of a pre-determined timetable – which would have resulted in a build-up of heavy pressure on Israel towards the end of one phase and approaching the next phase. Rather, progress is determined on the basis of performance – only once a specific phase has been implemented, will progress into the next phase be possible. On the basis of lessons learned from past agreements, it is clear to all that Israel can no longer be expected to make political concessions until there is proven calm and Palestinian governmental reforms.…[T]he achievement of true and genuine coexistence must be a pre-condition to any discussion on political arrangements.
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Later the Israelis would rely heavily on the phrase “in the sequence of the Roadmap,” insisting – even after Sharon was long gone from government – that the phrase be repeated by American officials. The sequence was first an end to terror, then Palestinian reform and the departure from power of Arafat, and only then the negotiations that would lead to Palestinian statehood. The Israelis said they would not talk and fight at the same time, and they relied on the Roadmap in refusing to do so.

In this December 2002 speech, Sharon specified that Arafat would no longer be the head of the Palestinian executive branch, and the security organizations (“the majority of which,” Sharon noted, “are in fact involved in terror”) would be dismantled and replaced with new organizations under an empowered minister of the interior, over whom Arafat would have no control. A new minister of finance would also be appointed, “taking the financial system out of Arafat's hands.” A reformed judicial system would punish terrorists. After that, and only after that, should Palestinian elections take place:

The elections in the Palestinian Authority should be held only at the conclusion of the reform process and after proper governmental regulations have been internalized. The goal is that these will be true elections – free, liberated and democratic.

But Sharon made clear his decision to go forward:

The second phase of President Bush's sequence proposes the establishment of a Palestinian state.…As I have promised in the past, President Bush's sequence will be discussed and approved by the National Unity Government which I intend to establish after the elections.…I have said it before, and will say it again today: Israel is prepared to make painful concessions for a true peace.…These decisions are not easy for me, and I cannot deny that I have doubts, reservations and fears; however, I have come to the conclusion that in the present regional and international reality Israel must act with courage to accept the political plan which I described.

On the Palestinian side, on July 12 Arafat had written to Powell to reiterate his commitment to reform. From an American perspective, these were just more Arafat lies, but Arafat was also responding to internal Palestinian pressures to reform. Powell met on August 8 with the PLO peace negotiator Saeb Erekat and
other Palestinian leaders to discuss the reforms and elections that the Roadmap demanded. On September 11, Arafat's entire cabinet resigned; one effect of the Roadmap discussions had been to stir up Palestinian politics, and there was a showdown between Arafat and the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). The
Washington Post
called this incident “the stiffest internal challenge yet to his leadership. The Palestinian Legislative Council, which often has been at odds with Arafat, was only minutes away from a showdown vote against Arafat's cabinet.”
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A no-confidence vote in the PLC was imminent had Arafat not blinked because legislators were refusing to confirm a cabinet full of Arafat cronies renowned for corruption. Moreover, the demands President Bush was making for an end to Arafat's political monopoly and the establishment of a new and more democratic political system were reverberating: “[T]his week's upheaval shows that an increasing number of Palestinian politicians are demanding the creation of prime minister as an elected office,” the
Christian Science Monitor
reported.
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Terms like accountability and separation of powers were now being heard in Ramallah, for Bush had in fact judged the Palestinian political situation more accurately than his supposedly more sophisticated critics.

For Washington, these debates in Ramallah were all positive signs, revealing that there were Palestinians willing to stand up to Arafat and showing that U.S. accusations of his corruption and one-man rule were echoed by many who lived under his thumb – and wanted a government that was decent and democratic. When, after 1967, Palestinians found themselves living with Israeli democracy instead of Jordanian monarchical rule, they began to learn new habits. In fact, Palestinian civic life had taken off under the Israeli occupation, with a vast
array of NGOs formed – in part to criticize the Israelis but also mirroring Israel's contentious civic culture. Arafat's return from exile in Tunis was the end of all that; he crushed civic life and built a satrapy for himself and his equally corrupt cronies.

This mini-rebellion in the summer of 2002 was a sign that Palestinians – at least, some Palestinians – might be tiring of Arafat and
that efforts to marginalize him might have significant internal support. Arafat announced that there would be new elections – parliamentary and presidential – the following winter, on January 20. On October 29, the PLC voted for an interim cabinet that would serve until the forthcoming elections. Yet even at the time, this seemed more like a clever Arafat tactic than a real concession on his part: The Palestinian electoral register was way out of date, new election laws were needed, there was no independent electoral commission, and it was highly uncertain that elections could be held in January. Arafat had simply bought himself more time. Sure enough, on December 22, Arafat announced that the elections were to be postponed indefinitely.