INTRODUCTION: WHERE DOES THE ROAD MAP LEAD?
In July, 2000 Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak broke off talks with
Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat at the Camp David summit
hosted by U.S. President Bill Clinton.
This sentence left out that Barak made an offer
and Arafat wouldn't respond.
That September, Ariel Sharon, chairman of the Likud party, made a
provocative visit to the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
Control over this holy site for both Muslims and Jews is contested by
Palestinians and Israelis.
This is a typical anti-semitic remark.
Muslim members of the Israeli parliament can visit the Temple Mount but
you say Jews can't. When Muslims were in charge of the Wailing
wall Jews could not visit the site. Jewish sites in the West Bank
were desecrated. Did you object?
During the indifada Joseph's tomb was desecrated
by Palestinians. Did you object?
The visit implied Israeli sovereignty over all Jerusalem, the eastern
portion of which is considered occupied territory by the international
community. So began the second indifada, or Palestinian uprising.
The 11 western states is considered occupied
territory by some international non-governmental organizations.
Who is the international community that you refer to?
The indifada would have begun without the
Sharon visit. Palestinian schools were indoctrinating children to
hate Israelis and to admire suicide bombers.
As in the first indifada in the late 1980s, the demand is for an end
to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East
Jerusalem -- which has persisted since 1967 -- and acknowledgment of the
Palestinian refugees right to return to the villages from which they
were forced to leave during the 1948 war that established the State of
Israel.
Firstly, how many Palestinians were forced to
leave and how many left at the direction of the Mufti of Jerusalem?
Secondly, do you advocate the Muslim expansion
is only one way? Are you upset that Muslims were driven from Spain
in 1492? Do you feel that non-Muslims should evacuate Lebanon?
Or do you advocate that all conquered people
have the right of return? If you do, do you agree that Jews should
have the right of return to Medina, originally a Jewish city?
Do you advocate the Jews right of return to
Poland, the Ukraine, Iraq?
Or do you believe that the right of return only
extends to Muslims?
In the 33 months since, human death has saturated the region: 816
Israelis and 2,384
Palestinians have been killed.
The quantiy of Palestinians killed came from
the Palestinian Red Crescent. Did the number include the 1,000 it
claimed to have been killed in Genin?
How many Palestinians were killed while
attacking Jews ?
Most of them.
How many Jews were killed while
attacking Palestinians?
Most Jews were killed by
attacking Palestinians.
Here are the links provided by MoveOn.org
CRITIQUE
From the only joint Palestinian-Israeli public policy think-tank in the
world:
"The Road Map is severely lacking in detail. It mentions that the
sides will have to negotiate the permanent status issues such as
borders, Jerusalem, settlements, refugees, etc. but makes almost no
mention of these issues throughout the process in the earlier
phases."
http://www.ipcri.org/files/roadmapgb.html
From the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz:
"According to the facts on the ground, the [Palestinian] 'state'
will apparently be comprised of three enclaves cut off from one another
inside the West Bank -- in addition to the Gazan enclave, and with no
guarantee the settlements inside the enclave will be dismantled. The
'separation fence' has been described as 'temporary,' but it is a wall
with hefty fortifications taking up a lot of land, and it has already
scarred the Tul Karm-Qalqiliyah area, the most prosperous Palestinian
farmland, thus sabotaging one of the cornerstones of Palestinian
economic security."
http://www.moveon.org/r?456
From The Nation:
"For in failing to focus on the Israeli occupation of the West
Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, about to enter its 37th year, and
on Israeli settlements, which underpin that occupation, the Road Map
misses an opportunity to end this conflict. Instead, it concentrates on
Palestinian violence and how to combat it -- as if it came out of
nowhere, and as if, were it to be halted, the situation of occupation
and settlement would be normal."
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030609&s=khalidi
------------------------------
FACTS ON THE GROUND: TERRORISM
Human Rights Watch condemns suicide bombing attacks against Israeli
civilians as war crimes and crimes against humanity.
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/isrl-pa/
Gush Shalom, an Israeli peace group, on the Rantisi assassination
attempt.
http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/article254.html
An Israeli parliament member and 25 former Israeli generals have
raised questions about the timing of Sharon's assassination attempt.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0612-05.htm
Senator Dick Lugar (R-Indiana), chairman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, has raised the possibility of U.S. military
intervention "to root out the terrorism that is at the heart of the
problem."
http://www.moveon.org/r?453
We are doing so well in Iraq that Lugar wants US
troops at risk in the West Bank and Gaza. US troops would have
zero effectiveness preventing bomb attacks against Israel, but would
interfer with Israeli defense.
------------------------------
FACTS ON THE GROUND: OUTPOSTS AND SETTLEMENTS
From the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz:
"Don't make do with the outposts. There are more than 100 of them,
and about 60 went up in Sharon's days. If he takes down 7-10 he hasn't
done a thing. Many were put up just to pull them out, like a goat from a
crowded corral."
http://www.moveon.org/r?454
From The Nation:
"A recent poll by Israel's Jaffee Institute for Strategic Studies
shows that 56 percent of Israelis -- up from 48 percent last year --
would 'support a unilateral withdrawal from the territories in the
context of a peace accord, even if that meant ceding all settlements.'
Here is the signpost for a realistic road map that could be charted by
the Bush Administration."
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030630&s=carey
------------------------------
FACTS ON THE GROUND: THE SEPARATION WALL
Gush Shalom reports that the separation wall Israel is constructing in
the West Bank is not at all along the internationally recognized 1967
"green line" border. The wall, officially being built for
security, annexes illegal settlements into Israel.
http://www.gush-shalom.org/thewall/
A troubling report on the 25-foot tall separation wall from Israeli
newspaper Yediot Ahronot describes how the system of barbed
concrete walls and armed watchtowers will imprison hundreds of thousands
of Palestinians without access to their agricultural lands.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1546.shtml
Note: electronic Indifada
The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the
Environment on legal efforts to block the wall.
http://www.lawsociety.org/Press/Preleases/2002/oct/oct15e.html
------------------------------
CONCLUSION: ALTERNATIVE MAPS
Eyad El Sarraj is the director of the Gaza Community Mental Health
Program in Gaza City. His vision for peace involves addressing the
issues of mistrust and despair in order to cease violence.
http://www.bitterlemons.org/previous/bl260503ed20.html#is2
Yakov M. Rabkin is a professor of history at the University of
Montreal. He describes how Israel-Palestine could become neither a
Jewish state, nor an Arab state, but a state of all its citizens.
http://www.moveon.org/r?455
------------------------------
CREDITS
Research team:
Leah Appet, Lisa Bhungalia, Lita Epstein, Russ Juskalian, Janelle Miau,
Anugraha Palan, Christina Schofield, Ryan Senser, and Ora Szekely.
Editing team:
David Taub Bancroft, Madlyn Bynum, Melinda Coyle, Nancy Evans, Eileen
Gillan, Judy Green, Mary Anne Henry, Vicki Nikolaidis, Rebecca Sulock,
and Rita Weinstein.
------------------------------
Are you trying to drive Jewish democrats to the
GOP? Your article is an insult to the intelligence. It is
propaganda.
Clifford Lazar