Roadmap To Nowhere

I t has long been understood that one of the major effects of propaganda is to divest political terms of their substantive meaning. One of the best examples of this effect is the benign-sounding phrase “the peace process.” In the context of the illegal Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza strip it might seem more appropriate to come up with another term—perhaps the “occupation process” or the “diversion process” might be more apt. 

The latest stage in this process is the so-called Roadmap to Peace, which announces its goal of a “final and comprehensive settlement of the Israel-Palestinian conflict by 2005.” 

As part of the occupation process the Roadmap is an expression of longstanding Israeli policy towards the Occupied Territories that aims to ensure Israeli control over the land and resources of the territories while transferring the expensive job of population control to a collaborationist Palestinian authority. 

Ignoring the illegality of the occupation and the daily suffering and humiliation endured by the Palestinians, the Roadmap re-conceptualizes the conflict as one caused by terrorism. Each of the phases of the agreement places responsibility on the Palestinians to ensure Israel’s security. (There are no reciprocal obligations on the Israelis despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of civilian casualties of the conflict have been Palestinian.) In the first phase, the Palestinians are asked to rebuild the security apparatus of the Palestinian Authority whose role will be to suppress Palestinian resistance (in all forms, it seems, despite the legality of armed resistance to an occupying power). As in the past, the PA will be supervised by the CIA, with training by the Jordanian and Egyptian security forces (who know some- thing about repressing discontented populations). 

The Roadmap does not require the dismantling of Israeli settlements despite their illegality under Article 4 of the Geneva Conventions, but, instead, calls for a settlement freeze and the dismantling of recently built outposts that will have no effect on the major areas of illegal settlements, which already create a crippling discontinuity between Palestinian areas, destroying the viability of a Palestinian state. 

The second phase of the Roadmap calls for the creation of “an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders and attributes of sovereignty.” There is no explanation of what is meant by “attributes of sovereignty,” but, given past Israeli policy, it is likely to mean that the Palestinian Authority will gain some control over civil matters within the territories while Israel retains control over the economy, resources, and overarching security matters. In the words of Labor dove Yitzhak Rabin when talking about the Roadmap’s predecessor, the Oslo Accords, this will be “a Palestinian entity, less than a state that runs the life of Pales- tinians.” 

As with Oslo, the Roadmap does not call for international monitoring of the territories. Following the signing of the Oslo Accords the Israeli Labor government launched a massive settlement expansion program—doubling the number of Israeli settlers living in the West Bank and Gaza between 1994 and 2000. In the absence of effective monitoring we can expect similar policies from the Israeli government this time around in keeping with the understanding of the efficacy of the appearance of dip- lomacy while creating “facts on the ground.” 

The continued existence of the illegal settlements means that the proposed Palestinian state will be comprised of three enclaves cut off from one another inside the West Bank, (in addition to the Gaza strip). The southern enclave will consist of the Hebron-Bethlehem area, which will be cut off from the central enclave of the Ramallah area by the settlements and the connecting settler roads. The Ramallah enclave will, in turn, be cut off from the northern enclave of Jenin and Nablus by the massive settlement bloc of Ariel-El-Shiloh.  As well as failing to deal with the settlements and the right of return for Palestinian refugees, the Roadmap makes no mention of the 25-foot-high “separation” wall being built on stolen Palestinian land that will entirely surround the three Palestinian enclaves as well as annexing more than 300,000 Israeli settlers into Israel proper. 

Thankfully, support for such a plan is very slim among Palestinians. (The current Intifada was a reaction to the humiliating terms of the Oslo Accords, which the Roadmap effectively reiterates.) Abu Mazen, the new Palestinian prime minister and preferred negotiating partner of Israel, the U.S., and the EU has a popularity rating of about 3 percent among Palestinians, according to recent polls. His beachside mansion in Gaza has been repeatedly attacked by Palestinian demonstrators. The Roadmap has been rejected by a significant section of Fatah along with the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), as well as Islamic Jihad and Hamas. 

While Palestinian opposition is strong, there is a great deal of support for the Roadmap in the United States, the EU countries, and many Israeli politicians who recognize it as a way of crushing the popular Intifada in the name of “the peace process.” It remains to be seen whether the Palestinian people will one day come to accept the “freedom” of an autonomous con- centration camp.