Condoleezza Rice, speaking at a roundtable with the traveling press in Jerusalem yesterday, after her meeting with Olmert and Abbas, said it is “extremely important” to give the Palestinian people a vision of what their state might be, even though they have yet to begin complying with Phase I of the Road Map, and she added that:
It’s also important that we’ve broken through the idea that the sequence of the roadmap, which is extremely important — sequence is important and it makes sense — but the sequence of the roadmap doesn’t preclude talking about the destination. And for a while, we were stuck in the notion that you couldn’t talk about the destination until you’ve fulfilled all the phases of the roadmap. And I think that was the frustration in the international community broadly and also in the Arab world, and so I think we’ve broken through that.
Where did that “notion” come from — the notion that the “destination” was to be talked about in Phase III, not before the parties performed their obligations in Phases I and II?
Perhaps it was the “Road Map” itself — which is actually a short title for “A Performance Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.” Indeed, it could not have been clearer than the very first page of the “performance-based” plan:
[A]s a performance-based plan, progress will require and depend upon the good faith efforts of the parties, and their compliance with each of the obligations outlined below. Should the parties perform their obligations rapidly, progress within and through the phases may come sooner than indicated in the plan. Non-compliance with obligations will impede progress.
The Secretary of State has “broken through” the idea that progress depends on compliance with Phase I, or that non-compliance will “impede progress.” That was just a “notion.”
Of course, to a prior Israeli leader, it was a deal.