Stuck in the Tight Sequentiality of the Roadmap

Condoleezza Rice, speaking to reporters on January 11, 2008:

[T]he reason that we haven’t really been able to move forward on the peace process for a number of years is that we were stuck in the sequentiality of the road map. So you had to do the first phase of the road map before you moved on to the third phase of the road map, which was the actual negotiations of final status.

What Annapolis did was to break that tight sequentiality and to say, you can do these in parallel — you can do road map obligations and negotiation for the final status in parallel.

When the peace treaty is done, it will be subject to people having fulfilled their road map obligations in phase one, but you can see how if you’re waiting to fulfill the first phase road map obligations you would actually not get to the negotiations of the peace treaty. So that’s why Annapolis broke that tight sequence.

Who knew it was the Road Map that was the obstacle to peace? The Performance-Based Road Map.

From the opening paragraphs of the “Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict:”

[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.

Israel, obligated under Phase I only to “freeze” settlement activity and dismantle post-March 2001 “outposts,” instead dismantled 25 settlements in their entirety in Gaza and the West Bank, and withdrew from all of Gaza.

The Palestinians, obligated under Phase I to dismantle terrorist organizations and their infrastructure, instead elected their premier terrorist organization to control their government, after the Israeli dismantlement and withdrawal, in elections sponsored by the State Department — making it impossible for the Palestinians to comply with Phase I.

So the State Department decided that the “tight sequentiality” of its own plan was the problem.