The End of the Road Map

Tony Blair, at his joint press conference on Monday with Ehud Olmert, had a moment of passion in answer to one of the questions: 

I have been involved in this now for many years, and I just want to say this thing to you.  When I first said to President Bush when he came to office, and I said to him you have to get behind the idea of a two state solution.  Now an American President had not yet called for an independent viable Palestinian state and I said you have got to do this, you have got to let people know this is what you want to see as the eventual outcome.  Now I am not saying that it was because of what I was saying, or what anyone else was saying, but the President did that.  It was a big step forward, it was the first time an American President said it.  And then we conceived of the idea of the road map and that was exactly what it was supposed to be, a road map into a two state solution, step, by step, by step, whether it was on security, or withdrawal from territory, or whatever it was, a plan to get us from where we were to where we wanted to be — namely the two state solution.

And I remember again conversation after conversation, we have got to get everyone behind the road map.

Back in April 2003, Mahmoud Abbas, in his first speech as the Palestinian prime minister, argued that any deviation from the road map was improper:

In his speech, Abbas affirmed his acceptance of the road map, but rejected changes by Israel, saying:   "The road map must be implemented, not negotiated."

A month later, Abbas was sounding the same theme on Egyptian television:

The new Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, better known as Abu Mazen, told Egyptian television that he would not accept changes to the road map demanded by the Israelis.  "We do not accept any buts. The road map must be accepted as it is, from A to Z, with all its conditions and all its stages, and any changes to the text will definitely not be accepted," he said.

On Monday, in his impassioned statement, Tony Blair emphasized the importance of adherence to the road map:

And the real point about it is this, and I think this is important for the international community to understand — the three conditions that are laid down in order for Israel then to begin that negotiation on a final status settlement . . . each one of them retains a complete logic, not in terms of the position of Israel or the Palestinians, but in terms of the international community:  one, that there should be recognition of Israel’s right to exist, you can’t have a two state solution without such a recognition;  secondly that there should be the renunciation of violence, violence is not going to negotiate this settlement, violence is the obstacle to the settlement, completely consistent with the international community’s position;  and the third thing is that there should be obedience and adherence to the road map, and that is something that I have long sought, that the international community was pressing Israel for, and that agreement is now there.

Ehud Olmert’s plan — if the Palestinians will not recognize Israel’s right to exist, will not renounce violence, and will not adhere to even Phase I of the road map — is to give them 90 percent of the West Bank without any preconditions at all.

In his meetings with George W. Bush, Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac over the last two weeks, Olmert received a consistent message that he cannot expect the international community to recognize the maginot line borders established by a unilateral withdrawal.  So Olmert is developing a new plan:

In light of the international opposition to further unilateral steps by Israel, the government has begun to draft an alternative plan that would essentially convert Olmert’s unilateral convergence plan into a bilateral move carried out in conjunction with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

According to the plan now being drafted by the Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry, Israel would propose to Abbas that they reach an agreement to establish a Palestinian state with provisional borders in Gaza plus about 90 percent of the West Bank. . . .

In this way, Israel hopes to present the convergence plan as an implementation of Phase II of the road map peace plan, thereby acceding to the demands of the United States, Jordan, Egypt and others that Israel resume negotiations with the PA under the road map.

Under this proposal, the parties would proceed to Phase II without waiting for the completion of Phase I, which calls for dismantling the terrorist infrastructure.

The international community is united behind a road map that requires the Palestinians to dismantle their terrorist infrastructure as a condition of even a provisional state, and Olmert plans to “negotiate” the elimination of Phase I of the road map and give them a state without it.

He is very, very tired.