Tony Blair and Ariel Sharon held a lengthy joint press conference yesterday. Here is an excerpt from Blair’s remarks:
[A]t the press conference that I then did with President Bush a few weeks ago, we set out five stages which could lead us to a situation where it was once again possible to talk of a genuine process for peace here.
[W]e set out an overall vision, we have the election of the Palestinian President, we have . . . a viable plan for the Palestinian side in terms of politics, the economy, security. And then what we can do is have the disengagement and after that, provided there is a complete and total end to the terrorism that has disfigured so much of what has happened in this area, we can then get back into the road map . . .
But viability [of a Palestinian state] cannot just be about territory, it also has to be about proper democratic institutions, about proper security and proper use of the economy. In other words, the viability has to be that of a state that is democratic, that is not giving any succour or help to terrorism, and that uses the help that is given from the outside in a proper and transparent way. . . .
In respect of terrorism, let me make one thing very clear. There is not going to be any successful negotiation or peace without an end to terrorism. The world has changed in these past few years . . . And all of us now in the world today are fighting terrorism. In different ways we are fighting it in Britain with radical groups that want to cause terrorist acts in our country, we are fighting it in Iraq now where the people in Iraq want democracy, the terrorists are trying to stop them. . . .
Let me make one thing very clear to you, and I think this in a sense perhaps encapsulates also the message I have given here and will give to the Palestinians as well, I am not interested in having a conference or a meeting that just makes a point . . . I don’t want to hold it simply so I can say I have held a meeting about the Middle East, there have been enough meetings and discussions and talk about the Middle East, I am holding it because I think there is one big missing piece of this . . .
The missing bit that I think we can help on is this, that unless there is a genuine viable partner in terms of the institutions of democracy, the institutions necessary for proper economic working and the measures necessary on security to give Israel the confidence that it requires, unless that is in place we are never going to get back into the road map, and then it becomes an academic discussion.
Natan Sharansky could not have said it better. (On second thought, he has).
The press conference is worth reading in its entirety. The Palestinian reaction is discussed here.