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Doesn't Bush's agreement to allow Israeli
settlements to remain contradict UN resolutions? Nowhere in any articles have I
seen a single reference to how UN resolutions fit into the picture. Has the UN
made any statement on the matter.
Perhaps they are too busy on some new scheme too
legitimise a transition government in Iraq that will be acceptable to the
US.
Interesting that the
Palestinians are scolded about meeting their road map responsibilities at the
same time Bush threw the map out the window..
Cheers, Ken Hanly
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2004 10:41
AM
Subject: Bush Rips up the Road Map
Bush Rips up the Road Map
For the Record: 15 April 2004,
Thursday.
The Guardian
By Suzanne Goldenberg
President George
Bush swept aside decades of diplomatic tradition in the Middle East yesterday,
saying it was "unrealistic" to expect a full Israeli withdrawal from lands
occupied during the 1967 war or the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
In a significant policy shift, Mr Bush relaxed Washington's objections
to Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and attempts by Israel to dictate the
terms of a final settlement with the Palestinians.
He told a joint
press conference with the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, that he was
prepared to bless a plan to dismantle Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip,
while retaining Israeli control over substantial sections of the West Bank.
"These are historic and courageous actions," Mr Bush said about the
Gaza withdrawal plan. "If all parties choose to embrace this moment, they can
open the door to progress and put an end to one of the world's longest-running
conflicts."
The concessions offered yesterday by the White House -
extracted at a time when Mr Bush is desperate to counter the chaos in Iraq
with a foreign policy success - appeared to go further even than Mr Sharon had
dared hope.
Israeli embassy officials said the US had backed a plan
requiring Israel to withdrawal from only four token settlements in the
north-west sector of the West Bank with a total of 500 settlers.
They
said diplomats had prepared four versions of withdrawal proposals, only for
Washington to accept the initial one, which was least generous to the
Palestinians.
The agreement is bound to ignite anger in the Arab
world, especially Mr Bush's rejection of a Palestinian right of return, which
will have a direct impact on countries such as Jordan, Syria and Lebanon which
have substantial populations of refugees.
For many, the right of
refugees, and the descendants of refugees from the 1948 war, to return to what
is now Israel is a sacred tenet.
But Mr Bush appeared to rule out the
prospect of even a limited number of refugees settling in the Jewish state.
"It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair and realistic framework for a
solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status
agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian
state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there rather than Israel," he
said.
Mr Bush appears to have distanced his administration from other
principles that have guided Middle East diplomacy. These are the idea that the
Palestinians and Israelis should arrive at a negotiated settlement - first
promoted by his father, the first President Bush, in the Madrid accords of
1991 - and that when a final settlement emerged Israel would broadly adhere to
UN resolutions and withdraw to its pre-1967 borders.
The president
said the wall being built by Mr Sharon across the West Bank should not be
viewed as a political boundary, and that the eventual delineation of the
borders of an Israeli and a Palestinian state would await final status
negotiations.
But he made it evident that the ground rules had
changed, giving effective sanction to the Jewish settlement blocks that have
been built throughout the West Bank since the 1967 war, and which
traditionally were described by the state department as "obstacles to peace".
"In light of new realities on the ground ... it is unrealistic to
expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and
complete return to the armistice lines of 1949," Mr Bush said.
The twin
moves are likely to cause widespread outrage in the Arab world, which accuses
Mr Bush of neglecting America's role as an honest broker. They could also
reverberate on the Pentagon's attempts to put down the insurrection in Iraq.
But they were welcomed by Tony Blair last night. A Downing Street
statement said the international community, led by the "quartet" mediators -
the US, EU, UN and Russia - must seize the opportunity to inject new life into
the road map peace process. "Israel should now coordinate with the
Palestinians on the detailed arrangements," Mr Blair's statement said.
"The Palestinian Authority must show the political will to make the
withdrawal from Gaza a success and to deliver on their road map
responsibilities, especially regarding security."
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