Hopes for 'Road Map' Tempered by History
U.S. Role in Plan Seen as Crucial
By Glenn Frankel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 3, 2003; Page A15
JERUSALEM, June 2 -- Sivan Mahtabi, a 22-year-old waitress, is starkly qualified to talk about war and peace.
Twenty-one months ago, on her day off, a Palestinian suicide bomber walked into the Sbarro pizzeria where she worked and killed 15 people, including one of her best friends, the assistant manager. Now she works at Moment -- a cafe two blocks from the prime minister's office -- the scene of another suicide bombing a year ago March that killed 11.
"I hope Bush can do something, but I don't think so -- not in the near future," said Mahtabi, taking a break as the lunch crowd began to thin out. But she said she refused to surrender hope. "Most Israelis want peace, and most Palestinians want peace, and maybe someday -- "
Her mixed verdict was echoed today by many here, from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office to analysts and critics and some Palestinians as well, as they pondered the new U.S.-led peace initiative and Wednesday's summit in Aqaba, Jordan, among President Bush, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and Sharon. After nearly three years of violence and civil unrest, many Israelis seem weary, unexcited and unwilling to risk having their hopes dashed once again, yet they also cling to the possibility that this time things may be different.
A poll in today's Haaretz newspaper summed up the mood: 59 percent of those surveyed favored the proposal known as the "road map," with 39 percent opposed. But 66 percent said they did not believe the plan -- developed by the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia -- would achieve its goal of a final resolution of the conflict in 2005.
"Israel has a built-in willingness to test opportunities for peace," said Dore Gold, an adviser to Sharon. "People are willing to give it a try, but at the same time they are very sober and jaded."
Sharon has sown hope, fear and confusion with a series of actions and enigmatic statements that have surprised his most avid supporters and his opponents. A week ago, he rammed through his cabinet -- perhaps the most hawkish in Israel's history -- a resolution supporting the goals of the road map, including the eventual creation of a Palestinian state. The following day, he told lawmakers of his Likud Party that Israelis and Palestinians were suffering politically and economically from what he called Israel's "occupation" of the West Bank and Gaza Strip -- using the word five times.
In this country's politically charged lexicon, "occupation" has always been a word used by Israeli doves and Palestinians -- and rejected by those on the right who consider the land conquered during the 1967 war to be "liberated" or, at most, "disputed." Sharon followed up the next day by asserting he had been misunderstood. "I meant people and not territory," he was quoted as saying, only further confusing the matter for many.
This week Sharon has told his cabinet that Israel must be willing to dismantle some unauthorized Jewish settlements -- known as outposts -- in the territories. Israeli officials have leaked portions of the speech he reportedly will give at Aqaba, in which he is expected to reaffirm his support for a Palestinian state and his commitment to work with Abbas's government.
These statements, from a prime minister who has been the grand architect and guardian of Israel's settlement movement for more than two decades, have triggered anger among leaders of the 225,000 settlers. "Anyone who dreams of evacuating settlements is starting a civil war," Transportation Minister Avigdor Lieberman told reporters over the weekend.
Sharon has treated such outbursts with disdain. "Moderate your tone and refrain from accusations and denunciations," he lectured his cabinet on Sunday, according to his official spokesman. "Not only is this tension not helpful, it is harmful."
But even while Sharon was making these verbal concessions, the Housing Ministry was reporting that work would begin on 2,000 more housing units in the territories over the next few months, with nearly 10,000 more awaiting approval. Most of them are in settlements close to the Green Line, which separates the West Bank and Gaza from Israel proper -- property that Israel intends to claim in any eventual peace deal.
Israel also announced that restrictions would be eased on Palestinian travel in the West Bank and Gaza starting Sunday. But there was little sign of it at the Kalandia military checkpoint north of Jerusalem, where motorists waited for three hours or more to be checked and allowed to pass from the West Bank into the city. "This is nothing new," said Mahmoud Musleh, a lawyer who walked across the checkpoint because he could not take his car.
"They say they're going to ease the measures, but so far all I see is a tightening," he said.
In another gesture before the summit, Israel released a prominent Palestinian prisoner late today, news agencies reported. Tayseer Khaled, a leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization's executive committee, was freed from an Israeli jail in the West Bank, Palestinian and Israeli sources said.
Some analysts contend there is no mystery to his statements. Yosef Alpher, a defense analyst and former intelligence officer, said Sharon learned from Israel's abortive invasion of Lebanon in 1982, when he was defense minister, that he needs to keep a majority of Israelis behind him and avoid a confrontation with the United States.
"Sharon is in full control of his rhetoric," said Alpher, who added that the prime minister knew his statements would be popular with mainstream Israelis and the Bush administration. "He still firmly believes we must control the territories for our own ultimate security. He's playing a waiting game."
More important than what Sharon says or believes, Alpher contends, is how far Bush is willing to press both sides to make and honor commitments based on the road map. For Israel, it means freezing settlements, easing travel and other restrictions on Palestinians, and pulling back the army from West Bank and Gaza population centers. For the Palestinians, it means a cessation of violence and the dismantling of the radical movements behind attacks on Israeli civilians. More than 2,000 Palestinians and 780 Israelis have died in 32 months of conflict.
"What's infusing a sense of optimism more than anything is Bush's rhetoric and the sense of just how determined he is," Alpher said. "Washington is a far more important decision-making place than Jerusalem and Ramallah," where the Palestinian Authority is headquartered in the West Bank.
Palestinian moderates say they believe as well that the U.S. role is crucial. They say Israelis and Palestinians have proved incapable of making peace and need a big stick from Washington. "I think we have a chance," said Saeb Erekat, a former Palestinian negotiator.
"President Bush will tell Israelis and Palestinians: 'Here are your clear-cut obligations. None needs to be negotiated, none even be discussed. We're going to watch and see which side implements and which side doesn't.' I think Sharon understands the message," Erekat said.
But Gold, the Sharon adviser, says the ultimate success or failure depends on the two sides living up to their commitments. A new spate of Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians, for example, could easily set back the process for weeks or even months. "There's a tendency to put the whole onus on Washington," Gold said. "But what ultimately determines where this goes is reality on the ground."
Such considerations seemed far away from the Moment cafe this afternoon, where businessmen sat around the bar, and couples and a mother with four children ate vegetarian meals while "The Best of Leonard Cohen" played softly in the background.
But out front, a security guard armed with a handgun checked every handbag before allowing its owner to enter. And at a corner table, Uzi Dayan, Sharon's former national security adviser and a reserve major general, took a moment from nursing a Diet Coke to check off all the reasons why the road map is most likely doomed. In essence, Dayan said, what Sharon is prepared to offer in terms of territorial concessions is far less than the Palestinians already rejected at Camp David talks in July 2000.
Still, he felt obliged to add, "Let's give it its best chance to succeed." After all, he said, "cease-fire is better than crossfire."
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