The roadmap deceit
Monirul Haque, Banani, Dhaka
President Bush's recent statement that it is untenable for Palestinians to live in squalor and occupation and that Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories must stop was hailed as a "significant step forward" to the emergence of a viable, credible Palestinian state. President Bush was clear that peace depends on Israel stopping its confiscation of Palestinian land to build illegal settlements. However, what is monumentally hypocritical of the United States is that it continues to provide the military, and economic, and diplomatic support for more settlements, although the official position has always been opposed to it. The new initiative "road map", a framework leading to the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005, is a document stillborn in both its vagueness and structural flaws that repeats all the problems of prior proposals. It carefully adheres to the Israeli-American understanding of the cause of the current conflict-Palestinian resistance to occupation, rather than the occupation itself. As far as violence is concerned, the spotlight is on the suicide bombings rather than the assassinations, the murder of civilians, the demolition of dwellings and the targeting of international activists and journalists. The Palestinians are required to pledge that they will instantly abandon all vestiges of resistance to Israel's onslaughts on their people, land, houses, roads and public buildings. There are, of course, some reciprocal demands made upon the Israelis. But not too many. Israel is not required to halt building the wall that will confiscate 40% of Palestinian land and 2/3 of all Palestinian water resources, cutting off a future Palestinian state from all its Arab neighbours. The way the Palestinian state will look is largely dependent upon how much more land Israel decides to confiscate between now and 2005. Even though there is a clear final outcome in the Roadmap process-a Palestinian state by 2005 -it will be surrounded on all sides by Israel and there is a great likelihood that, without international intervention between now and 2005, it will be impossible for the Palestinian state to survive.
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