Todays road map tomorrows road kill

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Background/ Today's road map, tomorrow' s road kill

Special envoy William Burns, who has assumed the long-suffering Dennis Ross's mantle as the Willy Loman of Middle East peacemaking, has a new product in his sample case, a "road map for peace" - but for his tough customers in the Sharon government, the fresher the merchandise, the likelier the possibility that today's road map will become tomorrow's road kill.

If any evidence were needed of the difficulty of Burns' mission, an Islamic Jihad suicide car bombing incinerated an intercity bus Monday, killing 14, many of whom were apparently burned alive, trapped in the wreckage.

Mindful of the Bush administration's concerns that Israeli-Palestinian bloodletting could cost Washington crucial, if tacit, Arab backing for a prospective offensive against Saddam Hussein's regime, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has thus far refrained from the overwhelming military response that has followed mass-casualty terrorism in the past.

But he has been less restrained in voicing reservations about the road map, putting Washington on notice that he is not about to be unilaterally tied to a peace timetable, particularly one that specifies an independent, if provisional, Palestinian state by the end of what will be an Israeli election year.

Speaking in Damascus on Tuesday, envoy Burns condemned the Monday bombing as "reprehensible", saying that it could cost the Palestinians some of the very achievements that the Bush administration has set out as incentives for Palestinian participation in a future, reinvigorated peace process.

"If we are to succeed in ending occupation, building two states and resuming progress toward comprehensive peace it is critically important to stop the violence that has done so much to undermine legitimate Palestinian aspirations," Burns told reporters in the Syrian capital.

"There has been far too much suffering and bloodshed on both sides and both sides have an obligation to make it stop."

The "road map", the handiwork of the U.S., EU, UN, and Russian diplomatic Quartet, was quietly presented to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon during his visit to Washington last week.

According to Ha'aretz diplomatic correspondent Aluf Benn, Israeli "government and defense officials are bitterly critical of the plan," which calls for comprehensive political and security reforms in the Palestinian Authority leading to a Palestinian state with temporary borders by the end of 2003, and a final status agreement by the end of 2005.

Israeli ire has been raised by provisions calling on the Israel to withdraw its forces to pre-intifada lines, dismantle illegal outposts, and cease military operations in PA areas.

The prime minister, in the past a strong opponent of "internationalizing the conflict," had maintained a tense silence on the Quartet-backed plan until the eve of Burns' visit.

Then, with Burns en route and control of Congress hanging in the balance of an election less than two weeks away, Sharon pointedly chose a visiting delegation of U.S. Jews to drop a load of warning-grade verbal smart bombs to pockmark the road map's intended course.

"It's not credible that Israel takes irreversible steps while the other side only makes statements," Sharon declared, calling the road map "problematic".

"There is a danger Israel will face a timetable that only it is required to keep to."

Sharon's wording was a far cry from his explicit declarations of "full acceptance" of Bush's "vision" as set out in a June Rose Garden speech, in which the president delighted Israeli hawks by urging that Yasser Arafat be sidelined for the sake of peace.

"Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership so that a Palestinian state can be born," Bush said in the long-anticipated White House address.

Setting out stiff conditions for such a state, including a constitution and elections by year's end, Bush seemed to echo Sharon in stating that reform of Arafat's Authority "must be more than cosmetic changes or a veiled attempt to preserve the status quo" if the Palestinians are to realize their hopes for a state alongside Israel.

The June 24th speech was long on crowd-pleasing and short on substance, so much so that Yasser Arafat, target of Bush's harshest criticism, applauded it as "a serious effort to push the peace process forward."

Israel's unstinting praise for the speech, meanwhile, has largely ignored Bush's calls to stop building new settler housing, and ultimately pull back to its pre-1967 war borders with the West Bank and Gaza.

Preparing for his talks with Burns Wednesday, Peres said that Israel was closely studying the road map, hinting that the government had reservations over some of its provisions. "We have accepted President Bush's vision," he told Israel Radio. "The road map that was given us is in the realm of a draft. They are expected us to present our comments by December. We are now studying every detail and every point within this map," Peres said.

Cabinet minister Reuven Rivlin, who often speaks for Sharon, said that in any case, the time for a diplomatic solution will only come after terrorism had been eliminated.

Rivlin said discussions of peace plans had not been able to begin "because the Palestinians are a rejectionist front, a front of terror, and therefore we needn't discuss something that is essentially just theoretical."

_{By Bradley Burston, Ha'aretz Correspondent}