Road Map To Nowhere

The president's "road map to peace," which is blowing up in his face even as I write this, was riddled with defects to begin with. It does not recognize the basic facts of the conflict. It ignores the rule of law. It turns normal human behavior upside down.

The basic facts of the conflict are that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip is illegal. Israel was ordered to withdraw from those territories by the United Nations Security Council in 1967, when Israeli forces in the Six-Day War captured them. There is nothing to negotiate. Israel must simply withdraw.

Another basic fact is that all of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza are illegal. They are a direct violation of the Geneva Convention. They, too, have been condemned by the United Nations.

Another basic fact is that Israel's "annexation" of East Jerusalem is null and void and was so declared long ago by the United Nations.

You will note that all of the international lawbreaking has been done by Israel. The Palestinians are the innocent victims, yet Mr. Bush, in turning normal human behavior upside down, demands that the occupied protect the occupier and the victim negotiate with the criminal. He demands that a weak, impoverished non-state guarantee the security of a regional military superpower, an absurd impossibility.

The proper, moral and legal position of the United States should be that Israel must comply immediately with all U.N. resolutions or face economic sanctions. Of course, it has been the United States that has prevented the United Nations from enforcing any of its resolutions directed against Israel. Violating U.N. resolutions is a cause for sanctions and war only if your name is Saddam Hussein, not Ariel Sharon.

The United States doesn't need any special ambassadors, public-relations programs or propaganda campaigns to repair its miserable image in the Middle East. This blatant, hypocritical double standard vis—vis Israel is the be-all and the end-all of our image problems in the Middle East. It's also the source of most of the terrorism directed at the United States in and from that part of the world.

Moreover, it is immoral in the extreme for the United States to condone the criminal acts of Israel, which include: assassinations of its political opponents; demolition of houses; the uprooting of olive trees and other agricultural products; the sealing off of towns and villages; mass arrests without charges; imposition of curfews; murder of civilians, including children; and confiscation of land and water resources.

President Bush would probably have never announced the road map to peace without the pressure of Great Britain's Tony Blair, but having done it, he apparently counted on Sharon cutting him a little public-relations slack. Sharon's attempted assassination of a Hamas leader shows Bush that he is foolish in the extreme. Sharon's game is to say he accepts the plan — with his 14 reservations — and then sabotage the Palestinian Authority by provoking Hamas and the other extremists. This is the same game he has been playing since he has been in office. Sharon is willing to dismantle a few, mostly uninhabited outposts, but he has no intention of touching the established Jewish settlements. He is, after all, the father of those settlements. He has no intention of allowing any settlement of the Palestinian refugee problem. He has no intention of allowing a viable Palestinian state to exist next to Israel.

Sharon will render President Bush a pathetic, foolish and ridiculous figure for the entire world to see, a man allegedly the leader of the free world who in fact acts like a puppet on a string held by Sharon. Bush's only chance to salvage his reputation will be to stand up to Sharon and the Israeli lobby.

I personally don't think he has the guts to do it, but we shall see. Ending the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands is the only way the president can hope to win his war on terrorism. We shall see just how much he values American national security.