Sharon reaffirms pledge to road map
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herb keinon and jpost staff, THE JERUSALEM POST Sep. 29, 2005--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"There is no other plan besides the road map," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on Thursday a day after key officials declared their support for more unilateral steps.
Sharon, who addressed an economic conference in Tel Aviv, said, "This country is plagued by rumors. Yesterday such a rumor began circulating, a rumor which emanated from unfounded comments, as if Israel was examining other plans."
"Israel is not and will not examine any other plan; there is only one plan – the road map. It is the best plan for the future of Israel," Sharon emphasized.
According to the prime minister, "One ambassador after another approached the Prime Minister's Office to determine if the rumor was correct, including a very stern appeal from Washington."
On Wednesday, outgoing OC Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Aharon Ze'evi (Farkash) and Eival Gilady, former head of strategic planning in the IDF, came out in favor of further unilateral Israeli steps.
Ze'evi and Gilady's comments, made at a Tel Aviv University symposium, dovetailed with comments Sharon's top political advisor Eyal Arad made Tuesday night at a symposium in Herzliya sponsored by the Reut Institute.
"Disengagement was not a strategic move, despite its importance, but rather a tactical one," Arad said.
He said, however, that if in the future the stalemate with the Palestinians continues, it would be possible for disengagement, in the form of further unilateral acts, to become Israeli strategy.
Talk of increased unilateralism, as opposed to a bilateral approach that would place Palestinian-Israeli negotiations at the center of finding a way out of the conflict, is at odds with comments Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has made on numerous occasions in recent weeks.
Sharon has said repeatedly that the Gaza disengagement was a one-time deal, and there were no plans for further unilateral withdrawals from the West Bank. He has also said more than once that Israel is committed to the road map, which calls for eventual Palestinian-Israeli negotiations to deal with final status issues.
"Israel will determine its borders independently," Arad said. "In the meantime an additional disengagement is not the prime minister's policy. At the present time Israeli policy is the road map, and that is the plan that obligates us."
Sources in the Prime Minister's office said Sharon "believes that the one and only diplomatic policy is the road map." Yet sources close to Sharon admitted that Arad's suggestion was reasonable, and that it was possible Israel would at some point need to execute a unilateral step to establish its permanent borders.
Arad said that the road map had given birth to a new formula that has replaced the traditional "land for peace."
"You, the Palestinians, permanently end your war against Israel, and in return we will recognize your national sovereignty over your territories," he said. "Partial security for partial sovereignty, that is the road map formula, which is essentially an Israeli formula. It talks of concrete reality, and not distant dreams."
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom made clear after meeting Dr. Kim Howells, British Minister of State for the Middle East, that Israel has no intention of taking additional unilateral actions, and wants to begin negotiations with the Palestinians according to the road map, but that could only begin once the Palestinians crack down on terrorism.
Arad described disengagement as a "down payment" on the security-for-a-state formula. "The situation in the international arena today is that the minute we paid this down payment, it was impossible to cancel the deal.
Now the Palestinians must fulfill their end. Whether or not the Israeli move succeeds, faster or slower, depends on the will and ability of the Palestinian side."
Ze'evi, meanwhile, said that as more time passes Israel will need to take more and more unilateral steps "to be responsible for its future and its existence."
Gilady, the former head of the IDF's Strategic Planning Division and the person widely considered to be the architect of both the security fence and the disengagement, two quintessential unilateral steps, said at the Tel Aviv symposium that "there is no chance to continuing with negotiations."
"If we continue to try and adhere to the old strategy of Oslo, we will get the same results; it is doomed to failure. Only unilateral steps can work now. I believe that in the current reality it is only possible to take unilateral moves and initiatives."
Gilady also said the world accepts the idea that Israel can shape the reality and take action against terror on the condition that it preserves the option of a two state solution.
Ze'evi, in his comments, also touched on the situation on the Egyptian-Gaza border, saying that there was information – not completely verified – that al-Qaida took advantage of the chaos on the border just after disengagement to smuggle activists into Gaza.
Turning to Iran, Ze'evi said that the international pressure on Iran had succeeded in pushing back by some two years Iran's nuclear program. "That is a success, and it proved that diplomacy can bring changes," Ze'evi said.
He added, however, that he doesn't think it would be possible in the final analysis to completely stop the Iranian nuclear program.
Ze'evi praised Israel's relationship with the US, but said that Israel should be careful because the nature of this relationship could change in the coming years.
He said he had a meeting a few months ago with former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger who warned Israel "not to get used" to the level of relations between the two countries that exists now, because it was unlikely to continue like this forever.