A Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

A Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict : President George W. Bush’s attempt at “Peace” Allison Brown Modern Middle East Dr. Ward March 13, 2021 Commonly known as the “Roadmap for Peace”,P ter hfeormance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict was released in April 2003. The document set a series of benchmarks designed to move Israelis and Palestinians over three years to establish a Palestinian state that would peacefully coexist alongside Israel. The roadmap was inspired by President George W. Bush’s address in June 2002 where he called for reform in the shape of a two-state solution. President Bush established that the US “ … will support the creation of a Palestinian state whose borders and certain aspects of its sovereignty will be provisional until resolved as part of a final settlement in the Middle East”1 concluding that the norm in the Middle East cannot continue, “ … it is untenable for Israeli citizens to live in terror. It is untenable for Palestinians to live in squalor and occu2p.ation” Following his speech with a clear vision of two states existing peacefully together, the US Department of State under Secretary Colin Powell and Foreign Service Officer Donald Blomedrafted drafted the roadmap over six months. The roadmap was presented to the Quartet— the United States, European Union, Russia, and United Nations— and was readily approved. However, during this process a key voice was absent, that of the Palestinians and Israelis. Although they were consulted by the US and Quartet, neither Jewish nor Arab representation directly took part in the plan’s cre3 ation. The roadmap comprises three phases, each with their own objectives and benchmarks to determine when the plan would move forward: (1) Allay Israeli-Palestinian violence and contention by freezing Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, reforming the Palestinian Government (Palestinian Authority), and easing Israeli security forces on the 3.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. (2) The creation of a provisional Palestinian state as a nascent democracy with temporary borders by ensuring free and fair Palestinian elections as a harbinger for a democratic state, Arab states reinstating pre-Intifada links to Israel regarding trade and cooperation with the support of the Quartet. (3) Legitimize and hold final negotiations by establishing the permanent borders on the 1 new Palestinian state, determining the status and borders of Jerusalem, and establish international recognition for the two separates states of Palestine and Israel. President Bush’s predecessor, President Clinton, in the years previous attempted to instate his own take on an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, starting with the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization signed in 1993 at the White House, with Palestine Chairperson Yasir Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shaking hands and later in that year prematurely accepting the Nobel Peace Pr4i.ze Although the Accords would fall short and the agreement would collapse in 2000, the document was essential in laying out policy framework that would guide future peace negotiation5s. Unlike President Bush’s Roadmap, the Oslo Accords worked with both Palestinian and Israeli representatives with the US itself not playing an active role in negotiations, which in part, contributed to the Accords’ initial succe6ss , although the majority of Palestinians were vehemently opposed to a plan which didn’t end with final Palestinian settlement. Similar to the 2003 Roadmap, the Oslo Accords called for Israel to withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank (and Jericho) but did not endorse permanent Palestinian settlement. Unlike the 2003 Roadmap however, Oslo I only granted five years of limited autonomy for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and did not address the question of Jerusalem, unlike the 2003 Roadmap which planned to address the paramount city. The 2003 Roadmap— just like the Oslo Accords eventually would— did not last with Palestinians and Israelis reaching a deadlock early in Phase I after a three-month ceasefire. By the end of 2003, the Palestinian Authority had not prevented Palestinian terrorism, and Israel had neither withdrawn from Palestinian areas occupied since September 28, 2000, nor frozen settlement e7xp . Tahnesion requirements of Phase I were not fulfilled, and the plan halted. Matters in the region only grew more complicated with the second-Intifada, characterized by mutual Palestinian and Israeli violence, and the 2 desire to dismantle Palestinian leadership. Regardless of the 2003 Peace Plan Roadmap’s failure, it was a crucial step into reconciliation after the Oslo Accords and a step into future peace talks for Israelis and Palestinians. When President Bush left office in 2009 the main concerns remained unsolved, including the permanent status of occupied territories in the West bank, ongoing expansion of Israeli settlements, an exponential growth in Palestinian terrorism, and the establishment of permeant Israeli borders. President Obama would acquire these issues and again begin the development of his own Middle East peace plan building on the work of his predecessors with a hope to achieve the highly sought after “peace”. 3