A divided Israeli cabinet reluctantly bowed to White House pressure yesterday and voted to accept the US-led ”road map” to an independent Palestinian state within three years. But Ariel Sharon’s government attached opt-out clauses and demands which reinforced Palestinian fears that Israel was seeking to buy time not peace.
Washington praised the vote as an ”important step forward” and hinted that it might open the way for President George Bush to call a summit of Israeli, Palestinian and Arab leaders next week.
Palestinian officials also welcomed the cabinet’s endorsement of the road map. But they said the process would go nowhere if the US bowed to Israeli demands to amend the three-stage plan envisaging a Palestinian state by 2005.
”It was an important, positive step,” said the Palestinian information minister, Nabil Amr. ”But the Israelis must implement their obligations without preconditions and without any changes.
”We hope Sharon will go ahead in this direction, to be serious and implement all stages of the road map.”
Hamas dismissed the vote as a game by the Israelis, ”aimed at deepening the roots of occupation”.
Sharon told his cabinet during the six-hour meeting that he was not happy with the road map, but it was ”the best alternative available”.
He sought to persuade ministers that drawing down the conflict would do much to alleviate the worst economic crisis in Israel in decades.
But almost half the cabinet voted against the plan or abstained, even though they were asked only to approve ”steps required by the road map” rather than endorsing the document itself or the final goal of a Palestinian state.
Three of those opposing the scheme were members of Sharon’s own party, including Uzi Landau, who called the road map ”a recipe for terror” and Washington’s reassurances a ”sugar-coated cyanide pill”.
The finance minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, declined to vote. The defence minister, Shaul Mofaz, said he opposed the road map but voted for it as part of a ”range of understandings with the US”.
Two far-right parties in the government, the National Union and the National Religious party, portrayed the plan as a serious threat to Israel’s security.
The vote was held under US pressure, after the White House and Israel hammered out a diplomatic formula last week in which Washington agreed to take account of Israeli objections to the road map, among other things related to the fate of Jewish settlements, the timetable for implementation and the Palestinian leadership’s obligations to curb ”terrorism”.
Separately, the Israelis also question whether a commitment to a Palestinian state is the same as an independent country. The cabinet ruled out any return of Palestinian refugees or their descendants — thought to number hundreds of thousands — to Israel, even though the issue is technically supposed to be negotiated as part of the road map.
”The government further clarifies that, both during and subsequent to the political process, the resolution of the issue of the refugees will not include their entry into or settlement within the state of Israel,” the cabinet said.
Sharon has said Israel’s 14 objections are a ”red line” that cannot be crossed, and the cabinet vote yesterday included a condition that the changes demanded ”will be implemented in full during the implementation phase of the road map”.
Amr, the Palestinian information minister, said his side had received assurances from the Americans that there would be no changes to the outline plan for peace. ”We have accurate assurances that there will be no amendments. If the Israelis try to use that as an excuse to back out, we must see how the Americans will react.”
Palestinian officials noted that the Israeli prime minister and most of his ministers only supported implementing the road map under US pressure.
The new Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, better known as Abu Mazen, told Egyptian television that he would not accept changes to the road map demanded by the Israelis. ”We do not accept any buts. The road map must be accepted as it is, from A to Z, with all its conditions and all its stages, and any changes to the text will definitely not be accepted,” he said.
The cabinet’s endorsement of the plan could open the way to a summit between Bush, the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers, and regional leaders in Egypt or Jordan, next week.
The US has proposed drawing in the other members of the Quartet of powers — Russia, the EU and the UN — which had a hand in the road map. But Sharon has said that he does not want them present. – Guardian Unlimited Â