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Proposed Letter to Your Congressional
Representative on the Road Map and Violence
Dear (place your congressional representative, senator or
editor of local newspaper or manager of TV station here, and edit as you see
fit----make this YOUR letter):
I support the good intentions behind President Bush's Road
Map for peace and deplore the current violence in the Middle East that
followed the signing of the agreement at Aqaba. I am particularly glad that
the U.S. is no longer saying that it is taking a hands-off approach, since
that has only left the murderous status quo in place.
I'm writing to you because I want the Road Map to succeed.
And I believe that you could help if you'd be willing to convey to the
Administration my suggestions on how to overcome the roadblocks to peace
that have emerged in the last few weeks. I'm hoping that you'd introduce a
Congressional resolution or write and circulate a letter to your colleagues
that would contain these two ideas I outline below.
There are two steps that President Bush could take which
would significantly improve the chances for success of the Road Map.
Step One: The Road Map Empowers the Extremists.
As President Bush noted, there are forces on both sides of
the struggle who do not want peace. For example, Hamas and the
fundamentalists in the Palestinian camp realize that peace will necessarily
lead to the acceptance of an Israeli state----an outcome they believe
violates their religious commitments to an Islamic state from the
Mediterranean to the Jordan.
Unfortunately, because the Road Map calls for the
cessation of terror as a prerequisite to any peace negotiations,
fundamentalists on both sides know that in order to pre-empt peace, all they
need to do is perpetrate violence on the other side. Because of this, the
Road Map, as it is currently formulated, guarantees the immediate escalation
of terror and actually rewards violence. Their aim, to stop the peace
process, the Road Map tells them, can only be achieved in one way: they must
plant bombs! That is why there has been a serious escalation of violence
since the signing of the agreement.
Not to put the blame all on the Palestinian side, because
a significant group of Israeli settlers believe that the West Bank has been
given to the Jewish people by God and that allowing its return to
Palestinian control would be a violation of God's will. So they engage in
provocative acts, like the charade of dismantling settlements a few days
ago, only to rebuild settlements nearby a few days later (a move that is
obvious to Palestinians on the ground, and makes them feel that the whole
process is a trick, but which is rarely reported in the U.S. media).
The solution : The
U.S. government must make strong and unequivocal statements asserting that
"regardless of how many acts of violence are perpetrated by those who oppose
peace, the United States intends to establish a Palestinian state living in
peace with Israel within three years, and will not permit terrorists or
provocative acts by either side to interfere with that process." This must
stand in stark contrast to Ariel Sharon, who continually says that the
process cannot proceed until terror has ceasedhe very position that
guarantees that it will not cease. Rather than lecture the Palestinians
about their need to take "stern measures," disempower the extremists by
taking away from them this promise that gives them all the ability they need
to stop the peace process.
Step Two: The Road Map does not adequately empower
the moderates in the Palestinian world.
These moderates need to be able to tell their own
population that if they distance themselves from the extremists they will
succeed in obtaining a viable Palestinian state. But they've heard Ariel
Sharon clearly state that at the end of the Road Map----after the three
years of jumping through various hoops in which they prove to the Israelis
that they can operate as an effective police force to suppress armed
struggle against Israel----the result will be "a negotiation" at which time
Israel will offer them a state in 42% of the West Bank. Because that is
Sharon's intention, he was able to say to his own extremists that they could
stay in the settlements and that their great grandchildren would remain in
those settlements, while simultaneously misleading our President by assuring
him that Israel would offer a Palestinian state.
Ariel Sharon's intentions, coupled with the ability to
enforce them through military Occupation, makes the "state" that this Road
Map leads to very unappealing to most Palestinians. So how can Palestinian
moderates use the prospect of these negotiations three years from now to
motivate people to marginalize the extremists?
The solution: The
President must use the power the U.S. gained with Israel (by virtue of
having eliminated the Saddam Hussein threat) to publicly and unequivocally
state that the United States supports and will insist upon a Palestinian
state throughout the West Bank and Gaza, and a return of Israel to the
pre-67 borders with "minor border modifications" so that Israel can
incorporate the Jewish sections of Jerusalem and a few border
settlements----and that these minor modifications will be negotiated right
now, at the beginning of the process. And the U.S. should then state other
terms as well: (a) the creation of an international fund to provide
compensation to Palestinian refugees who choose to live within the
Palestinian state, but also compensation for Jews who fled Arab lands from
1948-67; and (b) funds to resettle Israeli settlers within the pre-67
borders of Israel (however, the U.S. should make it clear that those
settlers who wish to remain in the West Bank should be allowed to do so, but
only as law-abiding citizens of the new Palestinian state and without any
claim to protection or interference in their well-being from the State of
Israel, just as Arabs living within Israel must live as law-abiding citizens
of Israel and without any claim to protection or interference in their
well-being from the State of Palestine).
The U.S. should also insist that this agreement will
include peace agreements, full recognition, and normal relations with all
surrounding Arab states. These agreements must include the sharing of the
ecological resources of the entire region in an equitable way to benefit all
its inhabitants; the creation of a joint Israeli/Palestinian anti-terrorism
force that will be supplemented by U.S. intelligence forces and dedicated to
fighting terrorism which will continue even after the creation of a new
Palestinian state (because there will continue to be elements in both Israel
and Palestine who try to undermine the agreement even after it has been
implemented); and specific steps to root out from the media and the school
systems elements that teach hatred of the Other, along with the creation of
institutions aimed at creating mutual respect and understanding of each
other's history and culture, and at fostering a new attitude of
reconciliation and generosity toward the Other. To ensure the safety of
Israel from attack from other states which might at some future time be
hostile, it must be given, as part of this agreement, an ironclad mutual
defense pact with the U.S. For similar reasons, the same should be given to
the new Palestinian state.
These steps will not satisfy Hamas, which seeks the total
destruction of Israel. But Hamas has grown in strength and support largely
because many Palestinians have lost faith in the possibility of achieving a
life of dignity for themselves, and have turned to visions of fulfillment
offered them by fundamentalist alternatives. While there will always be a
core of haters who will try to undermine any peace settlement (and that will
include Jewish fundamentalists who believe that God gave the Jews the West
Bank as their eternal possession ), their support will dwindle dramatically
if the U.S. can show the Palestinian people that there is something real to
achieve by renouncing violence.
These steps are detailed in the Resolution for
Middle East Peace being circulated by the
Tikkun Community, a progressive pro-Israel, pro-Palestine organization which
you may have read about in the June 3rd edition of The Washington Post
("New
Group Offers Alternative to AIPAC").
What the President could do now is very simple: he could insist that
the negotiations originally scheduled for the end of the three years be done
first, right now, so that a complete agreement could be reached now, under
the guiding eye and pressure of the U.S., and then, armed with that
agreement, both sides would have real motivation to take the enabling steps
defined in the rest of the Road Map. Failing that, the U.S. could
publicly state the terms suggested above as the major terms that it would
seek out of any agreement.
There is one other element in the Tikkun Community resolution that is
gaining more and more credibility as the current violence escalates: its
call for the introduction of an
international force to provide a buffer between the two sides by separating
them and preventing violence.
In the July 2003 issue of TIKKUN a similar idea is put forward: the
possibility of making Palestine a short-term international protectorate, so
that Israeli troops would be withdrawn and replaced by an international
force to oversee the steps of the Road Map, while preventing acts of
violence on both sides. Such a force would be stationed on the 1967 borders,
and would thus not attempt to do what Ariel Sharon is doing in building a
wall through the middle of the West Bank: namely, consolidate the
Occupation.
I
would be delighted to discuss these issues with you in greater detail.
It would be a terrible shame if the Administration backed away from its
commitment to stay involved and create a peaceful solution. But to help
them, they need these specific ideas that could help make the Road Map work.
Will you please bring it to the Administration and to others in your
community?
Sincerely,
YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS and phone number
P.S. If you would like to see details of our Resolution for
Middle East Peace which spells out the terms that would actually be fair to
both sides, and closely resembles the pact that Palestinians and Israelis
were on the verge of signing at Taba in 2001 just at the moment when Ariel
Sharon was elected, please check it out at
http://www.tikkun.org
