The whole world intervened to see this government approved, not for the sake of Abu-‎Mazin, but due to the centrality and importance of the Palestinian issue to the world ‎and the region following a persistent attempt to undermine the President's standing ‎among his people.
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We can now say to the world: Thank you for your efforts. Under the leadership of ‎brother Abu-Ammar [Yasir Arafat], we all expect you to fulfil your obligations. We ‎expect you to leave us and our affairs alone. "‎

We can also tell the world: You have exerted enough pressure on us...tell the ‎aggressor to stop his aggression so that we may go back to the negotiating table to ‎deal with the all important international obligation, stated by President Bush on 24 ‎June last year, to set up an independent Palestinian state by 2005, end the occupation ‎that began in June 1967, freeze and end the hostile settlement activity, and establish ‎peaceful relations based on justice, mutual respect, and just peace.‎

He went on to list Israeli concessions that must be exacted, never once mentioning the ‎need to put an to Palestinian initiated violence or to restore order. ‎

While the Palestine Legislative Council was in session, Israel was busy killing an ‎Islamic Jihad military leader and his accomplices, an act that was viewed as a ‎provocation by Palestinians. The Israeli government greeted the election of Abu-‎Mazen with cold enthusiasm and cautious words. ‎

From the Israeli point of view, the Road Map is viewed as a means of stopping ‎Palestinian violence in the best case. Ariel Sharon does not intend to offer the kind of ‎solution that Abu Mazen has pictured, and Foreign Minister Sylvan Shalom said that ‎Abu Mazen's comments, "raise serious questions regarding a readiness to arrive at an ‎agreed-upon resolution." Ariel Sharon has already indicated many times that even the ‎offer made at Taba, which was rejected by the Palestinians, was no longer realistic in ‎view of Palestinian violence. It is likely he may offer them a "State" on 40 to 60% of ‎the land, followed by negotiations for final status that will drag on interminably. ‎

If Ariel Sharon doesn't intend to offer Palestinians a reasonable solution, why did he ‎risk his popularity in the Likud party by backing a Palestinian state, and why did he ‎accept the Bush speech that fathered the roadmap process and the roadmap itself? The ‎conclusion that suggests itself and is confirmed by informed sources sympathetic to ‎the Israeli government, is that  Sharon and Israeli intelligence believe ‎the Palestinians will fail to live up to their obligations to end the violence. Abu Mazen ‎and his government do not have real control over the Palestinian factions, and will not ‎be able to exert such control without use of force, which they will not do. ‎

The continuation of violence will give Israel a license to renege on its own ‎obligations. The Palestinians will blame lack of Israeli concessions for the renewed ‎violence, the Israelis will blame the Palestinian Authority, and we will be in the same ‎old quagmire. However, at that point, the Israeli government, having proven to the ‎satisfaction of the Bush administration that the Palestinians are hopelessly committed ‎to terror, will feel free to act decisively to end the rule of the PNA initiated by the ‎Oslo accords.‎ Make no mistake, this may have the direst consequences for the Palestinians remaining in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

It doesn't have to end that way, if, there is a genuine ‎peace lobby opposed to the extremist factions and the politicians. Not a lobby that apologizes for terror or excuses it as "the price we have ‎to pay for peace," or a lobby that goes along with settlement expansion, as the Peace ‎Camp did during the Barak era, but a lobby that monitors the process, and demands ‎exact and full compliance from both sides, including an immediate settlement freeze, ‎removal of illegal settlements, and cessation of both Palestinian violence and Israeli ‎acts of provocation. We must bend every effort to ensure that when the closure is ‎lightened and the curfew is lifted, extremists do not immediately send suicide ‎bombers into Israel to force the re-application of security measures. Certainly, nobody ‎can blame Abu-Mazen or his government for the suicide attack that occurred just after ‎his election. However, every Israeli will blame the roadmap and the peace process if ‎Israeli concessions are followed by a rash of suicide bombings. Palestinians cannot ‎blame the peace process if there are no immediate Israeli concessions, but if the ‎settlement activity continues and the illegal outposts are not removed, they will have ‎legitimate cause for complaint. If months pass and the Israeli army is still inside ‎Palestinian cities, the roadmap will become very unpopular in Palestine, with very ‎obvious consequences. ‎

The danger for Israel is that our government seems to be counting on Palestinian failure. It has not prepared for the possibility that the Palestinians will meet the requirements of the roadmap, forcing Israel to make and implement a serious peace offer. Not just "painful concessions" such as evacuation of Gaza, but slaughter of the sacred cows of the Israeli consensus, including evacuation of Ariel and sharing of Jerusalem. This may be nearly impossible for Ariel Sharon, because he has been committed to the settlement project for many years and identified with it, because he and the Likud party made Jewish Jerusalem a center piece of their ideology, and because Sharon and the Likud draw their support from settlers and their allies. The government also seems to dangerously overestimate the influence that Israel has with the American administration, and the degree to which the United States will acquiesce in Israeli plans.

Ami Isseroff,

Rehovot,

Israel