Road Map for Peace
The “road map” for peace, the plan to provide the ultimate solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, has had a history of fitful starts and stops since its inception in 2002. It has been fraught with violent outbreaks and disagreements on both sides. It currently is in a state of limbo—because of its strong backing from the US, it has not been completely disregarded, but the quick peace envisioned has not come to pass.
During the Second Intifada, or al-Aqsa Intifada, the “Quartet”—the United States, European Union, Russia, and the United Nations—proposed a solution to put an end to the violence that had plagued Israel since its birth. The underlying principle of the plan was a two-state solution, which would grant the Palestinians their own autonomous state comprised of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Palestinians would agree to renounce violence and make democratic reforms; Israel would recognize the Palestinian government and halt construction on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. US President George W. Bush allotted three years for the road map, hoping to achieve final peace by 2005. The plan had three stages, each of which had a specific timetable.
In March 2003, the Intifada was in its third year, continuing to cause untold deaths and damage. In an effort to appear more moderate, Mahmud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, was appointed the first prime minister of the Palestinians, and Arafat was removed from his leadership post. Israel had demanded Arafat’s removal, claiming his past actions proved him an incompatible partner for peace. While then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon moved tentatively toward agreement, and his cabinet was the first to recognize a need for a Palestinian state, he refused to freeze settlement construction, stating that Israel needed those towns to account for “natural growth” among the inhabitants.
In June 2003, Bush visited the region for a series of meetings. After his departure, Hamas launched attacks against Israeli citizens, to which Israel responded with force, and the escalation of violence seemed to halt, if not completely derail, the road map. However, by the end of the month, the plan was back on track. A tentative cease-fire was reached between the Palestinian Authority and four major Palestinian terror groups: Islamic Jihad, Hamas, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Arafat’s Fatah movement. Israel started withdrawing troops from the Gaza Strip. Sharon and Abbas met for the first time ever and declared their commitment to the road map. But the peace didn’t last long. By August of that same year, Hamas had stepped up its suicide and bus bombings, and Israel did not pull out its troops or stop construction in the settlements.
In April 2004, Bush sent a letter to Sharon, which implicitly gave support for Israel on two crucial issues: settlement construction and refusing unlimited Palestinian right of return. However, a few months later, Abu Mazen received a letter as well, seeming to contradict the letter sent to Sharon. In June, Ariel Sharon, in a “land for peace” offer, proposed a unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip, declaring his intent to remove all Jewish settlement from the Gaza Strip, and a smaller number from a portion of the West Bank. Many in Israel were opposed to the disengagement, and taken by surprise that the idea came from Sharon’s government. Sharon, a hawkish politician, had run on a platform of a unified land; his opponent had proposed a pullout on a far smaller scale, which Sharon derided, famously claiming that Netzarim, a small Jewish village in Gaza, was equally as important as Tel Aviv. Now, Sharon’s supporters felt betrayed, since the man they had elected to keep all of Israel under Israeli control had done just the opposite. Sharon claimed the disengagement would give Israel the diplomatic upper hand. The government also voted to monetarily compensate the families that would lose their homes. In July, Sharon closed off Gush Katif, as the bloc of settlements in the Gaza Strip is known. Though entry was forbidden, many Israelis sneaked in illegally, trying to bolster the residents and protest the pullout.
The announcement of the disengagement elicited strong protests from many in the Israeli community. A rally at the Western Wall in August 2005, a few days before the disengagement was to start, attracted more than 250,000 Jews. Ironically, the disengagement was originally scheduled for July, but pushed until August so as not to coincide with the Three Weeks and Tisha B’Av—the Jewish national period of mourning. Gush Katif residents were given time to pack their things, and the IDF soldiers offered their assistance in packing and moving. Some settlers went on their own accord, while some had to be dragged out under protest. The soldiers were placed in the unbearably tricky position of having to evict their own countrymen. Despite the protests, though, there was overall less violence between settlers and IDF than expected. The IDF also prepared a battalion of psychologists and social workers to help the settlers, especially the children, deal with the trauma. When the residents of Netzarim were evacuated on August 22, the thirty-eight year long Israeli presence in the Gaza Strip had ended.
In the end, twenty-one settlements in Gush Katif and four settlements in the West Bank were evacuated. The aftermath of the evacuation was a debacle—many residents were homeless, living in hotels up until Passover of the following year. In addition, the settlers became mired in bureaucratic red tape when they tried to claim their compensation money from the government. Many were unable to find employment, having worked in the agricultural sector for so many years and unqualified for jobs in industry.
The situation in the Gaza Strip, now under Palestinian control, deteriorated. Political disorder and economic downturn led to many Palestinians fleeing Gaza (to Egypt, for example) for a more stable environment. Fighting between Hamas and Fatah escalated, and by June 2007, Hamas had taken over the government in Gaza. Hamas created a police state, centralizing power, ousting Fatah officials, and shutting down newspapers. The Christian citizens in Gaza were harassed and assaulted, and rocket attacks on Israel increased exponentially. Eventually, Israel was forced to respond with Operation Cast Lead, a three-week campaign in Gaza that lasted from December 2008 January 2009 and is still causing global controversy regarding Israel’s alleged use of excessive force.
It is widely acknowledged that the Road Map actually led nowhere.