Israel OKs U.S.-Backed Peace Plan

JERUSALEM —  After a wrenching debate, Israel’s Cabinet voted to endorse a U.S.-backed peace “road map” Sunday and for the first time accepted the eventual creation of a Palestinian state -- but tacked on a list of objections that could complicate the plan’s implementation.

The vote approving the steps of the peace road map was a victory for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has been under intense foreign pressure to back the plan. But the emotional 12-7 decision, with four abstentions, came only after ministers attached a list of 14 reservations about the plan.

Nearly 32 months into the latest Palestinian uprising to end the Israeli occupation, the Cabinet endorsement was a sliver of hope in a woeful time. But the next step remained unclear. Within hours, amid Palestinian skepticism and Israeli dismay, a deep rift was showing.

“Palestinians and Israelis are sick and tired of hearing Palestinians and Israelis say words and words and words,” said Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian negotiator who quit in frustration last week after more than a decade of failed peace talks. “We’ll believe it when we see it on the ground.”

Israel’s endorsement of Palestinian statehood was remarkable given those who voted. Sharon’s right-wing government includes nationalist and religious lawmakers who have said they will never accept the notion of a Palestinian state on territory they regard as God-given Jewish homeland.

Along with the protests of the far right, Sharon faced opposition from the ranks of his own Likud Party. Palestinians “murder our citizens in explosions, in shootings, and we want to reward them?” said Uzi Landau, a Likud minister who voted against the road map. “I believe we will pay a price for this.”

During a heated debate before the vote, Likud ministers traded insults and accusations. They called each other “hallucinatory,” “mentally ill” and “full of hate,” Israel Radio reported.

Throughout the debate, Landau said, nobody spoke in favor of the road map -- only of the need to satisfy the Bush administration. Some of the ministers described the vote as a show of good faith in the Unites States, Israel’s closest ally and the muscle behind the peace plan.

“Tonight there is no happy minister in the Israeli government, and I even think there is no minister who knows he or she made the right choice,” said Public Security Minister Tzipi Livni, who voted for the road map. “So now we have hope but also a lot of fears.”

In Washington, State Department spokesman Tara Rigler said, “We welcome this development in confirmation of Prime Minister Sharon’s acceptance of the road map. We will continue to work closely with both sides throughout implementation of the road map.”

However, Israel attached conditions to its approval, a move that gives the country room to continue to press its demands. First and foremost that Palestinians crack down on militant organizations before the steps of the road map are begun.

Under the plan, Israel would be required to withdraw from Palestinian areas reoccupied since the latest uprising began in September 2000, freeze construction of Jewish settlements and remove settlement outposts erected since March 2001. Palestinians would be required to disarm radical groups such as Hamas. Eventually the two sides would deal with the deeper issues such as refugees, the status of Jerusalem and details of the Palestinian state, which is to be established by 2005.

The action clears the way for Sharon, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and President Bush to meet. According to an Israeli media report, a summit could take place in Egypt in June.

But the next step by Palestinians and Israelis remains clouded.

Palestinian officials say they’re ready to start working through the phases of the road map. That would begin, they said, with each side issuing a statement forswearing violence and recognizing the other state’s right to exist.

“They both have to issue statements,” said Erekat, who helped negotiate the peace plan. “We have the road map written in English; it’s very clear.”

“The two sides have to take simultaneous steps,” Palestinian Labor Minister Ghassan Khatib agreed.

But Israelis say the Palestinians are to make the first move. Asked about the interpretation of Palestinians like Erekat and Khatib, Sharon advisor Raanan Gissin said one word: “Nonsense.”

In a direct clash with Palestinian expectations, Israeli officials continue to repeat the ultimatum they’ve used for weeks: That they won’t dismantle outposts, won’t pull their soldiers out of Palestinian territory -- won’t make any sacrifices at all -- until Palestinians disarm and jail militants, stop incitement and close militia offices.

“We’ve done our part; now the Palestinians have to take action,” Gissin said. “When we reach the road map, then both sides have to make painful concessions. But before we reach that phase there has to be a real fight against terror.”

Controlling the militant factions won’t be easy for Abbas. The newly appointed premier has been holding cease-fire talks with Hamas but so far to no avail. On Sunday, Hamas leader Abdulaziz Rantisi dismissed the Israeli vote as meaningless. “It enhances the view that this state will not be established,” he said, “but that they want to get rid of the resistance.”

The fate of Palestinians torn from their homes by the creation of Israel in 1948 is a raw wound. Abbas is himself a refugee, and many Palestinians insist that any peace settlement must include the right to go back to land that is now part of Israel.

Israelis, however, are adamant that the Palestinians must be kept out. The sheer number of Arab refugees would destroy Israel’s Jewish identity, they argue.

Minister Livni voted for the peace plan and Palestinian statehood but only after insisting the government adopt a declaration refusing “entry or settlement” of Palestinian refugees within Israel’s borders.

“The creation of a Palestinian state means that it must also be the home for their refugees,” Livni said.

A Matter of Timing

The phased road map calls for the question of refugees to be determined near the end of the talks. But Israel is pushing for a decision to be made sooner; timing was among the objections Israel has raised with the United States.

Although acknowledged by the United States last week, the Israeli reservations have yet to be publicized. Many of the complaints deal with the timing and order of the concessions outlined in the road map, Israeli officials said. Israel wants European monitors to be banned from the region, for example, and demands a tighter crackdown on Palestinian militants.

The Jewish state is eager to avoid making promises it doesn’t want to keep, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jonathan Peled said. “And then nobody can say, ‘Look here, you agreed to the road map and therefore you have to abide by the absolute letter,’ ” he said.

For example, the road map is based in part on a Saudi peace proposal that calls on Israel to withdraw from lands it occupied in the 1967 Middle East War. Israel has long said it will not withdraw to the 1967 border. Because the Jewish state still hasn’t agreed to the plan itself, analysts say, Israel can argue that it never agreed to the Saudi proposal.

But some analysts believe the ministers made a grave mistake and set a precedent from which they can never retreat. The United States has agreed to “consider” Israel’s worries but has said firmly that there will be no revisions to the road map, which Palestinian leaders have already embraced.

Political scientist Menachem Klein of Tel Aviv’s Bar-Ilan University believes that, forced by the United States to make conciliatory motions, Sharon will try to find a piece of middle ground and then stall. The scheme, Klein says, is this: Accept the peace plan, list Israeli reservations on the record and use them to delay action when the time comes.

“This was the tactic,” Klein said. “It was quite clear, though it wasn’t said explicitly. It was behind the scenes. It was almost in public.”

A war veteran famously ruthless in battle, a man they call the Bulldozer and the father of the Jewish settlement enterprise, the uncompromising Sharon is an improbable peace broker.

But during his last election campaign, the prime minister showcased a softer image. In recent months, he has spoken more of peace and of “painful concessions” Israelis may have to make in exchange for calm. Some Israelis speculate the aging warrior wants to be remembered as the man who brought peace to his people.

‘You Have to Be Realistic’

“The time has come to divide this piece of land between us and the Palestinians,” Sharon said in an interview that ran Sunday in the daily Yediot Aharonot. The Israeli leader said no one could argue that he was “less connected to those tracts of land that we will be forced to leave in time than any of those who speak loftily. But you have to be realistic [about] what can and what cannot stay in our hands.”

For the moment, Sharon is flush with victory. He managed to persuade most of his party to back him in spite of members’ reservations. “It is now quite clear that Sharon is the only political game in town,” said Efraim Inbar, another political scientist at Bar-Ilan University.

But if the peace process goes much further, Sharon could have a hard time keeping his career alive between domestic politics and international demands. If Sharon makes concessions to the Palestinians, he’s likely to anger Israel’s far right but fall short of the hopes of the leftist peace camp.

But if the prime minister drags his feet too much, he’ll annoy the United States.

“If President Bush takes action, we stand a chance tonight,” Erekat said. “This is the only way to break the cycle.”