Ron Pundak, Bitter Lemons, 07.02.05

The near euphoric sensation of the past weeks embodies both dangers and opportunities. Euphoria is liable to generate too high a threshold of expectations that will not pass the reality test. On the other hand, this new sensation could restore the hope that has been so absent in the last four years and create a positive psycho-political atmosphere among the relevant publics. And that atmosphere, in turn, will ensure greater survivability for the process and a readiness on the part of the leaders to take more chances than in the past.
Both sides' commitment to embark on a new political path can generate rapid changes and processes on the ground that will accelerate the peace process and assist in returning it to the path it followed prior to the intifada. That is the wish of most of the publics on both sides of the green line. The withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria, an end to terrorism and violence, the reform and democratization process in the Palestinian Authority, and confidence-building measures by Israel are all good instruments for advancing the peace process. But the question is, what will happen to the process the day after this preliminary arsenal is spent.
The danger confronting us is that the peace process will proceed up to the completion of the withdrawal planned in the context of disengagement, and there it will stop. The surprising disengagement plan was born with the objective of serving a conservative goal: to prevent or at least delay the political process designed to lead to a permanent settlement.
In an optimal situation, logic would dictate that immediately after stabilizing the security situation and following the withdrawal from Gaza and northern Samaria, we enter intensive negotiations over permanent status on the basis of the Geneva Accord. In theory there is no need to beat around the bush. Following the historic precedent of returning to the 1967 borders in the Gaza Strip and removing all the settlements in those areas the IDF leaves, it is only natural to continue the process in the West Bank. The Israeli and Palestinian publics know almost precisely what final status will look like; hence, logically, we should implement it.
But political realities are not necessarily logical. The man heading Israel's government today is not a leader capable of making the leap to a real and fair permanent settlement, but rather one who has not yet internalized the fact that there is no other option. Yet the historical imperative appears to be stronger than the leader and his party.
Accordingly, in order to generate and strengthen the right dynamic that will move the process and oblige the Israeli side to enter serious negotiations on permanent status as early as possible, we have to reexamine the existing tools in our long-term arsenal. Regrettable as this may sound, the only relevant tool to be found is the Quartet's roadmap. Hence we must return to implementation of this plan, with the goal of exploiting it as a means of moving us in an agreed and organized manner out of the twilight and into a period of renewed peace negotiations.
Paradoxically, we are talking here of a limited plan, a fairly sloppy patchwork document that was outdated the moment it was published, and even then would not have stood the test of reality. But it is the only document that is agreed, at least at the level of principle, by both sides. Further, this is the program to which the American president is committed, and it is he who must become involved in pushing the Israeli side to join the "permanent status tango".
The day after withdrawal from Gaza, progress is the name of the game. The Palestinians cannot allow themselves to march in place, just as they cannot enter negotiations over an interim agreement without knowing precisely how final status will look. An updated version of the roadmap in which, for example, phase II--which is liable to be a deathtrap for a real process--is replaced by deep withdrawals in the West Bank along the lines of the Oslo "further redeployments" and the parameters of phase III are spelled out in greater detail, could constitute a possible solution in the absence of an alternative mechanism.
The roadmap is today the only game in town. In the current effort to restart the process even a mediocre and incomplete plan is a legitimate tool for relaunching the long road to peace.