The Ny Times is reporting that both the abysmally named Palestinian Authority and Ariel Sharon are both in favor of pursuing the Bush road map to peace in the Middle East.
One of the things that has perplexed me in the past few weeks were all the calls that the so-called ‘road map’ has all but been scrapped because of the recent terrorism. This seems to me to be a silly way to view the peace plan, which has a series of steps that should be acted upon when certain conditions are met. The very first of those is:
In Phase I. the Palestinians immediately undertake an unconditional cessation of violence according to the steps outlined below; such action should be accompanied by supportive measures undertaken by Israel. Palestinians and Israelis resume security cooperation based on the Tenet work plan to end violence, terrorism, and incitement through restructured and effective Palestinian security services.
If these conditions are not met, and an argument could be made that recent events have certainly showed that they may not have been, this does not mean you throw the entire plan out. Instead, it would seem, you shelve the plan until those conditions have been met, and then you proceed forward. Let me try an example:
A college student wants to become a doctor, and one of the preconditions is to take a microbiology course. The student fails the course- should he/she simply scrap the plan to become a doctor? Most of us would simply put that plan on hold, and then take the microbiology course again. Once that condition has met, then we would move forward with the rest of the plan.
Another problem with this sniping about what many view as the stillborn plan is the bizarre perception that plans always proceed according to, well, planning. They don’t. This won’t. I think it is safe to say that reports of the road map’s demise may have been premature.
Robin Roberts
There is a difference, in your analogy the pre-med student is not committing serial murders while awaiting completion of the course.
yehudit
The problem is that internatonal pressure is rarely brought to bear on the Arabs whenever they don’t honor their side of an agreement with Israel. The pressure is always placed on Israel. So no one is putting the Pal state on hold while the Pals “take the course in peaceful responsible statehood again”. The RM has dates on it – if they screw around blowing up Israeli civilians for another couple of years, they can still claim they were promised their state by 2005, and everyone will conveniently forget they didn’t “pass the course.”