The Road Map plan, which emerged from
the Quartet’s (the United States, Russia, Europe and the United Nations)
strategic cooperation was presented to the Israelis and the Palestinians in
early May 2003. The plan delineates stages leading to a peace agreement
between Israel and the Palestinians, when at the first stage the
Palestinians are required to demonstrate governmental reform and a struggle
against terrorism and Israel is required to make an unequivocal declaration
that it agrees to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The plan is based on UN Resolutions 242
and 338 (which Israel had already accepted in the past) and also on the
“Saudi Peace Initiative”, which calls for an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967
borders and the “right of return” for the 1948 refugees. The plan also
establishes an international apparatus to be deployed on the ground and to
supervise the plan’s progress. A freeze on Jewish settlement, dismantling of
the settlements, deliberations over the “right of return” and the “Jerusalem
problem” await Israel with the continued implementation of the plan.
The Road Map threatens the very
existence of the State of Israel and all Israeli leaders since the Six Day
War have opposed the principles upon which it is based. The plan, for all
intents and purposes, calls for the transfer of the almost half a million
Jews living today in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and the Jewish neighborhoods in
East Jerusalem.
Withdrawal to the 1967 borders,
internationalization of the dispute, establishment of a Palestinian state
west of the Jordan and the “right of return” for refugees were always
considered existential threats to Israel. Agreement to dismantle settlements
undermines the moral basis for our very residence in the Land of Israel, as
it acknowledges the right of another people over part of it.
On one hand, it is incumbent upon the
State of Israel to fight the plan and prevent its implementation and on the
other hand, we must present an alternative plan which takes into
consideration the Palestinian need for self-determination, the need to
resolve the problem of the refugees – who are the real foundation of
terrorism since the State’s inception, in the geopolitical, economic and
historical common sense. The Land of Israel belongs to the People of Israel
by virtue of every conceivable right: Divine promise, the course of history
and international law. The plan learns the lessons from the failure of all
of the plans calling for partition west of the Jordan ever since the days of
the British Mandate, and demarcates two states for the two nations on the
two banks of the Jordan.
Jordan is Palestine ever since it was
established and allocated to that nation in the partition of the Land of
Israel during the British Mandate. Seventy-five percent of its residents are
Palestinian and the entire refugee population residing today in the camps in
Judea, Samaria and Gaza as well as Syria and Lebanon could be settled there.
Large investments in infrastructure and desalination devices will facilitate
that settlement and a solution to the refugees’ severe humanitarian problem.
Self-rule with municipal authority will
be granted in the framework of seven cantons to all of those Arabs who are
not refugees and who wish to remain in their homes. These cantons will not
be territorially contiguous and will not have any political authority; they
will have a police capability in order to maintain local order. The
residents of the cantons will have Jordanian-Palestinian citizenship and
will vote for the parliament in Amman.
According to this plan, total
sovereignty over the western Land of Israel, from the Jordan to the
Mediterranean will remain in Israeli hands.