Russia: Israel's withdrawal initiative must be consistent with RoadMap

MOSCOW, April 15 (Xinhuanet) -- Israel's decision to withdraw fromthe Gaza Strip will prove effective if carried out in full conformity with the internationally accepted Road Map peace plan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan of "unilateral disengagement" from the area is no substitute for the Road Map, but "an important and positive first step on the road to a comprehensive settlement including creation of an independent Palestine existing in peace with Israel," Lavrov was quoted by theItar-Tass news agency as saying.

The minister made the remark at a news conference with visitingPalestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath who came to seek backingfrom Moscow after US President George W. Bush expressed his support for Sharon's disengagement plan.

After the visit, Shaath said, "I became stronger and has a feeling that we have friends who adhere to the basic principles ofthe peace process."

The Palestinian minister vowed to continue working with the quartet of international mediators to promote the peace process guided by the Road Map.

Shaath had been scheduled to meet with US Secretary of State Colin Powell next week following the Moscow tour, but he said Thursday that the US trip would be canceled or postponed.

"I should return to Palestine and everything will depend on thedecision of my leadership," Shaath said, accusing Bush of "supporting the unilateral separation of Israel and violation of the Road Map."

Lavrov said the quartet members -- Russia, the United States, European Union and the United Nations -- will meet in the near future on the Middle East settlement issue.

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Alexander Yakovenko also confirmed Friday that "intensive consultations are in progress to reach an agreement on the date for the meeting," according to the Interfax news agency.

I agree with Sharon's plan. It is essentially what I have been calling for; Israel should choose a border she is preprared to defend, and seal it. Any Israelis outside that line should be relocated within it, and any arabs inside the line who aren't prepared to live under Israeli rule should be compensated and transferred east.

They should disengage from any further dealings with the Palestinian Authority. There is no point in talking to them. Any and all moves on Israel's part should be made and carried out without any further negotiation. They should simply decide themselves what their security needs are, and what is the most humane way to accomplish them. And then simply act.

Any future attacks launched from across the border should be answered by simply moving the line, and the wall, to include the area from which the attack was launched. Each and every attack from across the line should cost the arabs in territory. I think the arabs could be counted on to keep attacking until they have been pushed across the Jordan River. Thats fine.

and any arabs inside the line who aren't prepared to live under Israeli rule should be compensated and transferred east.

This part isn't happening in the plan.

They should disengage from any further dealings with the Palestinian Authority. There is no point in talking to them. Any and all moves on Israel's part should be made and carried out without any further negotiation. They should simply decide themselves what their security needs are, and what is the most humane way to accomplish them. And then simply act.

This isn't happening under the plan either.

Any future attacks launched from across the border should be answered by simply moving the line, and the wall, to include the area from which the attack was launched. Each and every attack from across the line should cost the arabs in territory.

And how will that happen if Israel is forbidden from taking over Gaza again once it leaves? How will that be achieved if there are international forces in Gaza?

Simply put, Sharon's plan is extremely dangerous.

In Gaza, Sharon is withdrawing completely, as I understand it. He has been inviting Egypt to roll in, and so far they have refused to do so although they have apparently agreed to occupy the border zone.

This is, to me, a good sign. Gaza isn't particularly viable except as a part of Egypt, unless it wants to configure itself as some kind of Monaco which almost sounds silly to say. So the solution there is, to me, to either provoke Egypt into resuming control of it, or progressively annexing slices of the territory until either the threat ends or Egypt agrees to administer it.

But Israel has to get out of the business of trying to manage arabs on a day to day basis. She needs to build her wall and separate herself from them. I don't live there, its not my call where Israel should establish the line, but she needs to pick a line she is prepared to defend, and evacuate her citizens within the line.

I repeat that there is little point in any further discussion with the Palestinians, they are not serious people. There is little point in talking to arabs in general, but the only ones who count are the leaders in Cairo (for Gaza) and Amman (for the West Bank). No one else matters. It looks to me like Sharon has made that judgement. The present decision has apparently been made without discussing it with the PA, and thats as it should be. They need to stop looking to the Israelis and start looking to Amman and Cairo for their future.

I admit that everything I propose was not in Sharon's plan, I was referring to his decision to pick a line, and to do it unilaterally. The location of the line should be non-negotiable, responding only to Israel's willingness to defend it. What no one has said officially, but what I consider very important, is that future attacks across the line must have a cost in territory, thus the idea of annexing a slice for every future attack. The only way the PA can stop it would be to invite Jordanian and Egyptian occupation, i.e. reintegration, or to stop the attacks.

Several reasons, I think, and Yoni can correct me if I'm wrong. For one, there has been some hope that Israel could achieve some kind of peaceful administration of the territories that would allow them to coexist with the arabs there, which would allow Israel to expand into that area. Israel doesn't have a lot of land anyway, and they need that territory.

They also need that territory for strategic reasons, so that they can deny the arabs the use of it for placing offensive military forces there.

There are probably some in Israel that hoped some day to annex it entirely; the problem is that there are a couple million arabs there who would have to be expelled, and the political and diplomatic cost is so far higher than she is ready to pay. But down the road there may be some event that would justify the expulsion.

And at heart, Israel has (I think) hoped to become an integrated part of the middle east, she has not wanted to wall herself off from the arabs, she has wanted to find a solution. So in that way the wall is an admission of defeat.

I don't see it that way, of course, I don't think Israel has any choice until the poison in the arab political world has worked itself out. Until that happens, Israel can forget integration and should simply focus on survival. Survival, to me, means separation or war. This messy in-between does more harm than good, in my view.

The real fact is that Israel did choose a border that is defendable. That is the reason they took Judea Samaria and Gaza in the 1967 War in the first place. They didn't do that because of biblical reasons or anything like that. They did so because the lessons of 1967 were that it could not hold pre-1967 lines if it wished to prevail in battle with its Arab neighbors, as without post-1967 lands, incoming Arab armies would automatically reach the population centers of Israel. The Arabs would be able to cut Israel into three.

Thanks for the map. It is very helpful.

The Jordan River is the ideally defensible border. The problem is that the region is populated by people that are trying to kill you. It only becomes a good line if you can make them stop. Israel's "defensible" border can't be the Jordan unless she is willing to clear the zone of troublemakers. So far she isn't willing to do that, which means that Jordan isn't the line.

I like the idea of expulsions, but no one else seems to like it. It seems unlikely to happen without some massive provocation that would not be pretty; waiting for such a thing doesn't seem like a good policy. Thats why I propose annexing by slices; any place that is used to stage an attack becomes forfeit; any apartment block, any farmers field, any hill, the line is re-routed to include it and the inhabitants compensated and pushed across the line.

What I don't believe is possible is for the arabs to be peacefully administered by Israel. You can't get there from here. You could try, but you would have to be prepared to declare war, and go block by block and destroy the enemy, and take control of the schools where the next generation of killers is being formed, you would have to find arabs willing to work with you who would not be killed by their neighbors. All of this seems unlikely.

Your only solution, if you want to keep the land, is to expel the arabs, and prepare for war with the front line arab states. Since Israel is already at war, this is probably cleaner than the status quo.

If you are not prepared to expell them, though, with all that entails, then you need to separate yourselves from them. You need to seal the border, no one needs to cross into Israel by land for any reason.

It is the current situation that looks untenable to me. And the current policy of letting arabs cross into Israel looks insane, frankly.

But enough of my view, how do you see it? You must be in more direct contact with people who are there, and live with it. What do people there see as being a solution?

I like it.

It recognizes that Jordan is Palestine.

And, again, it is based on choosing a line you are prepared to defend, and clean house behind that line.

The location of the line is a function of just how bold Israel is prepared to be. I'm all for Jordan as the line. Thats easy for me from my keyboard far from the conflict, its harder for someone who has to go and make it happen on the ground. But the status quo is untenable. The status quo is death for Israelis and arabs alike. There will never be peace as long as the killers are allowed to operate in the region, and as long as Israel's borders are open to them.

Sign me on to the Elon plan. But don't expect to negotiate your way to it, you will have to implement it unilaterally. Its ok, though, its the cowboy way. Just do it, otherwise it isn't going to happen.

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