Roadmap to Nowhere

A Real refresher

The president's "road map to peace," which is blowing up in his face even as I write this (2003), was riddled with defects to begin with. It does not recognize the basic facts of the conflict. It ignores the rule of law. It turns normal human behavior upside down.

The basic facts of the conflict are that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip is illegal. Israel was ordered to withdraw from those territories by the United Nations Security Council in 1967, when Israeli forces in the Six-Day War captured them. There is nothing to negotiate. Israel must simply withdraw.Another basic fact is that all of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza are illegal. They are a direct violation of the Geneva Convention. They, too, have been condemned by the United Nations.

Another basic fact is that Israel's "annexation" of East Jerusalem is null and void and was so declared long ago by the United Nations.

You will note that all of the international lawbreaking has been done by Israel. The Palestinians are the innocent victims, yet Mr. Bush, in turning normal human behavior upside down, demands that the occupied protect the occupier and the victim negotiate with the criminal. He demands that a weak, impoverished non-state guarantee the security of a regional military superpower, an absurd impossibility.

The proper, moral and legal position of the United States should be that Israel must comply immediately with all U.N. resolutions or face economic sanctions. Of course, it has been the United States that has prevented the United Nations from enforcing any of its resolutions directed against Israel. Violating U.N. resolutions is a cause for sanctions and war only if your name is Saddam Hussein, not Ariel Sharon. More