JUMPING TO FINAL STATUS TALKS A MISTAKE

Don't Relinquish the Road Map - Dov Weisglass (Ynet News)

• For several years the international community widely maintained that Palestinian terror would cease with the establishment of a Palestinian state. Ariel Sharon's cabinet did not believe this would be the outcome. Israel demanded first the cessation of terror and its demise, and only later diplomatic progress.
• The Road Map plan for managing a reconciliation process between Israel, the Palestinians, and the Arab world was prepared by the international Quartet and adopted in a UN General Assembly resolution.
• In its initial phase the Palestinians were required, among other things, to end terror: Disarm terror organizations, confiscate their weapons, establish efficient intelligence, security and policing apparatuses in order to prevent terror, enforce the law, develop appropriate government and administrative systems - namely, create a regime free of terror that functions properly and is fit to run a state.
• In the second phase - following the probation period - a Palestinian state would be established within the current borders of the Palestinian Authority, and only later - in the third phase and following an additional probation period, negotiations would commence with the aim of achieving an agreement pertaining to borders, refugees and the status of Jerusalem.
• This is the Road Map: Advancement to a later stage subject to full implementation of the previous phase; the entire process is conditioned on the establishment of an efficient and functioning PA that prevents terror and enforces the law; judgment as to whether the phase was implemented in a manner that enables commencement of the next phase would be in the hands of the U.S.
• In recent weeks there have been indications of a change in Palestinian activity towards switching from gang rule to a functioning government; yet it still comes nowhere near the first phase of the road map. Skipping to talks on a final-status agreement in the current situation means that the conditions stipulated in the phased progress of the road map are being ignored and Israel's most important diplomatic achievement in recent years is being relinquished.
• The Road Map constitutes recognition on the part of the majority of the international community of Israel's right not to accept a Palestinian state as long as it cannot guarantee that it can prevent terror from within its territory. This premise must not be relinquished and should not be ruined.

SEE: Peres: Talk to P.A. without preconditions (JTA)
Shimon Peres said Israel should not place preconditions on peace talks with the new Palestinian Authority government.

Israel Radio quoted Peres as saying Thursday that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who set up a new, Western-backed administration in the West Bank after breaking with Hamas over its Gaza takeover in June, deserve to be treated as full negotiating partners.

"I get the impression that Abu Mazen wants to hold serious negotiations, and we have to talk to him without preconditions," Peres was quoted as telling visiting U.S. congressmen.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has recently signaled willingness to talk to Abbas about the formation of a Palestinian state, though the latter has yet to prove the extent of his mandate after the schism with Hamas.