Background to Obama and Netanyahu Speeches: WHICH ROAD MAP TOWARDS A PALESTINIAN STATE?

For the past six years, the Middle East Road Map, placed on the table of middle
east negotiations by the Bush Administration, has been on the agenda of middle
east negotiations.

The only question question has been: which Middle East Road map?

The road map of April 30, 2003, which simply established a Palestinian State in the west bank and Gaza and even in Jerusalem?

Or the May 25, 2003 version of road map adopted by the government of Israel, which placed 14 conditions for a Palestinian state to be created.

At the November 2007 middle east conference convened by the Bush Administration in Annapolis, President Bush and US Secretary Rice both emphasized that the American government insisted on Israel abiding by the April 30 wording of the road map, without any of the May 25 2003 Israeli conditions.

Israeli Foreign Ministry officials at the Annapolis conference were aghast that the Both Bush and Rice saw fit to specifically delineate their demand that Israel accept the April 30, 2003 version of the road map.

As a result, since the Annapolis conference, there has been an open rift between the United States and Israel.

The May 25 2003 Israeli government conditions for accepting the road map for a Palestinian State include:

1. The Palestinians must dismantle existing terrorist organizations and combat
incitement to violence from all Palestinian Authority media outlets.

2. Progress must follow the full implementation of the preceding phase.

3. Emergence of a new and different leadership in the Palestinian
Authority within the framework of governmental reform.

4. A monitoring mechanism will be created under American management.

5. The character of the provisional Palestinian state will be determined
through negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.

6. The Palestinian entity must declare Israel’s right to exist as a
Jewish state and waive any “right of return” for Palestinian
refugees to claim land within the sovereign State of Israel.

7. The end of the process will lead to the end of all claims and not only the
end of the conflict.

8. The future settlement will be reached through direct negotiations between the two parties.

9. Issues not to be discussed: Jewish community expansion in Judea,
Samaria and Gaza, the status of the Palestinian Authority institutions in
Jerusalem.

10. Removal of all references to UN Resolutions other than 242 and 338 (1397, the Saudi
Initiative and the Arab Initiative adopted in Beirut).

11. Promotion of a reform process in the Palestinian Authority:

12. Deployment of Israeli armed forces along the September 2000 lines will be
subject to the stipulation of Article 4 (absolute quiet)

13. Subject to security conditions, Israel will work to restore Palestinian
life to normal.

14. Arab states will assist in condemnation and cessation of terrorist activity