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Dr. Aaron Lerner is co-founder of , Independent Media Review and Analysis, an Israel-based news organization which provides an extensive digest of media, polls and significant interviews and events relating to the Israeli-Arab conflict.
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By Dr. Aaron Lerner
January 19, 2007
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When Israeli officials link final status negotiations and the formation of a sovereign Palestinian state to Palestinian compliance with the Roadmap, is there a clear understanding of what they have in mind?
Let's first consider the wording of the Roadmap:
Phase I
+ Palestinians declare an unequivocal end to violence and terrorism and undertake visible efforts on the ground to arrest, disrupt, and restrain individuals and groups conducting and planning violent attacks on Israelis anywhere.
+ Rebuilt and refocused Palestinian Authority security apparatus begins sustained, targeted, and effective operations aimed at confronting all those engaged in terror and dismantlement of terrorist capabilities and infrastructure. This includes commencing confiscation of illegal weapons and consolidation of security authority, free of association with terror and corruption.
+ All Palestinian security organizations are consolidated into three services reporting to an empowered Interior Minister.
+ Arab states cut off public and private funding and all other forms of support for groups supporting and engaging in violence and terror.
Phase II Transition
Progress into Phase II will be based upon the consensus judgment of the Quartet of whether conditions are appropriate to proceed, taking into account performance of both parties.
+ Continued comprehensive security performance, including effective security cooperation on the bases laid out in Phase I.
Phase III Permanent Status Agreement
Progress into Phase III, based on consensus judgment of Quartet, and taking into account actions of both parties and Quartet monitoring. Phase III objectives are consolidation of reform and stabilization of Palestinian institutions, sustained, effective Palestinian security performance.
+ Continued sustained and effective security performance, and sustained,
effective security cooperation on the bases laid out in Phase I.
"Moderate" Mahmoud Abbas takes the position that Palestinian compliance with the above requirements is no more than a paycheck away: put every gunman on the PA security force payroll and their off-hours affiliations are no longer relevant. And as members of the PA security forces their weapons are no longer illegal.
When Abbas first came out with this interpretation one would have expected Israeli officials to immediate assert that he was ignoring that the Roadmap requires that the consolidated security authority would be "free of association with terror" thus precluding hiring members of the various armed militias into the PA security force.
But instead Israeli officials ignored it.
And Israeli officials continued to ignore the Palestinian interpretation of compliance when American and European officials spoke favorably of Abbas's efforts to implement the idea.
This issue hasn't come to a head yet since the Hamas lead PA government is seen as a prima facie justification for freezing the Roadmap, but it would be a grave mistake to assume that this stalemate will continue indefinitely.
When the stalemate ends Israel may very well find itself subject to one of the most disturbing innovations in the Roadmap: compliance is not only determined by a third party (the Quartet), it is judged on a relative rather than absolute basis ("taking into account performance of both parties").
The Palestinians have wasted no time developing an international understanding and appreciation of their interpretation of compliance.
It would be foolhardy for Israeli officials to think that the Jewish State can rely on explaining what should be its dramatically different views, at the last minute, when the day comes that the Quartet meets to rule if Palestinian performance pass muster.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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