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Peace Process

Where Oslo failed, retreat will succeed - Rice


By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
June 19, 2005

Where Israel's withdrawal from all major Arab population centers in Judea, Samaria and Gaza over the past decade failed to elicit ?Palestinian? reciprocity and cooperation, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's ?disengagement? plan was sure to succeed.

So said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a joint press conference with PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah Saturday.

She repeated that assertion in an official statement released prior to her meeting with Sharon in Jerusalem Sunday morning.

?A successful disengagement will enhance the security of Israel, and it should give a sense of confidence and trust between the Israelis and Palestinians as they look to a better future,? the statement read.

That, Sharon replied, would depend ?on the Palestinians stopping the terror, violence and incitement, dismantling and disarming terror groups, and implementing the needed reforms.?

Since the start of the ?Oslo? peace process in 1993, Israel has relinquished large swaths of its biblical heartland and transferred control over the lives of some 98 percent of Palestinian Arabs to the PLO-controlled Palestinian Authority.

During that same time, the PA has categorically failed to fulfill its primary obligation ? repeated in every subsequent agreement ? to disarm and dismantle the anti-Jewish ?Palestinian? terrorist infrastructure.

Rice used her 48-hours of high-level talks to urge Israel and the PA to work together to ensure the Gaza-Samaria withdrawal took place in the absence of violence.

?Both parties will have to do their part if this is indeed to be a peaceful and orderly withdrawal,? she said Saturday.

Rice said Washington viewed the expulsion of some 10,000 Jews as a promising opportunity to rejuvenate and accelerate its Road Map peace plan, and hoped her hosts were on the same page.

?We must all focus on the disengagement as our best chance to re-energize the Road Map plan for peace,? she stated.

Rice reiterated her government's determination to help birth a Palestinian Arab state on ancient Jewish lands, and said the Bush Administration was ?proud to be the number one donor to the [PLO-controlled Palestinian] Authority.?

She also again assured Israel it had no support from the Bush Administration to unilaterally annex large Jewish settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria, including Jewish neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem.

Any such permanent changes to the pre-1967 borders would have to win the consent of the PLO, Rice said.

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