Subscribe to our daily e-mail newsletter

E-mail:

Israel News Feed Or subscribe to our RSS feed | What is RSS?
Israel News from Jerusalem Newswire
Peace Process

Sharon: We'll implement Road Map, our way


By Ryan Jones
November 01, 2005

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon Monday recommitted Israel to seek a solution to its conflict with the Arabs according to the designs of the gentile nations of the world, but also resurrected the 14 reservations Jerusalem officially attached to the so-called ?Road Map to peace.?

Speaking at the opening of the Knesset's winter session, Sharon said Israel continues to see the internationally-backed Road Map as ?the only political program providing a possibility of peace and hope for both the Israeli and Palestinian people.?

To date the Road Map, like the Tenet Plan before it and the Oslo Accords before that, has provided Israel with little outside of ongoing and escalating terrorism, and a continuing decrease in its ability to defend its own citizens.

Some 304 Israelis have paid with their lives since April 2003 for Jerusalem's decision to tread the path set out by the Road Map, rather than war against and eliminate the terrorist forces threatening them.

Hundreds more have been wounded and maimed.

But according to Sharon, Israel will not blindly throw out concessions while expecting and receiving nothing in return, as it did during much of the decade-long process attached to the Oslo Accords.

For the first time in months, Sharon reminded those listening that Israel only accepted the Road Map together with a list of 14 special reservations.

?The government's policy aims for implementation of the Road Map, including the 14 Israeli reservations,? the prime minister stated.

The first and chief of those attached reservations demands the Palestinian Authority finally combat, disarm and dismantle all terrorist organizations operating out of territories under its control as a condition for moving to Phase Two of the plan.

The PA must also demonstrate compliance with its Oslo commitments to end incitement against the Jews and educate the Palestinian Arabs for peace.

Most official PA schoolbooks continue to teach local Arab children that Israel will one day be destroyed.

Furthermore, Israel insists the PA drop all demands for a ?right of return? for millions of so-called ?Palestinian refugees? to towns and cities throughout the land, effectively ending the Jewish state.

Abbas, however, made that right of return a central plank in his election platform last year.

?We must stand united to ward off attempts to exempt the Palestinians from fulfilling their security and political commitments which have not yet been implemented,? Sharon told the Knesset.

Like the article?
Help spread the word:
Jnewswire updates
Never miss another story
  • Inbox already too full?
    Subscribe to our
    RSS feed instead!