A whole year of activity in promoting peace and spreading the message of ?there is a partner? seems very short when one takes into consideration the number of challenges the two parties to the Geneva Accord have faced and are still facing.
True, there has always been a tendency not only in the Middle East but also in other parts of the world for people to want maximum results with minimum effort in next to no time. Of course this is impossible, even in the best circumstances. Therefore, a year on since the signing of the accord, one can really understand how difficult it has been for the Geneva Initiative Palestinian and Israeli partners to achieve the results or reach the targets they have set themselves.
However, there has been a major breakthrough: as far as the Geneva Initiative partners are concerned, the debate has grown within Israel and Palestine regarding the possibility of reaching a peaceful settlement and ending the conflict based on a two-state solution along the 1967 borders, with agreed modifications.
Main goal
After four years of ruthless conflict between the two sides, and after reason almost disappeared, the main goal of the Geneva Initiative has become that of changing people's mindsets into believing that peace is still possible and that a negotiated settlement is still within reach. The two parties need to make a courageous decision to resume negotiations and to reach a settlement based on the model presented by the Geneva Accord.
After some three years of political impasse with no signs of a breakthrough, the Geneva Initiative put pressure on both sides to make a move. The first to react was Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon who, fearing that the international community might exert pressure on Israel to accept the Geneva Accord, put forward his own disengagement plan.
Despite strong Palestinian opposition, Sharon's disengagement plan has significant features, the most important of which is the fact that Sharon speaks openly of pulling Israeli troops out of territories occupied by Israel and of dismantling Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank.
Sharon's aim?
But our concern stems from what seems to be Sharon's goal of pulling out of the Gaza Strip while, at the same time, continuing Israel's occupation of the West Bank. It is for this reason that we insist on the need to transform the Gaza pullout plan into a first step towards a political process and not a step that leads to a permanent occupation of other parts of the Palestinian land.
Opposing the Sharon plan without presenting a mechanism that would replace it brings no fruits at all. Therefore, the role of the Palestinian and Israeli peace camps is to look into ways of drawing a roadmap that leads directly from the implementation of Sharon's unilateral disengagement to the quartet's roadmap (sponsored by the US, EU, the UN and Russia); then to the resumption of the highest level political negotiations between the two governments to reach a final status agreement based on the two-state solution along the 1967 borders.
Anything else will fall short of solving the conflict. Anything else will only provide a new recipe for further confrontation and devastation. No one wants such a devastation to continue; no one wants to see innocent blood shed for nothing; no one wants to see this conflict going on endlessly.
Commitment
In order to achieve a major breakthrough in the Middle East, there needs to be a commitment to the roadmap as presented by the US, EU, the UN and Russia. Any attempt to change the terms of reference or the rules of the game will lead nowhere, especially when Sharon insists on his unilateral approach.
The other condition that should be adhered to is partnership. No matter what the components of an agreed settlement are, it always has a better chance of survival than a unilateral settlement. A settlement based on partnership serves the interests of both peoples and as such is much more viable.
Yasser Abed Rabbo is a former Palestinian information minister. Yossi Beilin is a former Israeli justice minister.