Sunday, May 25, 2003
So it passed the cabinet.
"The Palestinians, who began an uprising for statehood 32 months ago, have embraced the road map." That should read "Some Palestinians, shouldn't it? Abbas can say what he wants, but he can't do a thing without the support of Arafat and the armed groups. It's a lopsidede bargain, with a legitimate government on one side and a charade on the other.
But that's just something to bear in mind as we go. The Road Map is going forward, at least as a pantomime. At what point does a pantomime become real? Will someone come along and build real walls around the invisible ones the mime creates in the mind of the audience? It could happen.
On we go...
Yahoo! News - Israeli Cabinet Approves Landmark Peace Blueprint
Sharon overcame opposition to the plan by far-right cabinet ministers and members of his own rightist Likud party by a vote of 12-7 with four abstentions after a stormy six-hour debate, a government spokesman said.
The cabinet approval set the stage for a possible Israeli-Palestinian summit attended by President Bush (news - web sites), who had pushed Sharon hard to accept the most ambitious Middle East peace plan in years.
Israeli opponents of the proposal noted its acceptance formally committed Israel for the first time to the establishment of a Palestinian state, envisaged in the plan by 2005.
"The most important thing now is for Israel to implement (the road map) in its entirety," Palestinian cabinet minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said after the Israeli vote. "Israel has to stop collective punishment and settlement expansion."
The Palestinians, who began an uprising for statehood 32 months ago, have embraced the road map. Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said Israeli approval would be followed by talks Monday between Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and Sharon.
"The time has come to divide this piece of land between us and the Palestinians," Sharon said in the Yedioth Ahronoth daily before the cabinet vote, without indicating how much occupied territory Israel would be willing to relinquish. [...]
