Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
On April 30, 2003, what became known as the Quartet — the United States, the European
Union, the United Nations, and Russia —unveiled a new three-phase peace plan intended to
produce a Palestinian state by 2005 or 2006. Under the fi rst phase of this “road map” plan,
both sides would acknowledge the other's right to exist. Then Palestinians would cease causing
violence, and Israel would withdraw to the September 28, 2000, lines and dismantle settlement
outposts built since March 2001. A projected second phase would include peace talks establish-
ing provisional Palestinian borders and recognition of Israel's right to exist by all Arab states.
The fi nal phase would be a peace agreement and creation of a Palestinian state. Israel accepted
the plan in May, but as so often before, nothing happened despite hundreds of meetings,
speeches, and visits. Having seen so many Western plans lead nowhere, Sharon and the rest of
Israel's government were looking for an initiative of their own.
Plans for Unilateral Disengagement
The intifada and the failure of the peace process led most, though certainly not all, Jewish
Israelis to rethink policy. The new consensus had two main points: On one hand, Israelis were
ready to give up almost all the territory captured in the 1967 war and accept an independent
Palestinian state. On the other hand, they did not believe that there was a real Palestinian
partner for peace. Many or most of those from the center to the left still advocated a peace
agreement to end the confl ict and produce a stable two-state solution but had abandoned
hope that this was going to happen anytime soon. Many or most of those from the center to
the right still preferred that Israel retain most of the West Bank but had abandoned the belief
that this was likely to happen in the long run and saw it as more of a necessity than as a benefi t
in its own right.
Barak had introduced a new approach in the 1999 election, that of separation — the idea
that Israel would disengage from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In Barak's case, separation
was largely meant as an interim step toward a full peace agreement. During the 2003 cam-
paign, when Sharon was reelected, the Labor Party had proposed a unilateral withdrawal from
the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, including the dismantling of more than fi fty settlements.
Ehud Olmert, a Likud MK from a centrist background and a close associate of Sharon's,
later fl oated a similar idea, which gained support from about half of the Israeli populace. Sha-
ron offi cially presented the proposal to withdraw unilaterally from the Gaza Strip in a Decem-
ber 18, 2003, speech at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya. The prime minister explained
that withdrawal would not preclude an eventual two-state solution but that it would be a long
time before that solution was likely to be attained. Steps needed to be taken to create the best
strategic situation in the interim. The IDF endorsed this idea, since it was easier to defend a
long and clearly defi ned frontier than to send troops into hostile territory on a daily basis.
Sharon thus planned to pull out from the entire Gaza Strip and dismantle all seventeen
settlements there, plus four more in the northern West Bank. The Israeli pullout would present
an opportunity for the PA to demonstrate its commitment to ruling the Gaza Strip as a peace-
ful neighbor and focus on economic development there. At best, then, the withdrawal would
prove to be an important bilateral confi dence-building measure.
In April 2004, President George W. Bush endorsed the plan. But Sharon ran into trouble
within his own coalition. In a May 2, 2004, referendum, 60 percent of Likud members rejected
