In the Oslo process that started with mutual recognition between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in September 1993, the question of a Palestinian state was never mentioned. Implicitly, it would only come at the end of the whole process, after the resolution of all final status issues.
In the Road Map of April 2003, a Palestinian state would take shape in the second, middle phase — though the borders of the state would still be temporary.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said on many occasions that he is not interested in any more temporary anything.
Now, the question of a Palestinian state appears, again, to be moved back to the end of what we can now call the Annapolis process.
At a wrap-up press conference on Friday morning in the Israeli Government Press Center set up in Jerusalem’s Muncipality Building, Mark Regev, the spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, told journalists that “We’re trying to work on a historic agreement with the Palestinians by the end of 2008. It’s implementation will be subject to the Road Map, which has the status of a UN Security Council resolution.”
Just the day before, U.S. President George Bush shocked many Palestinians by saying, at a press conference in the Palestinian presidential compound in Ramallah, that U.N. resolutions had failed to solve this conflict — and that they had therefore been thrown out the window.
Regev said at another point that “We want a historic agreement with the Palestinians by the end of this year … a historic reconciliation — that is the goal of the negotiations … As was re-stated yesterday in Ramallah, every agreement will be subject to implementation of the Road Map.
Regev also told the journalists that “It’s clear that peace is a two-state solution. There is no three-state solution, so it’s obvious we have to see the legitimate Palestinian government in control of the Gaza Strip”.
This would suggest either that (1) there will be an imminent operation to remove Hamas from power in Gaza (in the context of Bush urging Abbas to crack down on terrorists), and/or (2) that this is just another good excuse to postpone steps to set up a Palestinian State until some unspecified utopian future where Hamas is out of the picture.
Regev also said, about Gaza, that (1)= “Gaza is in many ways the elephant in the room”, and (2) “Obviously the situation in Gaza was presented to the President and his team … it is a grave problem … and in many ways what’s happening in Gaza today is the Achilles heel of the whole process”.
And, the White House press office has put out a correction — contradicting the Washington Post — and saying that Bush never said there would be a Palestinian state by the end of 2008!
White House website now has a note highlighting that press secretary Dana Perino said on 8 January: [O]ne report today … suggested that the President is backtracking … suggesting that the President had said that we would actually have a sovereign, final Palestinian state by the end of 2008. The President has never said that. We’ve been very clear that what 2008 should be used for is to help the negotiating parties focus on the big picture, but also get into some of the nitty gritty and very difficult issues, such as borders and settlements, that are going to have to be solved.” This whole briefing note can be found here.
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