all violence. After a short truce, violence resumed
with Hamas killing twenty Israelis on a bus in
August 2003. Arab neighbours, Egypt and Jordan
are to be associated in a security cooperation plan
forming, together with the US, an oversight
board. The Israelis made security a precondition of
delivering their supposedly ‘simultaneous’ steps –
the ‘immediate’ dismantling of settlement out-
posts erected since March 2001 and a freeze on
settlement expansion and easing the lives of the
Palestinians. An independent Palestinian state with
provisional borders and a final comprehensive and
permanent settlement was to be reached in 2005.
There was no attempt to spell out the solution to
the most intractable problems, the territorial via-
bility of the Palestinian state, the future of the
settlements, the division of Jerusalem and the issue
of the return of the refugees. The Israelis submit-
ted reservations, the plan was not unconditionally
accepted by them. The US gave assurances that
during negotiations the reservations would be
taken into account.
Soon after the signatures and handshaking the
Palestinians and Israelis were left to themselves.
Pressure on Arafat secured the appointment of a
prime minister of the Palestinian authority. The
first one resigned and the second, Ahmed Qurei,
appears to be powerless to restrain the murderous
assaults by suicide bombers against Israel. The
Israelis, with the lack of progress, did not disman-
tle any major settlements on the West Bank and
made only a few efforts to stop their expansion.
Negotiations at lower levels got nowhere. Both
sides blame each other. Israeli ‘targeted’ assaults
on Hamas leaders; the paraplegic sheikh Ahmed
Yussin in March 2004 and his successor one
month later. That missile strikes from the
air kill and wound Palestinian bystanders was
accepted by Israel as inevitable collateral damage.
On the West Bank the Israeli wall and security
fence, constructed to protect settlements and
Israel, reduced the death toll in Israel and so
gained public support. Ariel Sharon with the back-
ing of President Bush embarked on unilateral solu-
tions in 2004. He wishes to persuade Israelis to
withdraw from Gaza and to accept the removal of
some 7,000 settlers. That would leave over a mil-
lion Palestinians in the control of Palestinians, sup-
posedly the government of the Palestinian
Authority, but Hamas is dominant in the Gaza
territory. Likud turned down the plan, but a
reshuffled coalition gave its consent; conflict in
Gaza is still likely. The Road Map awaits resurrec-
tion as the only plan forward in existence. All that
is happening in the present is not supposed to pre-
judice a final negotiated settlement of the remain-
ing huge obstacles – the borders of the Palestinian
state and Israel, the future of Jerusalem, compen-
sation or implementation of the Palestinian ‘right
of return’ and the future of Israeli settlements.
Meanwhile the Palestinians remain cooped up,
subject to searches and border controls for those
fortunate enough to work in Israel, largely unem-
ployed and dependent on welfare. The Israelis live
under constant threat of terror, the economy is
badly damaged by military expenditure and the
absence of tourist income, and condemned by the
Arabs and many in the Western world as well. The
moderates on both sides have little prospect of
coming together without fundamental changes.
The preconditions for progress are absent – the
democratic reform of the Palestinian authority,
the suppression of Hamas and groups of killers
(martyrs in the eyes of fanatics), moves on the
Israeli side to ease the burdens on the Palestinian
civilian population, ending Israeli strikes killing
also the innocent and the removal of settlements.
The death of Yasser Arafat in November 2004
provided a new opening. On the Israeli side, the
formation of a Labour–Likud coalition between
Sharon and Peres places the pull out plan from
1
THE ‘WAR ON TERROR’ 937
Israel and the Palestinian-occupied lands, 2000
Israel West Bank
and Gaza
Population 5,930,000 3,200,000
Division by religion
Jews 4,740,000
Jewish settlers 180,000
Muslims 950,000
Christians 120,000
Druze 120,000
Other 2,000
GDP per head,
Purchasing Power
Parity (US$) 19,000 less than 1,300
