As for the Israelis and the Palestinians, neither wanted to say no to President Bush, who glowed in the aftermath of Saddam's defeat. Prime Minister Sharon--knowing that most Israelis believed that the United States had removed a strategic threat to Israel--was not about to reject an initiative by the triumphant President. Similarly, neither Arafat nor Palestinian reformist leaders had any interest in denying a U.S. initiative under these circumstances. On the contrary, Palestinians sought the intervention of the world's only superpower to transform the situation on the ground.

There is a big difference, however, between avoiding saying no, on the one hand, and actually saying yes to the specifics of what the United States might be asking, on the other. Not rejecting the U.S. initiative was consistent with wanting to stop the war. Saying yes might mean moving toward the difficult decisions involved in peacemaking. Such a positive response requires a different mindset--one which must demonstrate a willingness to confront constituencies that resist compromise and think not only in terms of their own political needs but their counterpart's as well. While Saddam's defeat did not necessarily create these impulses on either side, it did suggest that change was possible and that the moment should be seized at least to produce relief for both sides.

In this sense, the President's initiative came at a moment when both Israelis and Palestinians were ready to stop the day-to-day struggle that was imposing such pain on each of them. On this point, they basically agreed. Their "agreement" did not extend to the content of peace negotiations or even to the content of the roadmap. But it did reflect important developments within each society.

New Realities

Among Palestinians, the attitude toward the violence had begun to change in the period preceding the war in Iraq. Though a majority of Palestinians favored violence from the beginning of the intifada--especially as a way to inflict pain on Israelis who were inflicting pain on them--this sentiment began to change in early 2003. In February, polls indicated that a slim majority now opposed the violence. By June, that slim majority became a more decisive one, with 73 percent of the Palestinians in the territories favoring an end to it. Palestinians were longing for a return to a more normal life--one in which the Israeli siege could be lifted and movement of people and goods could be restored. No end to the violence would mean no lifting of the checkpoints.

Under duress, Yasir Arafat appointed Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) as the first-ever prime minister of the Palestinian Authority. The administration skillfully used the Palestinian desire for American intervention to increase the pressure on Arafat to make the appointment, saying it could only unveil the roadmap when there was a credible prime minister. Arafat may have made the appointment only because of international pressure, but it was Palestinian reformers who first raised the idea of a prime minister. Indeed, Palestinian pressure on Arafat for reform pre-dated President Bush's June 24 speech, emerging when no one predicted it. Following the Israeli operation "Defensive Shield" of March-May 2002, in which the IDF entered every Palestinian city in the West Bank except Jericho and destroyed extensive parts of the old cities of Jenin and Nablus as they sought to root out terrorist cells, most observers expected the Palestinians to be driven by their anger at Israel. No doubt there was anger, but the overwhelming sentiment in the territories after Defensive Shield was the desire for reform. Reconstruction was what Palestinians wanted: they did not want to reconstruct the "rot" that had been Yasir Arafat's government.

Palestinians were not prepared to embrace efforts to unseat their icon Yasir Arafat, but they wanted him to share power. The emergence of Abu Mazen as prime minister represented what reformers had sought, even if his cabinet, being the product of difficult negotiations with Arafat, was not exactly what they had in mind. No one on the Palestinian side had more consistently opposed violence than Abu Mazen. At one point, he publicly challenged those, including Arafat, who argued for the intifada, saying that it yielded the opposite of their stated goals: it extended Israeli occupation, tightened the Israeli control of East Jerusalem and strengthened Prime Minister Sharon. To Abu Mazen, the continued violence was producing a disaster for Palestinians and threatening the cause itself.

The new Palestinian Prime Minister was not alone in this assessment. Critical support for stopping the violence came from Tanzim leaders. The Tanzim are the Fatah activists who control much of the grassroots organization, especially in the cities of the West Bank. Though Marwan Barghouti is certainly the most prominent Tanzim leader, the Tanzim tends to be more of a horizontal than a vertical organization. Their leaders produced the first intifada from 1987-90 and have played an important role in the second one. As several of their leaders explained to me in June, they initially believed that this intifada would prove to the Israelis that force would not work on the Palestinians. Instead, it was now clear that force could work against either side. Worse, as the intifada continued, their agenda of a two-state solution, produced through negotiations, was being supplanted by the Hamas agenda of ongoing struggle. Lest there be a break in the situation, they were now concerned that the ability to produce a two-state solution could be lost.

The push for a ceasefire came strongly from the Tanzim and certainly also reflected the mood of the Palestinian public. In these circumstances, Hamas was not about to oppose a ceasefire, believing that it could use the respite to rebuild, and that sooner or later the Israelis would create a pretext for going back to the struggle.

In Israel, there was also a readiness to transform the situation. Certainly, the Israeli public was ready for it, with two-thirds opposing the resumption of targeted killings by the IDF. But coupled with the desire to see the violence end was a feeling that the Palestinians, having imposed the recent violence on Israel, must show they were serious about stopping it.

With the emergence of Abu Mazen as prime minister, the Israeli public and Prime Minister Sharon saw an opportunity. With President Bush's initiative, he saw a need, but the ongoing economic crisis in Israel also motivated him. Sharon came to believe that Israel's economy could not recover unless the war with the Palestinians stopped--and for the first time he publicly began to say so. His call to his constituency to understand that Israel must give up the occupation and be ready to "divide the land" was justified in terms of the occupation not being good for Israelis, for Palestinians or for "Israel's economy."

Exhaustion on both sides certainly helps to explain why there may now be a moment to end the war and resume a peace process. Can a peace process now be successful? Is the roadmap the vehicle for producing success?

The Problems Ahead

The roadmap is not a detailed plan. Having been forged with outside parties, it lacks the clarity and definition to be anything other than a set of guidelines. Its basic concept makes sense: establish mutual obligations and phases designed to restore an environment in which the two sides can, in time, once again tackle the core issues of the conflict.

Truth be told, the roadmap tries to create a pathway that restores the core bargain of Oslo: The Israelis get security. The Palestinians get their freedom. Both sides assume responsibilities to fulfill their side of that bargain. This is a fair sounding proposition in theory, but devilishly difficult to translate into reality.

The two sides were not involved in developing the roadmap, so it should come as no surprise that they would each try to redefine it. The Israelis have been public about their concerns and created 14 conditions--primarily related to security and sequence--that the current administration has promised to "take into account." The Palestinians have publicly accepted the roadmap without qualification; nonetheless, they are trying to redefine it in its application. For example, the hudna, or truce declared as an agreement among Palestinian factions, is not a part of the roadmap. There is supposed to be an immediate, unconditional ceasefire, with the commencement of arrests and the dismantling of terrorist infrastructure. But Abu Mazen explained that he needed to build his capabilities before taking on the main Palestinian obligations in the first phase of the roadmap. He is betting that, with calm, the Israelis will take steps both within and outside of the roadmap that will allow him to show he is delivering. By showing that his way works, that life for Palestinians improves, he will build his authority and his leverage on groups like Hamas.

The irony is not lost on the Israelis: a roadmap that was to pressure the Palestinians to produce first on security issues before Israel had to take difficult steps is one that in practice pressures the Israelis to perform prior to Abu Mazen fulfilling his side of the bargain. Indeed, this irony even extends to items not in the roadmap--neither Palestinian prisoners nor the "fence" are addressed in the roadmap, but releasing prisoners and halting construction of the security fence in the West Bank have become part of the new list of Palestinian needs. Israel, recognizing its stake in Abu Mazen's success, released some prisoners, lifted some checkpoints and even planned additional withdrawals. But the Israelis were never likely to withdraw extensively prior to seeing more of a Palestinian effort to constrain terrorist groups and their capabilities in additional areas of the West Bank. Moreover, Sharon was unlikely to carry out the tough steps that the roadmap calls for in the first phase--freezing all settlement activity and dismantling all unauthorized settler outposts established since March 2001--before seeing Abu Mazen take the tough decision to dismantle terrorist infrastructures in the West Bank and Gaza.

Essay Types: Essay