The Palestinians have welcome an announcement by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that he has accepted the latest Middle East peace plan. Mr Sharon has told US President George W Bush he will present the "road map for peace" to the Israeli Cabinet after assurances from Washington that it has committed to Israel's security. Mr Bush has also said he will consider holding a summit meeting with Mr Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Mazen to further the peace process. Michael Tarazi, a close adviser to Abu Mazen, has welcomed Mr Sharon's announcement, but admits some scepticism remains on the Palestinian side. "Certainly we're cautiously optimisitic, it's certainly not bad news," Mr Tarazi said. "We've pushing Israel to accept the road map the way we've accepted the road map now for the past few weeks, and so this is certainly encouraging although many Palestinians are quite sceptical. They say this is Israel's way of getting credit for accepting the road map when in reality what they're really trying to do is gut the road map of its most salient positions, first and foremost to end settlement construction, to evacuate those settlements."
| I'd call Sharon's acceptance of the roadmap a propaganda move at this point. A year in the making, with input from the "Quartet," it became Bush's when it was presented, and it was DOA — Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Yasser won't let it happen. If peace ever came, even a semblence of peace, they'd have nothing to justify their own existence. |
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