Hopes Ride on ‘Road Map’

Ariel Sharon’s election as prime minister two years ago and reelection this year overjoyed Israelis who had settled on land seized from the Palestinians after the 1967 war. He was a champion of spreading settlements through the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

But in an interview published Sunday in the newspaper Haaretz, Sharon said he understood Israel would have to give up some settlements in exchange for peace. That is encouraging, especially given hopes that the U.S.-led victory in Iraq will provide momentum to settle what Arabs say they consider to be the main problem in the Middle East: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Also encouraging is the attempt of the newly designated prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to form a government. The Bush administration has promised to publish the “road map” for Middle East peace when that happens, one developed with the European Union, Russia and the United Nations. It will detail reciprocal steps that Israel and the Palestinians would take leading up to the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.

The administration should be firm on publishing the document and on welcoming comments by both sides. Neither side, however, should be allowed to fiddle with it.

A senior Sharon aide has been in Washington this week seeking more than a dozen changes, a reflection of Sharon’s desire to have a role while keeping everyone but the U.S. and Israel on the sidelines. But modifying the document now would require extensive consultations with the other three parties claiming co-authorship. Worse, it would signal a tilt to Israel when the administration needs to be seen as evenhanded.

Bush said last week that he was willing to spend as much energy on the Middle East as British Prime Minister Tony Blair spent on helping find an end to decades of violence in Northern Ireland. Bush has stated his commitment to a Palestinian state and has been pushed by Blair to become more involved in bringing Israelis and Palestinians together.

Bush’s father capitalized on the U.S.-led victory in the 1991 Persian Gulf War to launch a process, starting with the Madrid peace conference, that almost stopped the fighting between Israel and the Palestinians in 2000. When talks foundered, the Palestinians began attacks that led to retaliatory reoccupation of Palestinian territories.

Many doubt Sharon’s willingness to abandon settlements or even to stop their expansion. But 20 years ago, he oversaw the evacuation of settlements in the Sinai Desert as part of the peace process with Egypt. If the Palestinians end the violence, he could well take another major step toward peace. President Bush should encourage this by spending some of the political capital earned in the successful prosecution of the Iraq war on this even-tougher Middle East problem.