What remains of the roadmap pledge to establish a Palestinian state, asks Mohamed Sid-Ahmed Following Ariel Sharon's surprise announcement at the end of November that he was leaving the Likud and forming a new centrist party, Kadima, his most vocal critic within the Likud, Benyamin Netanyahu, was elected to succeed him as party leader. According to the results of elections held on 19 December, Netanyahu got 44 per cent of the vote, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom 33 per cent, the leader of the far-right faction within the party, Moshe Figlin, 15 per cent and a fourth candidate, Minister of Agriculture Israel Katz, nine per cent. Thus Netanyahu, who led the Likud from 1993 to 1999, has been re-instated as party leader. The electoral campaign conducted by Sharon to launch his new party was over in a matter of days. It did not take him long to persuade more than a dozen members of parliament to shift their allegiance from the Likud to Kadima. However, he failed to win over his foreign minister, whose public support of Sharon's Gaza disengagement plan belied his strong reservations towards the move. At the same time, Shalom did not support Netanyahu's candidacy because he disagreed with what he considered to be the latter's ultra-liberal policies as finance minister. Despite the loss of many prominent members of the party who left to join Sharon, Netanyahu seemed unfazed. While deploring Sharon's move as aimed at reducing the Likud into a subsidiary of Kadima, he welcomed the chance to "bring Likud back to its original identity, and then prepare it to resume its role to lead the country". The big loser in the game is obviously Silvan Shalom who decided not to join Sharon and who, contrary to Defence Minister Mofaz, decided to remain in Likud. His task is difficult because the structure of the party that Netanyahu inherited from Sharon lacks coherence and has little in common with the original Likud that Sharon helped create. According to several opinion polls, Likud, which was represented by 39 members of parliament in 2003, is not expected to capture more than 13 of the 120 Knesset seats in the parliamentary elections to be held on 28 March. The polls give Kadima a clear lead, with 39 seats, 15 more than its closest rival, Labour, which is expected to win 24 seats. if, as is likely, Kadima and Labour, which is now led by the veteran trade unionist Amir Peretz, form a coalition, Sharon will dominate the Knesset with a very comfortable majority. With Sharon's departure, the Likud has fallen prey to a power struggle between Netanyahu and Figlin. A rising star in the firmament of the extreme right in Israel, Figlin poses a real challenge to the elected leader of the Likud. The rivalry between the two men can only weaken the status of each, while Sharon's position is strengthened thanks to Mofaz's decision to join Kadima. This state of affairs could eventually induce Shalom to reconsider his decision not to leave Likud. On 18 December, Sharon suffered a mild stroke, said to have been caused by a hole in his heart. The health issue, in addition to his age, 77, is raising questions about his ability to lead the country for yet another term. The stroke, which occurred 99 days before the parliamentary elections, came at what is a critical moment not only for Israel but for the region at large. In addition to the uneasy situation in Lebanon and Syria and the continuing violence in Iraq, Gaza remains a tinderbox primed to explode at any time. The roadmap's deadline for the establishment of a Palestinian state has not been met, despite the removal from the scene of the man both the Israelis and Americans claimed was the main obstacle impeding progress on the issue. When Arafat died, whether by natural causes or as the victim of assassination, Bush and Sharon said his death created favourable conditions for a settlement. But nearly one year on, there is still no prospect of a settlement any time soon. Even though Israel pulled out of Gaza last September, almost all of the West Bank remains under Israeli occupation and Israel continues to launch rocket attacks in Gaza. The roadmap was set up by four different entities: the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, constituting together what has come to be described as the Quartet. This new body tried to benefit from the mistakes of the past in order to avoid them in future. In this, it was inspired by three basic ideas. First, to make concomitant efforts with both sides to avoid that issues already settled be renegotiated. For example, as the Palestinians disband their armed organisations, the Israelis are required to freeze the construction of new settlements. Second, the establishment of a supervisory mechanism by the Quartet to assess the progress achieved. Third, to determine three consecutive confidence-building stages (until June 2003) during which a Palestinian state within temporary borders will be set up (until December 2003). During these stages, final borders will be negotiated in talks covering all the basic aspects of the conflict: Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, Israeli settlements, etc. The last stage, in which normalisation will have been achieved between the parties, ended on 31 December 2005. By the time the parliamentary elections are held, all the Israeli parties are expected to determine their final position towards the conflict as a whole. Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan effectively neutralised the Quartet's efforts for the whole of last year. Moreover, pulling out of Gaza to strengthen Israel's security can hardly be made compatible with pulling out to achieve the independence of the Palestinian people. That is why Mahmoud Abbas insisted on passing directly to the third and final stage of the roadmap without going through the first two stages envisaged by the Quartet, that is, on proceeding directly with final status negotiations. Abbas's plan is the very opposite of Sharon's. As the latter wants to prolong this ultimate stage indefinitely, Abbas proceeds from the idea that an agreement on the basic issues of contention is the only way to convince the various Palestinian factions that negotiations can achieve better results than armed struggle.
