The Roadmap in Question 1.In his March 2003 annual report, referring to the difference between this year and the previous one, the World Bank report states that: “The PA reform aims to weed out corruption by enforcing full fiscal accountability, to create a predictable and transparent environment, and to build a modern, merit based civil service. The PA Ministerial Committee on Reform has committed itself wholeheartedly to the cause. Considerable progress has been made in some areas, in particular the management of the PA finances.” How do you rate the changes in the PA? First of all, I would like to say that I do not see any changes in the PA. The fact that the PA created a cabinet that elected Prime Minister and that this “government” has a minister of Finance, does not mean anything. None of our attempts to reinforce Abu Mazen can be successful as long Arafat retains power. No real exchange can take place until his demise. The government would be transparent, clean and uncorrupted if it had to report to the people. The government is responsible only to its citizen, and has to report to them. And this government has to be elected democratically. Dictators only report to themselves. When people talk about Palestinian Democratic Government, they talk about such a far away prospect that even my grand children will still be talking about it. Democratization is a very long process in any country, and especially in Palestine where Arafat’s long reign was devoted to turn Palestine into a terrorist organization. Even with a new Prime Minister, New Cabinet or whatever name you give to it, the Palestinian government is heading a terror organization. The Road Map would have been more appropriately named the Arafat Neutralization Map. Bush’s two first conditions were that the Palestinians unify their security organizations and give the Prime Minister authority to oversee the flow of finance, but nothing came out of it. From the nine unified defense forces, only two report directly to the Prime Minister, and seven still report to Arafat, including all financial channels. So nothing changed. Abu Mazen is just a puppet; the real power still is in Arafat’s hand. The only meaning of all these so called changes is that the officials that Bush, Sharon and leaders of other countries are meeting are dressed in a suit and tie instead of military fatigue and keffieh. Of course, it’s nicer to meet with Abu Mazen than with Arafat. One and a half year ago, I suggested a plan of cantonization of the Palestinian Autonomy. In my opinion, it is not an alternative to the road map or Oslo but the one and only solution. I suggest, building five different cantons on the territory of the autonomy: Gaza, Jericho, two enclaves in Judea Samaria and the fifth one in the area of Bethlehem, that would include Beit Jala, Beit Sakhukha and other small dwellings of Christian Arabs which would be allocated for Christian Holy places. These cantons will be self-governed, until such a time that a central government will be democratically elected. Only people not involved in terror would be eligible for this government. This is my opinion about democratization. 2.The Israelo-Palestinian conflict is often seen as a conflict between Judaism and Islam and their antagonistic interpretations of who is entitled to the land. One of the underlying reason of the Road Map potential chances to succeed is the exhaustion of the two sides, whose economy have been ravaged. Today, both the Israeli government and the PA are seen to exert themselves to bring their extremist components under control. How do you react to the idea that the conflict can now be redefined as Economy versus Religion? The conflict between Jews and Palestinians is not a conflict between two nations but between two civilizations. Israel is the fore post of the Western civilization in the Middle East. For a long period Israel was virtually the only country in the region that fought terrorism. She took all the weight of this fight on her shoulders, to save the world from terror. Today, Islam extremists operate around the world, so when we talk about terror against Israel, we mean terror against all the Western World. Our army does not fight against Palestinians, but against terrorists. War against terror should be fought till total victory. Only after liquidation, capitulation and disarmament of all terrorist groups can we start negotiating. History does not know of any other way leading to a peace agreement. Instead of naming it the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it should be called West against terror. 3.Phase II of the Roadmap sees the “Creation of an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders through a process of Israeli-Palestinian engagement. Launched by the international conference. As part of this process, implementation of prior agreements, to enhance maximum territorial contiguity, including further action on settlements in conjunction with establishment of a Palestinian state with provisional borders.” What would be your provisional map for that intermediary stage? I repeat. I am totally against the Road Map plan. From the first phase to the last. I think that in the frame of guarantying the security of our country, we cannot give Palestinian a contiguous territory. After three years of exhausting war, it is not necessary to more specific as to how dangerous a trans-Palestinian road can be. This road would enable thousands of terrorists to get to every corner of Israel without any problem. One of the main ideas of Oslo and of the current Roadmap is to cut Israel from South to North and to connect Gaza and the West Bank, even though those territories never were together, neither geographically not historically. It is worth remembering that, from 1954 to 1967, there were under different jurisdiction: Gaza administrated by Egypt and the West Bank by Jordan. In those days, nobody talked about an independent Palestinian State. Not even about autonomy. In addition, the distance between Kfar Saba and Qalqiya is only 200 meters. The creation of a Palestinian State means that katyushas and rockets of all shapes and form would be only 200 meters from Kfar Saba. It won’t work. As I said before, after the capitulation of terrorist power, the most important condition of a Palestinian country is cantons and in this case, Israel should keep control of the borders with Jordan and Egypt Following the interviews of Saeb Erekat and Yossi Beilin, referring to the official presentation of the Roadmap. that appeared in our April 2003 issue, we meant to bring to our readers an apercu of the evolution of the process as perceived by the other spectrum of the political arena. Accordingly, we sent the same three questions to Likud MK, Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Industry and Trade Mr. Ehud Olmert and to National Union MK, Minister of Transportation Mr. Avigdor Lieberman. Unfortunately, the horrific suicide bombing that took place in Jerusalem on the 19th of August required Mr. Olmert entire attention, preventing him from answering these questions.

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