[Cyrus]

"ROADMAP: WHAT WE KNOW
Phase 1: End of terrorism, normalisation of Palestinian life and Palestinian political reform; Israeli withdrawal and end of settlement activity
Phase 2: Creation of an independent Palestinian state; Palestinian elections and international monitoring of compliance with roadmap
Phase 3: Permanent status agreement and end of conflict; agreement on final borders, Jerusalem, refugees and settlements; Arab states to agree to peace deals with Israel."

I don't know where that particular road map came from, but even if it's an accurate one, i.e. what Dubya's camp has in mind, this I say to you :

It is to Israel's interest that #2 never happens, no matter what the concessions it gets or the pressure it comes under. A truly autonomous Palestinian state created anywhere alongside Israel is simply not an option for Israel's leadership. Especially if that state is created anywhere in the West Bank of the Jordan river.

The best solution for Israel is no solution. Just a protracted continuation of the current "hot peace" status. The objective is to ram through Israel's total intransigence and to persuade the Arab world that nothing will be acceptable short of total capitulation to Israel, to the point of it becoming the pre-eminent economic power in the area. The Reform Zionists, such as Zabotinsky, have promoted since the beginning of the previous century the concept of an Iron Wall that must be built between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East. Unqualified American support provided all that Israel needed to enforce its expansionist and militarist policy ever since its creation and to build a truly formidable such Wall.

Bottom line : The prospects for peace in Israel and Palestine (a true peace and not some Orwellian misnomer) are not very bright.

(On the contrary, the Cyprus issue seems to be closer to a de facto solution, or at least a way out, than it was since 1974! The Turkish-Cypriot authorities a week ago eased "temporarily" the restriciton of movements between the two areas of the island and this resulted in mass visitings by both Greek- and Turkish-Cypriots to the other side. A truly mass exchange of comings and goings and an effective re-unification of that divided country. Different wall that one.)