30 April 2005 marks the second anniversary of the launching of the Road Map to resolve the Israeli-Arab conflict.



This performance-based and goal-driven plan is yet to get off the ground despite its sponsorship by President George Bush in June 2002, and its endorsement by Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, in ministerial statements made on 16 July and 17 September 2002. The detailed plan, with its clear phases, timelines, target dates and benchmarks, was finally unveiled on 30 April 2003 by this powerhouse group, calling itself the Quartet.



All of them must now be feeling decidedly queasy at their impotence in getting the plan up and running.



They only have themselves to blame for their present quandary as they are forced to sit and watch Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, try to put his own unilateral disengagement plan into operation.



This super-global partnership had, incredibly, based its plan on the same principles as the failed and discredited Oslo Process, which had begun in a blaze of hope in 1993 only to sink into oblivion in 2000. The mistakes the Quartet repeated were many.



Firstly, the Road Map was time-based, demanding its three complex phases be met by specified dates between 2003-2005 - an unrealistic and unattainable goal given the 120 years that the conflict has raged and the enmities that have been created.



Secondly, the vision of the two-state solution was always a misnomer. What the Quartet actually proposed was a three-state solution in the former Mandate of Palestine, by creating an additional Arab state between Israel and Jordan, the two successor states to the Mandate, already exercising sovereignty in 94% of the total area of former Palestine. The framework of the Mandate had been created by the San Remo Conference and the Treaty of Sevres in 1920, and confirmed by the League of Nations in 1922. The Quartet's idea of a second Arab state, in the remaining 6% of former Palestine where sovereignty still remained unallocated, failed to recognise the legal right conferred on Jews by the Mandate, and by Article 80 of the United Nations Charter, to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in these very areas. The Road Map, like Oslo, simply ignored these historic, geographic, demographic and international law realities, as though they never existed or they had no relevance to the current conflict.



Thirdly, weighed down by hundreds of UN General Assembly resolutions fictitiously claiming the West Bank and Gaza Strip to be "occupied Palestinian territory" and any Jewish presence in the West Bank and Gaza to be "illegal", the Road Map required that no further Jews be allowed to settle in the West Bank and Gaza. It further called for the removal of the 300,000 Jews currently living there.



Fourthly, absent from the Road Map was any acknowledgement that the Jews had returned to areas of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 from where they had been driven out in 1948 by the invading Arab armies of Jordan and Egypt, or where they had been massacred by marauding Arab gangs, as occurred in Hebron in 1929.



Fifthly, the Quartet naively articulated the belief that the Arab population could undertake an unconditional cessation of violence, terrorism and incitement, and restrain individuals and groups conducting and planning violent attacks on Israelis anywhere.



Is it any wonder that this Road Map has gone nowhere, when the conditions for its implementation are so impossible and its omissions so glaring?



So, what must the Quartet now do, if they want to really try and bring peace to the region?



Firstly, they must have realistic expectations of what they can hope to achieve. Existing peace treaties signed by Israel with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994 must be the building blocks for any hopes of peace in the region. Allocating sovereignty in the West Bank and Gaza between Egypt, Jordan and Israel will separate the Jewish and Arab populations and extend immediate Arab statehood in Jordan or Egypt to the presently stateless Arab population of the West Bank and Gaza. The introduction of each government's, army, police and legal structures into the West Bank and Gaza will lead to a substantial lessening of the violence that has marked the past two years of lost opportunity, help restore law and order, and enable a return to normal civilian life.



Secondly, no time frame should be set on completing negotiations to achieve the above objectives.



Thirdly, substantial international financial aid should be given to Egypt and Jordan to reconstruct the devastated Arab-populated areas of the West Bank and Gaza coming under their sovereignty, and help restore some semblance of dignity and hope for the future.



Fourthly, recognition needs to be given that in core areas such as Jerusalem, refugees and water rights, the Israel-Jordan peace treaty lays down modalities that can and should be followed in trying to resolve these issues.



Fifthly, the existing Road Map should be used as wrapping paper for tomorrow's fish and chips.



Then, perhaps, we might get a credible Road Map that can lead to somewhere.