ABSTRACT
Israel provides the framework for a plan, just as it did at Camp David in 1978 and in 1993 in Oslo, and the United States provides the endorsement. Both the Oslo Accords and the Road Map were distinguished by built-in tendencies toward deliberate ambiguity, which hampers real diplomatic activity and impedes progress. The disengagement represents a dangerous step backward in the struggle to find a just peace for the two peoples based on sovereign equality, respect for international law and fair solutions to the status of Jerusalem and the claims of Palestinian refugees. Ariel Sharon's unilateral plan known as the Gaza disengagement was implemented during six days in mid-August 2005 amid a media frenzy involving some nine hundred journalists covering what was described as a "historic event". A viable independent and contiguous Palestinian state has no place on George W. Bush's real agenda, although it will be central in the rhetorical aspects of US policy.
