What we have in Israel and Palestine today is not a crisis anymore, but total chaos and catastrophe, a situation in which intellectual activity and progressive policy is becoming less and less feasible.
As to the roadmap for peace? Well, it might be a nicely worded document, but it is a document that does not go to the core of the matter. The roadmap for peace should really be part two of the equation. Part one still needs to be filled in. What are the real needs and desires of both parties, and how can they be met?
The Israeli's and the Palestinians need to design their own roadmap, not the West. All Europe and the US need to do, is to provide the support for these discussion.
In the present, unfortunate situation, the Israeli and the Palestinian governments are mainly trying to manage the anger of their populations. The measures most successful in doing this, of course, are precisely the measures creating even more turmoil on both sides.
Both parties are now acting based on their basic instincts. As we all know, when humans start doing that it spells chaos. Ariel Sharon now really has only one policy, which is to try to bully the Palestinian leadership into suppressing the more extreme Palestinian groups. In the meantime, as Arafat's power slowly fades away, other Palestinian groups are exploiting the vacuum he is leaving behind. Hamas counteracts in what it knows best, terrorism, and keeps attacking civilian targets. The result is loss of life, human suffering and destruction on both sides.
What can the world do to end this spiral of death?
Only the EU and the US have the power to inform both the Palestinian and Israeli leadership that unless they get together within 30 days and develop their own roadmap to peace, all economic aid and military support will cease to both parties.
Only the EU and the US have the power to advise both the Palestinian and the Israeli leadership that any attack by either party on the territory of the other will immediately result in a retaliatory strike by the combined forces of the EU and the US.
So far US and European policies have miserably failed to stop the bloodshed between the Palestinians and the Israeli's. The reasons are numerous, but the underlying factor is that we are not giving both parties equal footing. The US should know better than any country in the world that it will pay a dividend to include all parties in the process. So far they have not. Today's terrorists could be tomorrows leaders, just look at the IRA.
Regardless of what happens, rest assured, Peace will come to the people of the area, as it was promised many centuries ago.
Arabs, Christians and Jews all have the same God, even if they call him by different names. His promises and blessings are not exclusive, they are for all mankind. Maybe this is a good time to start reading these promises and blessings, and to have faith that they will come to pass. As it is written:
"The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord will make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord will turn his face toward you and give you peace."