As U.S. and British forces mop up the last remnants of Saddam’s regime, the Middle East is moving towards a historic crossroads. Across the world, fallout from the war in Iraq has increased pressure on America and Britain to push Israel and the Palestinians to renew the peace process. But in order for the negotiations to begin again in earnest, neither side must set impossible preconditions—as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon appeared to do in an interview published this past Sunday, when he said that Palestinians must immediately abandon the right of return while Israel need not stop expanding its settlements until final status talks begin.

After Sharon called Palestinian Authority President Yassir Arafat “irrelevant,” the U.S. had pushed for the appointment of a Palestinian prime minister who would crack down on terror and restart negotiations. The choice of reformer Mahmoud Abbas (known as Abu Mazen) offers great hope that Arafat will be sidelined, opening avenues for new leaders to negotiate with Israel. If Abu Mazen is able to gain approval for his cabinet, the Bush Administration has said it will publish the “road map” which describes the series of steps for Israelis and Palestinians to take over the next several years to reach a final agreement.

The first stage of the road map calls for Israel to immediately remove settlement outposts built since March 2001 and to completely freeze all settlement activity after a general cease-fire. At the same time, it obligates the Palestinian leadership to immediately end the armed intifada and all acts of violence against Israelis. Sensibly, the most difficult issues—such as the final borders of the two states and the disposition of Palestinian refugees—are left to the last phase of negotiations.

But Sharon seems determined to torpedo the road map before formal negotiations even get underway. In the interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Sharon offered to make “painful concessions” on settlements—but in the same interview, and in an Israeli cabinet meeting just over a week ago, he said settlement discussions would be left until the final status negotiations. Yet Sharon says that the Palestinians must compromise on the right of return for refugees “right from the outset.”

There is no question that Sharon drives a hard bargain, and perhaps he is just posturing to get Israel a better deal in the end. But if he holds to the line that Israel will not move on settlements until the last phase of negotiations, his offer of “painful concessions” will be revealed as little more than a bald attempt to score P.R. points with the U.S. while ensuring that those concessions will never actually need to be made.

Asking the Palestinian leadership to abandon the right of return as a precondition to negotiations, while offering nothing on settlements, is more than a diplomatic nonstarter—it mocks the very idea of negotiations. For a final settlement to be reached, it is widely recognized that the Palestinians must eventually drop the demand that all refugees be allowed to return to Israel—but presumably in exchange for major concessions on other issues (like settlements), not to mention compensation for those refugees who are not permitted to return home.

The road map rightly sets out a settlement freeze as one of the first moves that needs to be made, not one of the last. As multiple Security Council resolutions have stated, settling Israeli civilians in the occupied territories contravenes the Geneva Conventions of 1949. The settlements are expanding as every day goes by, strangling Palestinian development and dividing a future Palestinian state. Some of the isolated outposts are actually a detriment to Israeli security—not only in the larger context by fomenting Palestinian rage, but also by stretching the Israeli Defense Forces’ capability to protect them.

Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Mazen is generally perceived as a moderate and has earned some credibility by fighting for a reformist cabinet that intends to depose several Arafat cronies. Sharon, on the other hand, could hardly be more of a hawk; many see him as a war criminal for his indirect responsibility for the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon, and he has always been a staunch supporter of settlements. It is time for Sharon to make a meaningful concession to show Palestinians that a leader committed to peace, as Abu Mazen seems to be, can extract real compromise from Israel.

Freezing settlement activity and dismantling outposts in the first stage of negotiations, as the road map states, would be an unmistakable indication that Israel means business—and would do it without endangering Israeli security. Combined with a simultaneous Palestinian commitment to take all possible steps to crack down on terrorism, a settlement freeze would be serious progress towards a final settlement.

David M. DeBartolo ’03 is a government concentrator in Lowell House. He was editorial chair of The Crimson in 2002.