TEL AVIV, Israel, May 1 (UPI) -- The long-awaited Middle East "road map" for peace was delivered to Palestinian and Israeli officials Wednesday, calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state by 2005 and offering security guarantees to Israel.
Shortly after the plan was delivered to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman told United Press International Israel had reservations about it, including the question of who would take the first step, Israel or the Palestinians.
The plan was also handed to newly elected Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, more widely known as Abu Mazen in the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority's minister for external affairs, Nabil Shaath later told reporters the Palestinians were completely committed, and provided the Israelis implemented their part, the Palestinians "would certainly implement the part that is related to the Palestinian side."
The road map was delivered in the wake of a suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv beachfront cafe that killed three people -- including the British-born bomber. A second bomber -- also identified as British by Israeli authorities -- escaped when his explosives failed to go off.
The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades -- an extremist offshoot of the Palestine Liberation Organization's main al-Fatah movement -- claimed responsibility for the bombing.
Details of the plan drafted by the Quartet committee on the Middle East -- consisting of senior officials from the United States, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union -- were released in Washington.
Both sides have had a draft of the road map since the beginning of the year, but discussion of it was postponed by the Iraq crisis. The Bush administration has come under pressure from its European allies to demonstrate its concern for the Middle East's overriding problem, the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
It lays down the steps for the two sides to reach a settlement, and a timeline for doing so under the auspices of the Quartet, which will be sending observers to assist in its implementation.
It envisions a Palestinian state by 2005. But analysts maintain that two key parallel requirements are going to be major sticking points: a rollback in Israeli settlements and halting the suicide bombings by Palestinian extremists that have caused such anguish on the Israeli side.
In a message released with the road map, U.S. President George W. Bush urged Israelis and Palestinians to "immediately end the violence and return to a path of peace.
"The road map represents a starting point toward achieving the vision of two states -- a secure state of Israel and a viable, peaceful, democratic Palestine," Bush said in a statement read by his press secretary, Ari Fleischer.
"It is a framework for progress toward lasting peace and security in the Middle East."
Urging Israelis and Palestinians to work "with each other" to bring peace to their region, Bush said the international peace plan could only work if both sides contribute to its success.
"An opportunity now exists to move forward," he added.
The plan, however, is already opposed by Palestinian extremist groups, such as the Hamas, and members of the ruling coalition in Israel.
The Palestinian militants see it as aimed at giving away Palestinian lands to Israelis while its Israeli opponents reject the proposal to dismantle Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Some of them are also opposed to the creation of a separate Palestinian state.
"The road map aims to assure security for Israel at the expense of the security of our people," Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin told reporters in Gaza Wednesday. "It is a plan to liquidate the Palestinian cause. We completely reject it."
Inside the United States, so-called Middle East doves, such as Secretary of State Colin Powell, strongly support the plan. But it is not popular on Capitol Hill where many U.S. lawmakers see it as tilted against Israel.
The road map also enjoys the support of many European leaders, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who had agreed to participate in the Iraq war on the condition that the United States will unveil the road map.
Soon after the delivery of the peace plan, Powell conferred by telephone with Israel's Sharon and the Palestinian's Abu Mazen.
Powell is also scheduled to visit the Middle East later this month for follow up talks with Sharon and Abu Mazen, to spur them to implement the road map.
The Israelis, the spokesman said, regarded the road map as a basis for discussion on how the peace effort should proceed. They are unhappy with the proposal of parallel action. In the first phase the road map focuses on ending violence and building confidence between the two sides.
The Palestinians are supposed to stop all attacks on Israel and reform their governing institutions to make them more democratic and accountable. The Israelis are supposed to freeze the building of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza and withdraw the troops besieging Palestinian territories.
The Israelis want the Palestinians to end the violence before Israel begins to meet its own obligations.
Implementation should be "sequential not parallel," the spokesman said. "We'll take them one at a time."
Israeli officials have expressed concern that they would be pressured to meet their commitments because "the time table says so" even if the Palestinians haven't completed their side of the deal.
A performance-based timetable would give Sharon more leverage to maneuver should he find flaws in the Palestinian implementation.
One large sticking point concerns the Palestinian insistence on a "right of return" of the Palestinian refugees to the homes they left in the 1948 war. Israel says this would tilt the population overwhelmingly in favor of the Palestinians and obliterate the identity of a Palestinian state.
Officially, the Israelis want the issue brought forward from its place in the road map timetable, and discussed early. Hard liners would prefer it not to be discussed at all.
"Without a total unequivocal withdrawal of these demands for the right of return there will not be any major breakthrough in the future," said Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. "There can be nothing left for future interpretations."
Phase two seeks to establish a provisional Palestinian state by the end of 2003.
Phase three calls for a final agreement by the end of 2005 dealing with the status of Jerusalem, which both sides claim as their capital; the final borders between the two states; and the resolution of the issue of the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their original homes that are now inside Israel.
The road map seeks to bypass negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. Since the two sides have lost all faith in each other, the road map sponsors are seeking to have both sides take independent, simultaneous actions that will achieve their own goals.
At the outset of the first phase the Palestinian leadership must issue an unequivocal statement reiterating Israel's right to exist in peace and security and calling for an immediate and unconditional cease-fire to end armed activity.
The Israeli leadership would issue an equally unequivocal statement affirming its commitment to the vision of an independent, viable, sovereign Palestinian state living in peace and security alongside Israel.
In the second phase, efforts are focused on the option of creating an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders and attributes of sovereignty, based on the new constitution, as a way station to a permanent status settlement.
Progress into Phase II will be based on the consensus judgment of the Quartet of whether conditions are appropriate to proceed, taking into account performance of both parties.
Phase II starts after Palestinian elections and ends with possible creation of an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders in 2003.
An international conference will be convened by the Quartet, in consultation with the parties, immediately after the successful conclusion of Palestinian elections, to support Palestinian economic recovery and launch a process leading to establishment of an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders.
Such a meeting would be inclusive, based on the goal of a comprehensive Middle East peace -- including between Israel and Syria, and Israel and Lebanon -- and based on the principles described in the preamble to this document.
A second international conference will be convened by the Quartet, in consultation with the parties at beginning of 2004, to endorse agreement reached on an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders and formally to launch a process leading to a final, permanent status resolution in 2005, including borders, Jerusalem, refugees and settlements.
(Anwar Iqbal in Washington, and Saud Abu Ramadan in Gaza contributed to this story.)
