Israel has practically rejected the initiative despite the fact that all the members of the tetra-partite committee — the US, Russia, the EU and the UN — back the road map and consider it the best way of achieving peace in the Middle East at this stage.

It is worth noting that the US president announced that he stands strongly behind the road map and that he will accept no modifications or alterations to its clauses.

But Israel has a different opinion, announcing that it had 15 separate reservations. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon says that if the American initiative is presented without these alterations, the Israeli government and the Likud Party will reject it. The Israeli ministry is composed of extreme right-wingers who will not accept the American plan as it stands.

In the face of Israel’s obstinate stand, a number of American officials have announced President Bush’s firm position on the road map and his readiness to pressure the Israeli prime minister to take the “grueling” steps toward peace.

Faced with the American position on the establishment of a Palestinian state, Israel countered with a policy of retribution, saying that it was ready to accept the establishment of such a state and agree to the road map, but that in return Palestinian demands for the right to return — for refugees and those expelled from their land — must be permanently abandoned.

Israel has put up this roadblock in the full knowledge that not a single Palestinian Authority figure can ever bow to such a demand. This confirms that Sharon and his current Cabinet do not want peace, nor do they want the road map, let alone a Palestinian state.

A number of political analysts are of the opinion that in the face of Israel’s inflexible stand, the road map will fail and that it will meet the same fate as the Tenet Plan, the Mitchell Plan, Anthony Zinni’s initiative and others before them.

Peace, whatever form it takes, is Israel’s enemy No. 1, because Israel is not looking for security as it alleges; it is looking for land and expansion and eradication of Palestinians wherever they exist, whether on the Gaza Strip, the West Bank or even the Arabs of 1948 currently resident in the Jewish state.

Peace and an independent Palestinian state mean internationally recognized political borders for Palestine, and by consequence Israel, and that puts an end to Israel’s greed and dream of a Greater Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates.

Crown Prince Abdullah’s initiative was more important than the road map in terms of its aims and results — every Arab country sanctioned it, the Arab League adopted it and thus it became an initiative by all Arabs for peace.

The initiative takes the Arab-Israeli relations leaps ahead since it includes mutual recognition and a move toward normalization of relations, which the Likud considers even more dangerous than merely establishing peace between the two sides.

The step taken by Arabs in order to achieve a just and lasting peace in the region met with Israeli refusal for no apparent reason. This reconfirms the belief that Israel is afraid of peace, in fact rejects it, because it flies in the face of all its goals and dreams — both declared and veiled.

That begs the question: Can the US president impose the road map and succeed where others have failed? Or will global Zionism succeed in wrecking the American initiative and take us back to square one?