Rashid I. Khalidi

About the author: Rashid I. Khalidi is a professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of Chicago.

The U.S.-backed "road map to peace" is flawed as an attempt to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because it neglects a key cause of volatility in the region: the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Neither Israel's military presence in the region, which Palestinians view as cruel and unacceptable oppression, nor the many Israeli settlements in Palestinian areas will be dismantled by the road map. The U.S. tendency to focus on Palestinian violence instead of on the Israeli occupation clouds the central issue of the conflict and guarantees the failure, in the long run, of the peace plan.

Apparently having learned nothing from the collapse of earlier...