The Bush Administration’s road map was launched with great fanfare at the June 2003 Aqaba summit. Nevertheless, the temporary reduction in killing and mayhem it achieved has been erased by a resumption of violence and terror. The road map’s failed diplomatic and security agenda may well be resurrected. But it cannot succeed if it continues to focus on the violent symptoms of the conflict and ignores the issue at its heart—the struggle between Israelis and Palestinians for control of land and its resources.

Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has rejected a comprehensive halt to settlement expansion and frustrated the evacuation of settlement “outposts” established after March 2001, both of which are required by the road map.