Reservation 10

After the former critics of Prime Minister Sharon are finished extolling his willingness to follow the "road map," we will be able to see what they have to say about the 14 Reservations. It was, after all, only on the basis of these reservations that Israel's Cabinet agreed to permit the prime minister to pursue the road map negotiations. On Page 1, our Ira Stoll reports on the particulars of the list of 14 conditions, the text of which is carried on Page 7. The one that catches our eye is no. 10.

This reservation makes it clear that the road map discussions will be autonomous talks. The only reference permitted will be to two key resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, 242 and 338. The first was signed after the 1967 war and said that Israel had the right to exist within secure and recognized borders and provided that it withdraw from occupied territories but specifically declined to assert that it withdraw from all territories occupied. Resolution 338 was signed after the Yom Kippur war the Arabs launched against Israel and called for a resumption of talks under 242.

One of the documents that reservation 10 excludes as a basis for talks on the road map is, for example, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, which contains the notorious provision that Jerusalem shall be established as a "corpus separatum under a special international regime and shall be administered by the United Nations." Those who have followed the battle for Jerusalem in recent years have little doubt that Israel's enemies will try again to revive this provision, which has been a dead letter since the annexation of Jerusalem by Israel.

Reservation 10 is only one of the points the democratic government in Israel — the only Middle East democracy involved in the discussion of the road map — has so wisely set into such sharp relief. The Bush administration has promised to respect and deal with these reservations. A reading of them illuminates the seriousness with which Israel regards the peace process it is about to resume. The test for the rest of the participants in the road map will be whether they respect these democratically marked points — or try to run past them. If they ignore the reservations, the road map will lead back to a catastrophe like Oslo.