Washington, Oct 07: The "road map" for peace between Arabs and Israelis, prepared by the United States for a peaceful co-existence of an independent Palestinian state and Israel, is "in tatters", media reports here say. "The plan is in tatters. A Palestinian Prime Minister intended to sideline Arafat resigned, leaving Arafat back in control. A ceasefire has been broken by suicide bombings, such as the attack Saturday in Haifa, and Israeli reprisals, such as yesterday`s bombing inside Syria," The Washington Post said in a report carried yesterday.

At the heart of the roadmap was President Bush`s determination to bypass Arafat and go ahead with a new Palestinian leadership acceptable to him. The paper noted that bush put it starkly when he met with Jordan`s King Abdullah, at Camp David two weeks ago. Arafat, Bush told Abdullah, " is a loser. I am not going to spend my political capital on losers, only winners. I am still in a war mode, and the war is terrorism. If people don`t fight terrorism, I am not going to deal with them."

The road map`s failure highlights a feature that has charactarised the Bush administration`s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, say former and current officials the paper said. The pattern is one of engagement and disengagement – a burst of publicity about new initiative or special envoys, followed by policy drift to push either side, especially Israelis to take big steps for improvement - eventually the effort goes dormant until a new approach is announced, it said.

Bureau Report