Well - here finally is the "roadmap".

My first reaction is that it is better than I expected. It does actually impose some duties on Israel to stop curfews, attacks on civilians, prevention of movement etc.

It is fairly specific about how it all starts, but gets vaguer later, which I suppose is to be expected. Hopefully the US intends to harden things up as they progress,

All the real crunch stuff is to "be agreed between Israel and the PA". Stuff like where the borders are, what to do with refugees, what about the settlements etc. And there is no indication at all of what sort of sovereignty the PA will get.

But it does say that the principle should be retreat to 1967 borders - admirable if they mean it.

There are still big problems, however. Doubtless the Israelis will try to repeat the farce of the famous "90% offer" they accuse the PA of rejecting.

This offer gave the PA "sovereignty" over lots of territory, but it was sovereignty in name only. The settlements would remain inside the PA territory, and the Israeli army would remain with them, having full access to "protect them" including maintaining control of the huge Israeli-only roads which connect them. The PA was not allowed any army or air force. The Israeli air force would patrol the skies. The sovereign territory was completely ringed round with a thin Israeli "secirity zone" so that it had absolutely no borders with any state but Israel. Israel could thus seal it off, and control all movement at the slightest provocation. Israel controlled its water resources. Some sovereignty ! Oh, and $30Bn compensation for the refugees, but this had to be raised by the international community, not Israel, and they wouldn't get their land back. The Palestinian capital to be not the real Jerusalem, but a village called Abu-Dis outside Jerusalem proper, but just within its eastern borders, cleverly renamed to Al-Quds (the arab name for Jerusalem) to hide the deception. To get this whole wonderful deal Arafat would have to sign that it was full and final settlement of every claim and every issue - never to be argued about again.

Why have you read none of these details? Because Israel insisted that all negotiations must be verbal, with nothing to be written down until it was all agreed (which it never was). You can see why.

How then is it known ? Because just recently a couple of people who participate have started reporting what happened, based on notes taken at the time. One was Robert Malley, special assistant for Arab-Israeli affairs in the Clinton administration. Malley was at Camp David, and he kept detailed notes of the "verbal only" discussions. See  http://www.slate.msn.com/?id=2064500.

Why didn't the Palestinians defend themselves from the "they refused unreasonably" accusation by revealing these details at the time? Good question, and no one really understands why, except that Arafat appears to be working to an agenda which puts himself above the interests of his people.

If you doubt Malleys description of the nature of the offer, search the net yourself for any authorative alternative description with any actual detail.
I have not obtained Malleys own book, but have taken some of the above detail from another book, written by an Israeli academic.

This book is : Israel/Palestine - How to End the War of 1948 by Tanya Reinhart ISBN 1-58322-538-2. Ms Reinhart is a Professor at Tel Aviv University, and has a website at  http://www.tau.ac.il/~reinhart/

Doubtless the Israelis will try to push in the same direction again, by distorting the meaning of the word "sovereignty" way past breaking point. But there are a few sentences in the roadmap which really do suggest America may be going finally to put its foot down. Hope springs eternal .

Oh - and the other HUGE omission -
absolutely no mention of disarmament of any sort, no removal of WMD's. No suggestion of inspections to see if anyone has them.

Might be related to Israel's 200 nuclear warheads etc etc etc.

Nevertheless, I am a little more hopeful tonight.