The "Geneva Understandings" - a draft memorandum for a permanent Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement formulated by members of the Israeli opposition and Palestinian officials - includes the Palestinians relinquishing their claim to a "right of return" to areas inside the State of Israel.

Under the terms of the
agreement, the Palestinians
would in return be granted
sovereignty over the Temple
Mount, and the area would be
monitored by international
bodies. The Jewish Quarter of
the Old City of Jerusalem, as
well as the Western Wall, would
remain under Israeli
sovereignty.

Members of the Israeli delegation upon returning
Sunday from talks with the Palestinians in
Amman, Jordan said that the initiative will be
released and signed during an international
conference to be held in Geneva soon.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told Channel Two on
Sunday that the initiative is hampering the
ability to move forward in negotiations towards
a practical peace agreement. According to a
Channel Two report, Sharon has learned from
intelligence sources that Palestinian Prime
Minister Ahmed Qureia and his government intend
to adopt the Geneva understandings.

Labor MK Amram Mitzna, who took part in the
talks, told Israel Radio that maps were drawn
up according to which Israel would withdraw to
the 1967 Green Line border, while three
settlement blocs containing three quarters of
the settlers in the territories would remain
under Israeli rule.

According to Mitzna, Marwan Barghouti, the
Tanzim chief standing trial in Israel for
alleged murder, was partly involved in the
initiative, while Palestinian Authority
Chairman Yasser Arafat and Palestinian Prime
Minister Ahmed Qureia were aware of it.

The negotiating teams, which included former
minister Yossi Beilin, Labor MKs Avraham Burg
and Amram Mitzna and Meretz MK Haim Oron on the
Israeli side and Yasser Abed Rabbo and Nabil
Qassis on the Palestinian side, began their
talks in Amman on Thursday. The draft was
finalized Sunday and the signing ceremony is to
take place in Geneva in several weeks time.

"The document provides solutions to final
settlement issues such as the status of Arab
East Jerusalem, frontiers, the establishment of
a Palestinian state and the right of returning
home of Palestinian refugees who were forced to
leave Palestine when Israel was founded in
1948," said the deputy Palestinian ambassador
to Jordan, Atallah Khairi.

Although the Jordanian government said that it
"had nothing to do with the meeting," reliable
sources said that the Israeli-Palestinian talks
were attended by Jordanian Foreign Minister
Marwan Muasher and other senior Foreign
Ministry officials.

The document was prepared over the course of a
year by Beilin and Abed Rabbo, with the
assistance of several professionals, and is
intended to draft a permanent peace agreement
to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat
has given his blessing to the dialogue.

The draft is based on the Taba agreements that
were drafted during the end of Ehud Barak's
term as prime minister in 1999, and former U.S.
president Bill Clinton's plan for the division
of Jerusalem between Israel and the
Palestinians, which included providing the
right of return for Palestinians in
humanitarian cases.

Labor MK Ephraim Sneh supported the dialogue
between the Israelis and Palestinians, but
criticized the level of details explored by the
agreement.

"Any talks between Israel and the Palestinians,
especially between senior officials, is
welcome. But it is undesired to agree on issues
that are overly detailed, that will become the
starting point for the Palestinians in future
negotiations," Sneh said Thursday.

Meretz MK Yossi Sarid told Israel Radio on
Friday that he had participated in the
discussions on the draft, but could not leave
for Jordan to attend the signing ceremony for
personal reasons.

Sarid would not provide details of the contents
of the agreement, but said that there was no
intention to keep the draft secret. He said
that the Israeli and Palestinian "peace
coalition" has been meeting continuously.

"We believe in these meetings, we think that
there is something to talk about and someone to
talks too, perhaps today more than ever, and it
is a shame that the government won't talk, just
shoot," Sarid said.

"These meetings were not carried out in an
underground manner or in the dark," Sarid said,
referring to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
accusations earlier this week that the Labor
and the left were cooperating with the
Palestinians "behind the back of the
government."

Sarid explained that the meetings had to be
coordinated with the security establishment.

"I don't understand why the prime minister was
angered by the meeting near the Dead Sea...
Perhaps Sharon is scared that a terrible secret
would come out: that there is someone to talk
and something to talk about, and a significant
degree of goodwill on the part of the second
party, and that this is a time in which calm,
even relative calm can be achieved... We,
unlike him, are not afraid."

Health Minister Dan Naveh (Likud) dismissed the
Belin-Abed Rabbo agreement as a document that
"reeked of a bad odor."

"The opposition is negotiating behind the
government's back with the Palestinians, while
we are in a serious conflict with them, in a
war against Palestinian terror, which is
directed and encouraged by some of the people
with whom the left-wing officials have met,"
Naveh said.

"It is not the opposition's job to hold talks,
it is the government's job, and there are
reasons for the government to avoid
negotiations today with these people, Arafat's
people, who have been behind the campaign of
murder of terror over the past three years,"
Naveh said.

"Those people, Sarid, Beilin and the others,
were the architects of the Oslo agreements ten
years ago, which in my opinion the agreement
that brought this terrible catastrophe on us,"
he added.
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