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New peace draft includes end to Palestinian right of
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haaretz Sunday, Oct. 12, 2003 at 4:15 AM |
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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. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/348710.html
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=348803&contrassID=1
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la solita destra
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non lamentiamoci poi Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2003 at 7:09 PM |
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L’opposizione laburista riesce a ottenere un piano di pace
Israeliani-palestinesi Accordo fra «colombe»
Ma Sharon li bolla come «irresponsabili»
DAL NOSTRO INVIATO GERUSALEMME - Il «golpe» pacifista ha mandato il primo ministro Ariel Sharon su tutte le furie. Ma dall'Egitto, dove sta depositando la bozza dell'accordo con i palestinesi, l'ex ministro israeliano Yossi Beilin, laburista, fa sapere al premier che è disposto a cedere al governo il «brevetto» sull'intesa raggiunta dalle colombe delle due parti, per mettere fine all'Intifada e all'occupazione dei territori: «Quel che volevamo dimostrare è ormai evidente: un'intesa è possibile. Ma, soprattutto, non è vero che mancavano gli interlocutori. E infatti noi li abbiamo trovati». Uri Zaki, portavoce a Gerusalemme di Yossi Beilin, evita di inasprire i toni della discussione, che vede anche il suo ex premier, Ehud Barak, schierato con la destra: «Sharon si è arrabbiato, perché sono stati smantellati gli alibi del governo. E cioè che, dopo il rifiuto a Camp David del 90 per cento dei territori, i palestinesi volessero soltanto cancellare Israele dalle mappe con il terrorismo. L'Accordo svizzero dimostra che non è così». Da più di due anni, e non in gran segreto, i laburisti (poi sconfitti alle elezioni dello scorso anno) e una delegazione di dirigenti palestinesi si sono dati appuntamento in mezzo mondo per sciogliere i nodi più intricati del conflitto arabo-israeliano: il diritto al ritorno di 3 milioni e 600 mila profughi palestinesi, la sovranità sul Monte del Tempio, sacro anche ai musulmani per la Moschea Al Aqsa, la divisione di Gerusalemme e altre questioni su cui le diplomazie mondiali si arrovellano invano da decenni. Proprio nel momento in cui Sharon sta per riuscire a convincere gli Stati Uniti che Arafat è l'ostacolo da eliminare, e che con l'Autorità palestinese non c'è possibilità di dialogo, spunta l'opposizione israeliana con un piano di pace già bell'e pronto da firmare. I negoziatori palestinesi, guidati dall'ex ministro Yasser Abed Rabbo, avrebbero ceduto sul diritto al ritorno dei profughi nelle terre ormai israeliane. In cambio chiedono, e nell'intesa virtuale ottengono, la giurisdizione sulla spianata delle moschee, nella città vecchia, terzo luogo sacro dell'Islam nel mondo, dopo la Mecca e la Medina. Gerusalemme sarebbe controllata da una forza internazionale e la gran parte delle colonie ebraiche dovrebbero lasciare i territori occupati, con l'eccezione di Ma'aleh Adumim ed Efrat. Secondo il portavoce di Yossi Beilin si è ottemperato così all'esigenza primaria di Israele: «Rimanere un Paese ebraico e democratico, disinnescando la bomba della crescita demografica araba. I palestinesi hanno capito che pagheranno un prezzo alto, rinunciando al diritto al ritorno, ma sono stati abbastanza pragmatici da accettarlo». Il patto non ha alcuna possibilità di applicazione pratica. L'ex ministro Yossi Beilin, il leader laburista Amram Mitzna (sconfitto alle elezioni), lo scrittore Amos Oz e gli altri componenti della delegazione israeliana sono stati bollati come «traditori» dalla destra e dallo stesso Sharon che li accusa di «irresponsabilità». Arafat, invece, non ha smentito i negoziatori palestinesi, tra cui figurano due capi tanzim (gruppo affiliato ad Al Fatah), Kadoura Fares e Mohammed Khourani, uomini di Marwan Barghouti, attualmente incarcerato e sotto processo in Israele.
Elisabetta Rosaspina
© Corriere della Sera
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Analysis / The left moves to fill the vacuum
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haaretz Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2003 at 7:13 PM |
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Analysis / The left moves to fill the vacuum
The Israeli left has recently seized the political-diplomatic initiative, which had been firmly in the right's hands during three years of war with the Palestinians. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his ministers have lost control over the public debate, and over the last few weeks, they have been busy trying to fend off moves by the left, from the letter by pilots who refuse to participate in targeted killings in the territories to the Geneva Accords.
The diplomatic vacuum created by the freeze on American involvement in the process and the shelving of the road map peace plan, combined with the government's ongoing failure to eliminate Palestinian terror, provided a convenient background for Yossi Beilin's comeback and the public prominence that has been given to the Geneva Accords. Sharon unintentionally served as Beilin's public relations agent by launching a blistering attack against the left's talks with the Palestinians even before the details were made public. The prime minister thus played the role of the "teaser" that precedes a major advertising blitz.
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom tried yesterday to halt the political and media erosion, calling the Geneva document "an unhatched egg" laid by "the lunatic fringe." But his words were swallowed up in the waves of accusations of sabotage from the right and the filing of a complaint to the police against the document's drafters - both of which only contributed to the plan's star billing on the evening television news.
Beilin and his friends from the Economic Cooperation Foundation, who conducted the talks with Yasser Abed Rabbo and his colleagues on the Palestinian side, are hoping for a fifth replay of their previous successes in setting Israel's diplomatic agenda. The method has not changed: formulate a draft agreement and bring it to the decision-makers at the appropriate moment, so that it will become official policy. That is what they did in Oslo in 1993, in their talks with Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) on a draft of a permanent-status agreement in 1995 (which, five years later, became the basis for the Barak-Clinton plan), in preparation for the Wye Agreement in 1998, and in the proposal for a unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon.
The current effort received unexpected assistance from Alexis Keller, a professor of the philosophy of law at the University of Geneva with Jewish roots whose wife is of Lebanese origin. Keller organized an academic conference two years ago, and ever since he has been enthusiastically involved in trying to mediate between Israelis and Palestinians. Some of the negotiating sessions took place at his family villa, and his lobbying persuaded the Swiss government to officially sponsor the project. The Swiss foreign minister, Micheline Calmy-Rey, whose office financed part of the project, met with Foreign Minister Shalom on August 11. But government sources in Jerusalem said she did not mention her involvement in the talks between the Israeli left and Fatah representatives.
The Israeli participants insisted that this time, the talks should lead to a public agreement that would be signed in a public ceremony. This demand stemmed from Beilin's experience with his 1995 agreement with Abu Mazen - who repudiated the document after it was published.
The Geneva Accords are an effort to formulate a complete final-status agreement, without Sharon's long-term interim agreements. The accompanying letter, which was signed this past Sunday, attempts to reconcile the document with the road map, presenting it as a draft for the final phase of that peace plan, which is due to end in 2005. The Beilin-Abed Rabbo understandings state that Israel's withdrawal from the territories will be completed within 30 months, during which time the settlements will be dismantled, but the Israel Defense Forces will be allowed to deploy in the Jordan Valley for an additional three years. The establishment of a Palestinian state and the opening of diplomatic relations will occur as soon as the agreement is signed.
Israelis who participated in the initiative said that their principal achievement was in the article dealing with the refugees. They said the Palestinians agreed that any resettlement of refugees in Israeli territory would require Israel's consent - something they had never been willing to accept in the past. They also agreed to recognize Israel as "the Jewish people's national home" in two places in the document.
With regard to the border, the Israelis conceded Ariel, both on the grounds that it would be hard to defend and because it would be hard to justify inserting an Israeli "finger" 15 to 18 kilometers long into the heart of the Palestinian state. In exchange, the Palestinians agreed that Israel could annex a strip just east of the Green Line, from Elkana southward, to expand the territorial defenses of Ben-Gurion Airport. That is the only place in which the border was determined by security rather than demographic considerations, at the insistence of the "security-oriented" members of the Israeli team.
The Palestinians also agreed that Israel could annex Givat Ze'ev, Ma'aleh Adumim and the Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, except for Har Homa, which they insisted be dismantled. They explained that it was hard enough for them to swallow the demographic division of Jerusalem laid down by the Clinton plan, but they certainly could not accept construction that had taken place after Clinton's plan was published. In the end, more than half of the West Bank settlers will find themselves annexed to Israel; the remainder will evacuated, as will all of the Gaza settlers.
As compensation for the annexation of these settlements and the strip around Ben-Gurion Airport, Israel will give the Palestinians lands adjacent to the Gaza Strip. No Israeli community in the Negev will be dismantled, but the kibbutzim and moshavim in the area will have to give up some of their fields.
From Sharon's perspective, none of these ideas is acceptable, even as a basis for discussion. The ninth reservation that Israel submitted to the road map states: "There will be no involvement with issues pertaining to the final settlement." http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/349881.html
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Geneva Accord: Temple Mount construction only with Israeli okay
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haaretz Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2003 at 7:15 PM |
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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/349881.html
The draft text of the Geneva Accords, the controversial document drafted by former senior Israeli and Palestinian officials, limits Palestinian sovereignty over the Temple Mount by stating that in light of the sanctity of the site and its religious and cultural significance to the Jewish people, there will be no archaeological digs or construction without the consent of both sides.
In the section on the Old City of Jerusalem, the text states that an international force stationed permanently at the site would be responsible for supervising implementation of this article. This clause is meant to put an end to the years of mutual accusations of unilateral construction and excavation on the Mount.
The article adds that in light of the site's universal significance, visitors will be allowed to enter without discrimination, subject to prayer and security arrangements.
(Click here for main points of accords)
As more details of the alternative agreement came to light, Israel Radio reported Wednesday that the government is furious with Switzerland over its sponsorship of the Geneva Accord.
The Swiss foreign ministry Wednesday summoned Israel's ambassador to Bern, Aviv Shiron, to discuss the peace plan, the radio said.
It also quoted the East Jerusalem Al Quds newspaper as having reported that the principles of the document were largely agreed upon during a meeting in Britain hosted by Prime Minister Tony Blair six months ago.
Under the Accord, The Mount would be transferred to the Palestinians only 30 months after the agreement is signed. This waiting period is apparently meant to enable both sides to examine the sincerity of the other's implementation efforts and to encourage the Palestinians to fulfill their other commitments (such as fighting terrorism) in order to ensure that the site will indeed be transferred to them.
According to the agreement, the Muslim, Armenian and Christian quarters of the Old City would be Palestinian, while the Jewish quarter would remain Israeli. There would be special arrangements to allow Israelis to pass through the Armenian quarter on their way to the Jewish quarter.
The entire Old City would be open: The borders between the quarters would be marked, but they would not be separated by physical barriers. In other neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, Jewish and Arab areas would be separated by physical barriers, but the two parties would consider removing them after three years.
In an emergency, either side would be able to suspend the above arrangements and physically close off the quarter(s) under its control (with the exception of the Armenian quarter) for one week.
Law and order in the Old City would be maintained by a special international force that would include Israeli and Palestinian policemen.
The Palestinians would have sovereignty over Damascus Gate, Lions Gate and New Gate, while Israel would retain sovereignty over Dung Gate and Zion Gate. Jaffa Gate would also be under Palestinian sovereignty, but Israel would operate the border crossing - an arrangement meant to ensure an orderly flow of traffic in both directions.
Israel would manage and provide security for the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, and would also be responsible for security on the main road leading from Jaffa Gate to Zion Gate and from there to the Mount of Olives.
Visas would be needed to cross from Israeli to Palestinian Jerusalem or vice versa. Both the Israeli and the Palestinian sections of the city would be territorially contiguous, without enclaves.
Israel said furious over Swiss involvement in Accord Israel radio quoted unnamed senior government officials Wednesday as saying that the Swiss government cannot officially sanction or host such an initiative.
Switzerland said Monday that that it had been helping Israeli and Palestinian politicians in their effort to draw up an alternative peace plan for the Middle East for the past two years. Swiss officials voiced hope that the Quartet would endorse and foster the new initiative, and appealed for wider international support.
Israeli opposition politicians, including justice minister Yossi Beilin, and prominent Palestinians including Yasser Abed Rabbo, a former minister, met in the Jordanian capital over the weekend to draft the peace pact.
The Israeli and Palestinian teams hope to sign a completed Geneva Accord text on November 4, the eighth anniversary of the assassination of then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.
"Switzerland provided logisitical and financial help," Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey told journalists in Bern on Monday, adding that the effort had reached its "high point" so far in Amman. "It's a risky investment," she said.
"This agreement could enter into history if it is applied. It fits into phase three of the road map," said Urs Ziswiler, a senior adviser to the Swiss foreign minister who attended the meetings.
"We hope the quartet will support this initiative," Ziswiler said, referring to the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, joint sponsors of the faltering road map peace plane.
The Bush administration Tuesday distanced itself from the Geneva Accord, with State Department spokesman Richard Boucher stressing that the U.S. is committed to the road map and that it is the only plan the U.S. currently intends to promote.
Speaking at his daily press briefing, Boucher said that the Geneva Accord was a private initiative in which the U.S. was not involved. The U.S., he said, remains committed to pursuing President George W. Bush's vision of two states for two peoples, but it believes that the proper way to do this is via the road map. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/349932.html
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