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Al-Ahram Weekly 5 - 11 August 1999 Issue No. 441 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 5 - 11 August 1999 Issue No. 441
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Focus Interview Features Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters In crisis again
By Graham UsherLess than a month after his government was formed, Ehud Barak's "One Israel" is faced with its first crisis with the Palestinians. It may be the first -- says the secretary-general of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement in the West Bank, Marwan Barghouti -- "but it won't be the last".
The crisis came to a head on 1 August when the Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and Palestinian Authority head of Preventive Security in Gaza, Mohamed Dahlan, angrily walked out of the joint committee set up at last week's meeting at Erez checkpoint between Arafat and Barak. The Palestinians insisted that the committee's remit was to work out the details of implementing the Wye agreement signed between Israel and the Palestinians last October. But -- according to the Palestinian delegates -- the Israelis simply used the committee to raise again the changes to Wye Barak had aired -- and the Palestinians had refused -- at Erez.
These boil down to Barak's desire to postpone the last phase of the redeployment under Wye (comprising six-per cent of West Bank territory) until Oslo's final status negotiations. Following the Erez meeting, an aide to Barak announced that Wye's "physical implementation" (presumably the second phase of the redeployment covering five-per cent of the West Bank) would begin on 1 October.
At Erez, Arafat reportedly told Barak no less than 17 times that he would countenance no change to Wye. On 31 July, the PA Cabinet also rejected any "reopening" of signed agreements and demanded the start of Wye's implementation "within three weeks". It was a stance reiterated at the meeting of the Fatah Central Council meeting in Cairo on the same day. With the message clearly failing to sink in, the Palestinians broke up the joint committee and Arafat resorted to his sourest response since the days of Binyamin Netanyahu.
"This confirms what I have said from the beginning," snapped an angry Arafat on his return from Cairo. "This is an attempt [by Israel] to avoid the accurate and honest implementation of what has been agreed upon."
The Palestinian leader's unusually harsh retort stems not only from frustration at Barak's Netanyahu-like reluctance to implement agreements Israel has signed, the Knesset has approved and the Americans guaranteed. It is driven by a growing Palestinian suspicion that Wye must be implemented because neither a final status agreement nor even a "declaration of principles" on the final status issues is going to be reached with this or any other Israeli government.
Since his election, the new Israeli leader has said enough about his vision of a final status agreement for most Palestinians to realise that it falls short of even their most minimal national aspirations. On the night of his victory, he told the world that Jerusalem would be Israel's "indivisible capital forever" and that there would be no Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders. In recent weeks, he has said that Arafat would have to accept "settlement blocs under Israeli sovereignty" in any final status deal and that the solution for the 3.5 million Palestinians made refugees by Israel's establishment "should be found in the countries where they are now living".
If this is the future, it is clear why Wye's implementation becomes more rather than less important in the eyes of the Palestinian leadership. However flawed it is as an agreement it would, if implemented, grant the PA full or partial control of around 40 per cent of the West Bank and governance over about 96 per cent of the Palestinians who live therein. This hardly amounts to a state. But "it would immeasurably strengthen the Palestinians' bargaining position in the final status negotiations," says PLO Central Council member, Mamdour Nofal.
This may be Barak's reading. The stated reason he has for wanting to "combine" parts of Wye with the final status negotiations is due to the "problematic security situation" Wye's full redeployment would bequeath to some 15 isolated Jewish settlements in the heart of the West Bank. But behind the talk of effecting a "smooth passage" to the final status negotiations -- Palestinians increasingly suspect -- lies the aim of leaving the PA with as little territorial and political assets as possible in readiness for the day when the "breakthrough" to peace fails to dawn.
