 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 November 1999 Issue No. 456 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 November 1999 Issue No. 456
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
(photo: AP)
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Special Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Barak dictates redeployment
By Khaled AmayrehIsrael's transfer of five per cent of the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority (PA), stipulated in the revised Wye memorandum agreement signed in Sharm Al-Sheikh two months ago, has been postponed pending Palestinian consent to the maps Israel has proposed to cover the withdrawal. However, US President Bill Clinton's Middle East envoy, Dennis Ross, said after meeting Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak on Monday that he expected the dispute to be solved "within days" like the many others that have faced Palestinian-Israeli talks over the past six years.
Arafat rejected the maps, which he called "a joke," in the face of Barak's insistence that Israel alone had the right to decide the location and quality of the land to be transferred.
"It is clearly stated in the agreements that Israel should be the one to decide which land should be transferred, so that showing the maps to the Palestinians is a sign of goodwill, not an obligation on our part," Barak said during a Israeli cabinet session on Sunday.
However, the PA rejected this interpretation of the agreements, a spokesperson saying that the Israeli attitude amounted to "a take it or leave it offer, rather than a bilateral agreement between the two sides".
"Show me one article signed since the declaration of principles of Oslo and up until the Sharm Al-Sheikh Memorandum which specifies that Israel make these decisions unilaterally," said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Ereikat. Ereikat said that while negotiating the agreement the two sides had agreed that the maps would be subject to both parties' consideration, since "otherwise this would be dictation not negotiation".
Seeking to overcome the dispute, which has clouded the atmosphere for the final-status talks, Barak and Arafat held an unannounced late-night meeting in Tel Aviv on Sunday.
However, though reportedly discussing the maps, as well as other issues, the two failed to resolve their differences. Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy did not attend the meeting in protest against Mrs Suha Arafat's allegations that Israel was polluting Palestinian air and water, causing high rates of cancer among Palestinians, especially women and children.
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators had twice met earlier in West Jerusalem in attempts to resolve the dispute, but to little avail since the Israeli representative at the talks, Odid Eran, had also maintained that Israeli redeployment did not require Palestinian approval.
Ereikat however again disagreed, saying that "on the maps there are two places for signature: one is for the Government of Israel, the other for the PLO and the Palestinian Authority." The PA said that the maps proposed by Israel would effectively turn the PA-run Palestinian enclaves into "islands" of land without territorial continuity.
Three per cent of the West Bank falling within Area B of the Wye agreement, where the PA exercises civilian responsibilities and Israel maintains overall responsibility for security, have turned out to be barren desert and largely unpopulated. The other two per cent of the second phase of Israeli redeployment have turned out to be isolated areas with no integration into the rest of the West Bank. This two per cent falls within Wye Area A, where the PA maintains both civilian and security control. The PA had previously said that additional and substantial population centres would be returned to Palestinian control under the current phase of redeployment.
Palestinian Legislative Council Speaker Ahmed Qurie criticised the Israeli redeployment plan for this reason, saying "our people are not going to feel a change. What can we tell them?"
Meanwhile, Ross shuttled between West Jerusalem and Ramallah in an effort to mediate between the two sides. He said that the problem would be overcome in a matter of days, though the Israeli government has said that the US envoy's efforts would not induce it to reconsider its position.
"The maps have already been decided upon and have been approved by both the cabinet and the Knesset. The transfer of land will take place according to them," Barak said during a tour of the Negev on Monday.
Some in the Israeli camp have also accused Arafat of deliberately stalling the talks, calling his refusal to accept the redeployment plans as "just another ploy to get the US more involved in the details of the talks".
But Palestinian observers suggest that the real reason behind Israeli intransigence on the matter is the connection between implementation of the current phase of redeployment and the final-status talks that have just begun.
The Israeli tactic, observers believe, is to get tough with the PA on remaining unresolved interim issues in order to lower Palestinian expectations from the final-status talks. On this view, Israel would like to retain as many cards as possible from the interim phase in order to use them as bargaining chips to extract concessions from the Palestinians during the final-status talks.
For its part, the PA strategy is exactly the opposite and is to gain as much land as possible before hard negotiations on fundamental issues begin. This strategy, however, does not seem to be working effectively, with only an estimated five per cent of the West Bank now under full PA administration and another 12 per cent under joint Palestinian- Israeli control.
Barak's predecessor as Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, had insisted that Israel alone was authorised to decide the scope of redeployment in the final third phase of the Oslo agreement. This, he argued, would not exceed one per cent of the West Bank.
Barak's stance has not shown a significant shift from this policy, since he has argued that any additional land handed over in the context of third-phase redeployment must be subject to negotiation.
