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Al-Ahram Weekly 23 - 29 March 2000 Issue No. 474 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 23 - 29 March 2000 Issue No. 474
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Focus Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons A new page or an old recipe?
By Graham UsherPalestinian and Israeli negotiators are at last starting to act "like partners," enthused PLO negotiator, Saeb Erekat, last week. He was referring to the innovation of an Israeli government "consulting" with the Palestinian Authority as to its territorial preferences for Israel's long stalled second West Bank redeployment, which commenced on Tuesday. It is less clear how far or much the "consultation" got the Palestinians.
Erekat insists that it got them a better deal, pointing out that due to Palestinian lobbying areas next to Tulkarm, Qalqilya and Hebron are now to be transferred to the PA's "full" security rather than merely "civilian" control. But Israel's latest redeployment did not grant the PA so much as a toehold near Jerusalem -- not even Anata.
This is a tiny Palestinian village of 10,000 people outside of Israel's self declared municipal borders of Jerusalem but nestled between the vast Jewish settlements of Pisgat Zeev and Neve Yacov. Originally slated to be transferred to the PA's full control in the redeployment it was swiftly withdrawn by Israeli leader Ehud Barak after an outcry from certain of his coalition partners that such a move would set a "dangerous precedent" for Israel's claim on Jerusalem as the "eternal, undivided capital" of the Jewish state.
Less rigorously expressed was the countervailing Palestinian charge that the reason Anata today is squeezed between Pisgat Zeev and Neve Yacov is because of the lands the Israeli government confiscated from the village to build the two settlements. The closest areas to Jerusalem the PA received in the latest redeployment are Beituniya (next to Ramallah) and Ubeidiya (next to Bethlehem). The rest of the 6.1 per cent worth of lands are scattered in the north of the West Bank or, overwhelmingly, in the hilly regions south of Hebron.
Which clearly suits Israel far more than it does Yasser Arafat. It means -- reported gleefully Israel's Deputy Defence Minister, Ephraim Sneh, after his cabinet had approved the redeployment map on 19 March -- that "60 per cent of the Palestinian population [in the West Bank] will now be under the PA's full [security] control."
Thus, on the eve of the resumption of the final status negotiations in Washington, Israel has the Palestinian leader where it has long wanted him. Responsible for the welfare and "security" of the bulk of the Palestinians who live in the West Bank, but with an institutional presence in less than 40 per cent of its territory. And with even this cut by a mesh of settler-only by-pass roads that, according to the same cabinet decision, will continue to be built.
Nor do the prospects look much brighter for the Washington talks, which commenced also on Tuesday between chief PLO negotiator, Yasser Abed Rabbo, and his Israeli counterpart, Oded Eran. There are of course rumours that headway is being made through the warren of "secret channels" continually furrowed between Israeli and Palestinian figures. The latest of these to reach daylight was PLO executive member Faisal Husseini's admission on 18 March that secret talks in Paris and Rome were being held on "the topic of Jerusalem." And that there his Israeli interlocutors had put forth proposals "different to the official Israeli positions" on the subject.
It remains to be seen whether these proposals will weave their way into the Framework Agreement on the final status issues, which the two sides are supposed to conclude by May. But -- given the uproar over Anata -- the safe bet is the further the positions are from Israel's official ones on Jerusalem the less palatable they will be to Barak and the right flank of his cabinet, all six of whose members voted against the latest 6.1 per cent redeployment.
The official Israeli take on the Washington talks is probably the more realistic one. And this has been to downplay all hopes of an imminent breakthrough due to the utterly conflicting emphases the two sides are bringing to the negotiations.
For the Palestinians, the discussions on Oslo's long delayed third redeployment are every bit as important as on the Framework Agreement, and perhaps more so. Those close to the negotiations are deeply sceptical that the Framework Agreement will render a form of words that will satisfy the two sides, especially on such contentious issues as Jerusalem, refugees and borders. But figures like Erekat and Abed Rabbo believe that they have a textual commitment from Oslo's 1995 interim agreement that following the third redeployment Israel should be out of everywhere in the West Bank except for Jerusalem, settlements and "specified military locations." According to their reading, this means 90 per cent of the West Bank.
The Israeli position is the complete opposite. According to a report in Israel's Haaretz newspaper on 20 March, Barak has instructed his negotiating team to "concentrate on the Framework Agreement," implying heavily to his cabinet that any third redeployment will be "contingent" on this rather than on implementing to the letter the interim agreement. Then a cabinet minister Barak had opposed the 1995 accord.
Such skewed objectives suggest that the ten days of talks in Washington will herald less a new page in "partnership" than old recipes for a crisis, probably to erupt around May.
