Al-Ahram Weekly
6 - 12 July 2000
Issue No. 489
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 Issues navigation Current Issue Previous Issue Back Issues
 
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Getting down to the wire

By Graham Usher

For the third time in 14 months the PLO Central Council met in Gaza on 2 and 3 July to set a time for the declaration of Palestinian statehood. And for the third time the PLO hedged its dates, though less so than previously. The final statement issued by the Council was almost unequivocal but not quite. It mandated the PLO executive committee, by "the end of the interim period" on 13 September, to "make all arrangements for the announcement of a Palestinian state and embody Palestinian sovereignty over all territories occupied (by Israel) in 1967, including Al-Quds Al-Sharif": i.e. Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Shifting the final decision to the PLO executive gives Yasser Arafat some leverage to defer the declaration beyond the 13 September deadline. But the overwhelming consensus of the 105 members attending the Council was that any deferral could not be indefinite. "A Palestinian state will be declared in year 2000," said Council member Nabil Shaath following the meeting.

The convening of the Council is the latest move in a negotiating process fast approaching its endgame. At the most basic level, Arafat's intent with the meeting was to lay down before the world, and especially to the Americans, the Palestinian red lines for any final settlement with Israel. In order of priority, the statement listed these as the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their homes in their "former homeland;" Israel's full withdrawal to the 1967 lines; the removal of all Jewish settlements from occupied Palestinian land; and Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state.

It is a consensus that commanded support from all national streams in the Council, even though deputies belonging to the Democratic and Popular Fronts registered the complaint that the current peace process with Israel should be reviewed and "reconstructed on new bases."

Even Hamas which, unlike the 1999 session, refused to attend the Council even as observers was nowhere near as hostile to the gathering as many had feared. In a memo to Palestine National Council Speaker Salim Zanoun on 2 July, the Islamists warned that Hamas would never surrender one inch of Palestine "now or in the future." But it also said that it would support the "liberation of any inch of Palestine" as long as this did not entail "recognising the Zionist state or cooperating with it on the security or any other levels." Most took this to mean that Hamas would be agnostic to any declaration of statehood rather than resolutely opposed to one.

The sole party that will be resolutely opposed is of course Israel. Whether in official statements to his cabinet or via orchestrated leaks to the Israeli media, Ehud Barak has been transparent that any final deal with the Palestinians will not involve Israel's withdrawal to the 1967 lines, the return of refugees to Israel proper or Palestinian sovereignty in East Jerusalem.


Arafat with top aides at closing session of Palestinian Central Council
(photo: AP)
Such gulfs suggest there will be another round of negotiations before any putative summit is held between the Palestinian, Israeli and US leaderships for reaching a Framework Agreement. And that even this summit now tentatively scheduled to occur in middle or late July may be "consultative" rather than final, according to a Palestinian official quoted by Reuters on 3 July. If so, the Palestinian Camp David-like Palestinian declaration of statehood may go down all the way to the 13 September wire.

The question is what would happen should the summit endgame not only reach the wire without an agreement but burst through it. In that scenario Arafat's options become narrower as the clock ticks to the 13 September deadline, says Palestinian political analyst, Khalil Shikaki.

One of course would be for Arafat to "radically transform the situation" by unilaterally declaring a Palestinian state, says Shikaki. But any inclination the Palestinian leader may have to go for broke will be tempered by the international reaction to such a step, and above all by the responses of the US and the European Union. And the American attitude is known. No sooner had the Council issued its statement than a State Department official was plucked forth to state that the US rejects unilateral actions from "either party, including a declaration of statehood."

Nor is it clear whether the Palestinians will get much better fare from their "friends" in the EU. Following his meeting with Arafat on 1 July, French President Jacques Chirac vowed that his country would stand by the European Council's March 1999 Berlin declaration that the Palestinians had an "unqualified" right to self-determination, "including the option of a state."

But, as current President of EU, Chirac also made it clear that European recognition would not be automatic. This would depend on all the member states taking a "unified position" to a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood and whether the conditions were "suitable" for one. It is the purpose of Barak's meetings with Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Paris and London this week to impress upon them that a declaration minus Israel's agreement is certainly not "suitable."

Lest there be any doubt on the matter, the Israeli leader has recently assumed an almost Netanyahu clarity on such a denouement. Should the Palestinians unilaterally declare a state, Israel would unilaterally annex settlement blocs in the West Bank and impose a security cordon on the Jordan Valley, Barak told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee on 3 July.

A declaration that invites Israeli retaliation, American opposition and European discomfort is hardly an enticing prospect for the Palestinian leader. But Shikaki is also convinced that Arafat "will not and cannot" make irreversible concession vis-a-vis Israel when it comes to occupied land and Palestinian national rights. In such a deadlock, and short of confrontation, Shikaki can see only one escape: "A vertical agreement," he says, "where Israel recognises an undefined Palestinian state and the Palestinians agree to maintain security cooperation in exchange for deferring for further negotiations the issues of Jerusalem, refugees and borders."

It is easy to see the allure of such a "temporary arrangement," at least at the leadership level. It would enable Arafat to achieve statehood without being seen to have signed anything away, "something that is very important to him," says Shikaki. It would allow Barak to tell his fractious coalition that recognition of a Palestinian state is a small price to pay for Israel's ongoing hold on Jerusalem, settlements and land. And President Bill Clinton would at last have a signing ceremony celebrating Palestinian statehood and Israeli security a month or so before the US Presidential elections.

Those likely to be less impressed are of course the Palestinians in the occupied territories and diaspora, since, "for them, nothing much would change," admits Shikaki. Indeed, for the Palestinian refugees such a deal could mean a change for the worse. Dalah Salami is a Fatah leader and a refugee from the Balata camp in Nablus. But she is totally against any declaration of Palestinian statehood on 13 September unless it is accompanied by Israel's recognition of the refugees' right to return based on UN Resolution 194, "and so are most of the refugees," she says. The reason is obvious. A vertical agreement along the lines described by Shikaki would "preoccupy the new state with issues to do with borders, the third Israeli redeployment and water at the expense of the refugees," she says. "And those negotiations could go on for years."

This is probably true. Which is why Israel, the Americans and perhaps Arafat might plump for a vertical agreement and a "provisional state" in the absence of any other.

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