Al-Ahram Weekly | Front Page | Powell's limited agenda

		Al-Ahram Weekly Online 28 June - 4 July 2001 Issue No.540
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Powell's limited agenda
Colin Powell began a regional tour yesterday amid American- Israeli differences on a settlement construction freeze

US Secretary of State Colin Powell started talks in the Middle East yesterday on an American plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace-making that hinges on the unsteady two-week-old cease-fire brokered by the United States. Powell met with President Hosni Mubarak yesterday afternoon at Borg El-Arab near Alexandria.
Before Powell left Washington, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon outlined Israel's security demands in talks with President George W Bush, drawing a timeline in the sand for ending nine months of violence that has killed about 600 people, the vast majority Palestinian.
There must be 10 days of "absolute quiet," Sharon demanded, before Israel will start the countdown to what he proposed would be a six-week "cooling-off" period under a peace blueprint charted by the committee led by former Senator George Mitchell. Yet hours before his meeting with the US president, and despite a massive publicity drive to persuade the international community that it has accepted the Mitchell report, which calls for a full settlement freeze, Israel's Land's Authority published tenders for 38 plots in Maaleh Adumim, the largest of Israel's illegal settlements in the West Bank. It was hardly a move condusive to the quiet Sharon professes he wants to see.
Ahmed Abdel-Rahman, a senior aide to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, said Sharon's demands reflected his "aggressive policy."
"We appreciate the objective and balanced position that President George W Bush expressed in his meeting with Sharon and we consider it a starting point to enhance security and to start peacemaking," Abdel-Rahman told Reuters.
And while there were no immediate reports of major violence involving Palestinians and the Israeli army during the night, Sharon appeared keen to pour cold water on Powell's chances of success in an interview given to foreign reporters who accompanied him on his three day tour. "I do not know if he will make progress," said Sharon, before going on to blame Arafat for such negative predictions.
In addition to continuing its settlement building activities in defiance of international law, Palestinians have also condemned Israel for keeping in place the crippling blockades in the West Bank and Gaza, which have not only stoked tensions but also make it practically impossible for Palestinian security forces to enforce the cease-fire mediated by CIA Director George Tenet.
With characteristic rapidity, Powell will meet five Middle East leaders in three days, starting with President Mubarak. Bush said he was sending Powell to the region to "make sure there is a realistic assessment of what is going on."
Amid reports in the Israeli press of a rift between the US and Israel Sharon acknowledged that he and Bush did not see eye-to-eye on settlements but insisted that his government would continue construction to accommodate the "natural growth" of the illegal settlements in the West Bank and Gaza.
According to a draft document obtained by Reuters on Tuesday, Palestinian officials plan to ask Powell to pressure Israel to freeze Jewish settlement activity within six weeks, before a complete end to hostilities.
While Sharon has said both sides must take a step-by-step approach to the Mitchell proposals Palestinians say political and security aspects of the recommendations must go hand in hand.
"Our idea is that the steps on the timeline would flow together, rather than that there be clearly defined lines," said one US official, who asked not to be named, in what appeared to be a rejection of the strict sequencing Israel insists on, between the cease-fire, the cooling-off period and any gestures favourable to the Palestinians.
Yet whatever US reservations exist over Sharon's position, given the precarious nature of the truce it is most likely that Powell will end up simply pressing Arafat to crack down on violence, and attempting to persuade Sharon to restrain from retaliation.
After spending Thursday in Israel and the Palestinian territories, Powell will fly to Jordan on Friday to see King Abdullah and then to Paris to see Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who has been sharply critical of Sharon and US Middle East policy.

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