Thursday, December 13, 2007

First step taken, others should follow

Dec.14, 2007


First step taken, others should follow


WITH Wednesday's meeting of Israeli and Palestinian peace negotiators, the clock has started ticking towards an agreement that was promised by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak at last month's conference in Annapolis.
We are seeing the same pattern of Israeli behaviour. In the run-up to the Wednesday's meeting, Israel reaffirmed that it was not going to be dissuaded from pursuing its policy of expanding settlements in the West Bank , including Arab East Jerusalem and that it would continue military operations against Palestinian armed resistance. The second part of the Israeli stand is based on the continuing rocket attacks against Israel coming from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. However, both approaches do not bode well for successful negotiations.
On the other side, however, is a revelation in the Israeli media that Israelis and Palestinians came close to striking a peace deal at 2001 talks in Egypt, but gaps remained on the core issues of the conflict.
Essentially, both sides would have to make compromises. Israel will have to give up most of the West Bank, the Palestinians must agree to resettle refugees from the 1948 conflict inside their own state to be formed within the 1967 lines and the two sides must share Jerusalem.
If the revelation, as quoted from an agreement signed by Gilad Sher, the chief of staff to former Israeli premier Ehud Barak, is accurate, then it represents the closest that the two sides have ever come towards giving a definite shape to a peace agreement.
According to the report, both sides had agreed to the principle of adjusting the June 4, 1967 borders but differed on the details.
While Israel wanted to keep six to eight per cent of West Bank territory in order to maintain settlement blocks , the Palestinians were willing to exchange up to 2.3 per cent of the territory.
Both sides wanted sovereignty over the passage linking the Gaza Strip to the West Bank.
They also agreed that sovereignty over Jerusalem, with two capitals for two states, but differed on the details of continuity of their respective neighbourhoods.
The two sides could not agree on the issues of the Al Haram Al Sharif complex which houses the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock and the western wall, which Jews consider as their most sacred site.
On the question of Palestinian refugees, Israel said it would recognise the suffering of the refugees of 1948, when Israel was created, and to accept between 20,000 and 40,000 refugees based on humanitarian concerns, and to contribute financially to refugee rehabilitation.
The Palestinians demanded that Israel accept sole responsibility for the creation and perpetuation of the refugee problem and to recognise the refugees' right of return.
Indeed, the agreements rather than the differing positions of the two sides give us hope that the Annapolis process could realise the objective of a peace accord. Both sides have to work hard and their leaders face huge obstacles from their own camps. There are no tailor-made solutions.
For its part, the Arab World has signalled its willingness to make compromises by offering the Arab peace initiative and attending the Annapolis conference. Today, the Arabs stand ready to do what it could to help achieve the objective of for just, fair and dignified peace with Israel without compromising the legitimate territorial rights of the Arabs, including the Palestinians, the Syrians and the Lebanese. That position should weigh in heavily in favour of the Palestinians. Israel should not be seeking to achieve normalisation with the Arabs without working out just, fair and dignified peace with all parties involved. The first step has been taken with the Palestinians, and others should follow.