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News :: Israel / Palestine |
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Moderates Present A Way Forward |
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by Ferry Biedermann
(No verified email address) |
20 Oct 2003
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"I will fight for this proposal because it is the only alternative to continuing as we are." |
JERUSALEM - Moderate Israelis and Palestinians have started drumming up support for a draft peace agreement they reached last weekend after years of negotiating.
The deal does not have official standing but the Palestinian Authority (PA) has not rejected it out of hand. On the Israeli side, opinion polls show around 40 per cent support.
"We knew there would be an asymmetry," says Shlomo Brom, an Israeli participant in the talks. He is a reserve army general and an analyst at the prestigious Jaffee Center for Strategic studies in Tel Aviv.
From the Palestinian side, he says young leaders as well as senior politicians with ties to the PA participated in the last round of talks. The Israeli side comprised mainly left-wing politicians, academics and writers, none of whom wield political power.
Brom believes that on the Israeli side it is mainly the political echelon that needs convincing; among the Palestinians it is the wider public opinion.
The talks have been held at different locations over several years. The final draft was approved in Amman in Jordan. Several dozen people from each side participated.
The deal itself is still under wraps. It is set to be unveiled in all its details at an official launch in Geneva, maybe as early as next month.
The Swiss government has helped the parties negotiate the agreement. This has greatly angered the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
The Israeli right calls the negotiators traitors. Minister Uzi Landau from Sharon's Likud party said on television that most countries have laws against any unofficial representatives negotiating with the enemy, and he would introduce such legislation in Israel too.
But the main aim of the negotiations, participants in the talks say, is to show both sides that in spite of governments and militants, there is 'somebody to talk to' on the other side.
Daniel Levy, an Israeli left-wing activist deeply involved in drafting the peace plan says it will "re-invigorate the Israeli left."
Both sides are believed to have gone much further on the most sensitive issues, which everybody agrees are the Palestinian refugees and control of Jerusalem. The negotiators have nailed down ground-breaking proposals on these issues that will now need to be absorbed by both parties.
At the heart of the deal there seems to be a trade-off between the virtual ban on the return of refugees to Israel, and the establishment of Palestinian sovereignty over the Haram al-Sharif, or the Temple Mount in Jerusalem which is holy to both Muslims and Jews.
The question of right of return of refugees will not be mentioned in the text, sources associated with the talks say. Israel would get in effect a veto right over anybody who wants to settle in the country.
It is estimated that a proposed formula will lead to the return of just several tens of thousands of refugees. The number of registered refugees runs into millions.
The text includes several key phrases to ensure that after implementation the two sides will have no more claims on each other. The agreement would replace all previous agreements and United Nations resolutions.
"I cannot say that this agreement, especially on the issue of the refugees, fulfils everything that I have dreamed about," says Zuheir Manasra, a Palestinian participant and former head of the Preventive Security Service.
"But it does not fulfil all the Israeli dreams either, and I will tell our people that this is the best that can be achieved," he says. "I will fight for this proposal because it is the only alternative to continuing as we are."
Manasra recognizes that a period of peace and stability would help get the Israeli public to accept the proposals. But he refuses to countenance a unilateral Palestinian cease-fire. "That is up to Sharon," he says.
He is aware that militant groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad will oppose any deal along the lines of the agreement, but he does not believe the PA should crack down on those groups. "Everybody always underestimates the ability of the Palestinian society to work these issues out in a democratic and peaceful way."
Daniel Levy on the Israeli side hopes that the very existence of the agreement will contribute to a lessening of violence. "We offer hope and that is something that has been absent for years now. The absence of hope has contributed to the violence."
Kadura Fares, a Palestinian leader of the 'young guard' who is close to the jailed Intifadah leader Marwan Barghouti says he will do his best to get the proposals accepted widely among his people.
The political echelon in his Fatah movement and in the PA will follow, he says. "If the people don't accept the agreement, then the political leadership will denounce us as traitors; if the public reacts positively, the politicians will appropriate the plan and say that we could not have done it without them."
Copyright 2003 Inter Press Service
http://www.Reuters.com
See also:
Unofficial Peace Pact Ignites Uproar
Toronto Star 10/14/2003
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1014-08.htm |
