The Situation

'The Geneva Paper

Monday, October 13, 2003

Maybe the bloody land belongs to the cows, acrylics on paper, 50x65, by Silvia Rosenberg

The color seems to be returning to the Zionist Left’s cheeks – and the best proof is the way it is under attack for hammering out a draft peace agreement with Palestinians. The Geneva-based, unofficial talks between Israelis and Palestinians climaxed this weekend in Amman, where both sides affirmed the document and agreed on an official signing ceremony on November 4, the anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination.

The document, worked out in negotiations headed by Yossi Beilin on the Israeli side and Yasser Abed Rabo on the Palestinian side, takes what the negotiators called ‘a pragmatic’ approach to all the issues, building on the Clinton Framework, to come up with what both sides refer to as a comprehensive peace program.

On the Israeli side, former Labor Party Chairman Amram Miztna, former Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg, and former Chief of Staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak were among those in attendance, while the Palestinian side had the support of jailed Marwan Barghouti, represented by Palestinian Legislative Council member Fares Kedura in the talks.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has lately been slamming the Left and Labor for everything – the strikes, the sorry state of the economy, and now the ‘treachery’ of ‘going behind the government’s back’ to negotiate with the Palestinians. But according to sources in Beilin’s office, the Prime Ministers Office was briefed at every step of the way in the two years of talks that finally yielded an agreement.

The document’s opponents and proponents lined up this morning on Israel Radio and Army Radio, with a depressing predictability. From the Right, for example, Coalition Whip Gideon Sa’ar, the Likud MK, slammed the agreement as ‘dangerous and irresponsible, bordering on treason.’ But so did former Labor leader Ehud Barak, attacking the document for undermining Israeli policy to wait until Yasser Arafat is gone from the scene before trying to undertake any political negotiations with the Palestinians. But a former aide to Barak, Prof. Menachem Klein, said the new round of negotiations ‘succeeded, where Barak – despite all his efforts -- failed.’

In any case, Arafat is not going anywhere very fast, despite reports (denied by the Palestinians) that he is very ill – and a report in Yedioth that the U.S. is looking for ways for a committee of Arab doctors to examine Arafat and then conclude that for medical reasons, he has to step aside. Arafat’s latest ‘success’ has been to get Ahmed Qurei’ to announce that he’ll only head an emergency Palestinian government for the next month and then a new government will be formed, with a new prime minister.

Hisham Abdul Razak, the former Palestinian minister for prisoner affairs, said today that Hezbollah had worked out a deal with the Palestinian prisoners about the criteria for deciding which Palestinian prisoners would be released in the brewing negotiations for a prisoner exchange between Israel and the Lebanese guerrilla group.

But the negotiations as being reported by the press, are raising objections throughout Israeli society, as new obstacles come up almost daily. In addition to the Ron Arad issue – the latest ammo used by the family was to give the press a copy of a letter to the prime minister written by the missing navigator’s daughter, who is now in the army – Israeli politicians are under pressure to win freedom for Azzam Azzam, languishing in an Egyptian jail. Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said last night that no Egyptians would be released in the deal with Hezbollah, without Cairo freeing Azzam. That does not seem likely, given the antipathy Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has for Sharon. Nor is Mubarak in any hurry to have the Hezbollah get credit for freeing any Egyptians in Israeli jails.

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