Today's Situation

Holiday news Friday, June 02, 2006

More locally, on the Israeli-Egyptian border south of Gaza, three Arab gunmen (their identities are still unconfirmed) this morning ran about 100 meters across the fenceless border into Israel to attack an IDF patrol, which immediately killed two of the three in short order with no casualties on the Israel side. The third gunman was said to have run back into Egypt.

The 250-kilometer fenceless border between Israel and Egypt’s Sinai peninsula stretches from south of Gaza to Eilat. It is patrolled by both Israelis and Egyptians but most of the activity on it is related to smuggling of drugs and other contraband often heading through Israel into Jordan, as well as East European women on their way willingly or not into the Israeli sex market, and weapons that Gazans try to get through to the West Bank.

At an estimated $2,000 a meter for a ‘smart’ fence, fencing the border is a project way beyond either Israeli or Egyptian means.

While there was little news on Israel’s side -- in addition to the incident in the south, the IDF arrested a wanted man in a Nablus hospital -- on the Palestinian side there was more politicking over PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ initiative for a national referendum on the Prisoner’s Document, hammered out by Palestinian prisoner leaders, perhaps the most generally respected political leaders in Palestinian society.

The document implicitly recognizes Israel and calls for a right of return without specifying that the return is to the refugees’ original homes, in other words leaving open the possibility that the right to return would be limited to a Palestinian state that would be established in the 1967 borders. Indeed, some Hamas-Damascus spokesmen have condemned the document as being too concessionary to Israel precisely because the document does not specify a return to Israel, and because it accepts the two-state solution.

Abbas and his Fateh party, which the polls now show has a commanding lead over Hamas in popularity, is determined to go ahead with the referendum even if Hamas says no to it. Hamas meanwhile is still trying to figure out how to cope with Abbas’ initiative. PA Foreign Minister Mahmoud a Zahar, considered a spokesman for the more militant flanks of the Hamas government, rejected the Arab League peace initiative of 2002, calling it ‘impossible to implement.’

But PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh meanwhile has not ruled out the Prisoners’ Document, which includes reference to the Arab peace initiative, which offers Israel full peace and normalization with the Arab world in exchange for a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

While Israel basically ignored the 2002 initiative, coming as it did the day after a brutal massacre of 30 Israelis in a suicide bombing at a Passover seder hotel dinner, it has said that the 2002 initiative’s call for a right of return for refugees renders the initiative a non-starter.

Meanwhile, Abbas has ordered his Presidential Guard -- which is to be re-equipped, with Israeli permission, with arms provided by Jordan -- to take control over all the border crossings in and out of the Palestinian Authority territories. It’s a move that shores up Abbas’ control over a key focal point of power, witness the attempt two weeks ago by a Hamas official to smuggle some 600,000 euro in cash into Gaza. The official was briefly detained, but the cash was kept by PA officials loyal to Abbas, who still retains control over most of the PA’s armed forces.

Abbas’ deadline for Hamas to accept the Prisoner’s Document or face a referendum that everyone assumes will back the document is due early next week. If Hamas does not accept the document as the basis for negotiating a new ‘national unity’ government, the next stage in the face-off between Hamas and Fateh will arrive -- Fateh announced in Tunis this week that it is making preparations for the referendum whether Hamas agrees or not.

Most importantly, the Americans have made clear to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that they are sticking with Abbas as a partner for negotiations, and Olmert has said he will meet the PA president by the end of the month. Abbas is also president of the PLO, which formally is responsible for the political negotiations with Israel. Indeed, one of the sticking points of the Prisoner’s Document for the Hamas is that it gives Abbas, as head of the PLO, the authority to negotiate with Israel.

Today's Situation || Yesterday's Situation