Palestinians find package wanting

By Kesava Menon

MANAMA (BAHRAIN), JAN.9. While Israel has, as expected, signalled its readiness to accept the proposals that the U.S. President, Mr. Bill Clinton, unveiled completely for the first time two days ago, the Palestinians continue to hold out. There are substantive reasons for the Palestinians to be dissatisfied with the U.S. proposals but there is also a possibility that they are holding out for a significant improvement in the proposals.

Mr. Clinton had for the first time laid out the full package of proposals that he had been trying to get the Israelis and Palestinians to accept while addressing a liberal Jewish forum in New York on January 7. These proposals include the setting up of a sovereign and viable Palestinian state at the same time ensuring Israel's security and accommodating the demographic realities.

In setting up the Palestinian state, the objective should be to ``maximise the number of settlers in Israel while minimising the land annexed'' and for the Palestinian state to be viable it must be a geographically contiguous entity. Palestinian refugees would have the right to live within the confines of this new state and those who did not return ``deserved help in finding new homes either in their current locations or in other countries including Israel''. But the right to settle in the countries where they were currently located would have to be ``consistent with those countries sovereign decisions''.

In a further clarification of the last point, Mr. Clinton said that Israel could not be expected to acknowledge the right of return of Palestinian refugees because that would ``threaten the very foundations'' of Israel. Jerusalem would be an undivided city, encompassing the capitals of both Israel and the Palestinian state.

Mr. Clinton did not venture a direct proposal on what should be done with the Temple Mount/Haram al Sharif complex, that lies at the centre of the religio-political tangle, but merely said that people of all the three faiths that considered this land holy should have freedom of access to and worship at the religious sites. Any agreement would have to contain the clause that this marked the end of the conflict between the two peoples.

Mr. Clinton said an international presence in Palestine should provide border security along the Jordan valley and monitor fulfillment of any final agreement between both sides.

Details of these proposals have leaked out in dribs and drabs since December 23 when Mr. Clinton presented them in the form of the ``parameters'' that Palestinian and Israeli negotiators should abide by when they re-started their negotiations. From what has been said by the Israelis and Palestinians since then, it is clear that some of the issues have been removed from the realm of controversy.

Both the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli Government appear to have accepted that there will be a Palestinian state and that it will cover most of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, that East Jerusalem will revert to Palestinian control so that the Palestinians can set up their capital there and that the limits of the Palestinian sovereignty will be cramped to the extent necessary to ensure Israel's sovereignty.

But the two most controversial issues - control of the Temple Mount/Haram al Sharif complex and of the right of return - are proving to be as tough to resolve as they ever were. As regards control over the holy sites, the practicable solution is that the status quo continue but under a more formal status.

Though Mr. Clinton did not specify it in his speech, the reports seem authentic that the U.S. has proposed that the Palestinians formalise their present control over the surface of the Haram al Sharif while the Israelis similarly formalise their present control over the Western Wall. Hard-liners, religious figures and even some of the officials from either side insist that they cannot compromise their religious rights over the whole of the complex but this issue seems to be less hotly contested right now than is the question of the right of return.

There is a great deal of substance in the Palestinian argument that the solutions proposed are unacceptable because, among other reasons, they are couched in very generalised language. Throughout the seven year old Oslo processes, the Palestinians have found that whenever an agreement is couched in generalised language, lacking guarantees on their implementation, every point of it had required further negotiations.

Or as Palestinian negotiator, Mr. Yasser Abed Rabbo, put it, ``We have learnt our lessons from the first declaration of principles, after seeing that Israel immediately got everything we had signed on, while we have to negotiate for years to receive what we are supposed to get according to the agreement''. If the proposal as laid down by the U.S. involves the grant of compensation to those refugees who cannot return the Palestinians are well justified in insisting that the details of the compensation package be set down before they sign on to anything.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : International
Previous : LTTE not interested in peace: Chandrika
Next     : Toddler killers have 'right to privacy'