Abbas in Gaza for cease-fire dialogue

[Moses]

Abbas in Gaza for cease-fire dialogue

---

By Saud Abu Ramadan
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL

---

Gaza, Gaza, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- Newly elected Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is scheduled to arrive in Gaza Monday to personally ask the Islamist factions to halt attacks against Israel and give him a chance to bring Israel back to the negotiation table.


Official sources close to Abbas said that the president would stay a few days in Gaza to hold discussions with opposition groups, mainly Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The sources also said that the talks would focus on internal reorganization and seek to find common issues that serve the interests of the Palestinian people.

A Palestinian security official revealed Monday that the Palestinian Authority is not eager to offer Israel Palestinian security actions against militants in the Gaza Strip without some sort of quid pro quo.

Preventive Security chief, Brig. Rashid Abu Shback, announced that Abbas is scheduled to hold series of meetings with the Islamic Jihad and Hamas on Wednesday aiming at reaching an understanding and declaring a cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinians.

Abu Shback told reporters that there must be a political progress in the negotiations between the Israeli and the Palestinian sides before adopting any security actions against the militant groups.

He added that the next stage would be resuming serious talks with both Islamist movements, and said that this stage is the one of dialogue to reach an agreement.

"In case we fail to reach a deal with the militant groups, then the other option is to resume the peace process with Israel," adding, "if this process achieves progress, then we will be able to implement our security obligations by force."

The Israeli press, citing an unnamed Palestinian Cabinet minister, said Abbas Monday ordered security forces to prevent Palestinian militant attacks on Israelis.

Israel had suspended talks with the Palestinian Authority after Palestinian militant groups -- mainly Hamas and Islamic Jihad -- escalated their military attacks against passage points and settlements in southern Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon gave a free rein to the Israeli army to operate against militants in the Gaza Strip, and accused Abbas of not doing enough to prevent militants' attacks on Israel. [same old same old]

"We do not expect them to complete their work against terror," a senior Israeli source told Haaretz Sunday, "but they should at least start."

"We are in contact with the U.S. peace sponsor, and I believe that Egypt also rejects suspending ties and has officially asked Israel to resume immediately ties with the Palestinians and its new leader, Mahmoud Abbas," said chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.

Erekat accused the Israeli government of using Thursday's attack on Karni passage in Gaza -- which killed six Israelis, two of them Arabs -- to give the Israeli army a free rein to continue its military actions of assassinations and destruction.

"While we were extending the olive branch to the Israeli side urging them to get back to the peace negotiation table, we find that Israel is ignoring this and uses the attacks to continue its military aggression," said Erekat. [Yes-- and obvious to the entire world, too]

On Monday, Israeli politicians opposed to Sharon's action met with Abbas in Ramallah.

"We came here to say that the government is making a mistake in calling off the ongoing communication with the Palestinian Authority," Yahad chairman Yossi Beilin said, according to a Haaretz report Monday. "Punishing Abu Mazen for the actions of Hamas is a mistake, and in effect he is the sole pragmatic force with whom it is possible to advance peace. There is nothing stranger than boycotting him."

Senior Islamic Jihad leader Nafez Azzam had told reporters earlier that his movement would consider a cease-fire with Israel "only if Israel refrains from carrying out military actions in the Palestinian territories."

Mahmoud al-Zahar, a top Hamas leader told reporters, "It is the Zionists who are killing and wounding civilians. Their tanks and armored vehicles storm our streets, and we are only defending ourselves and our civilians."

He also described the pressures on Hamas to drop its arms and to declare a unilateral cease-fire as "unfair," adding: "It is like asking a raped victim to stop resisting. It is unacceptable."

A senior Hamas leader announced Monday that the movement rejects a cease-fire with Israel and vowed to continue attacks until the end of the Israeli occupation.

Hamas leader Musa Abu Marzouk, who is based in Syria, told reporters Monday that the movement is going through a stage where they can't agree on a truce or an end attacks against the Israeli army.

Abu Marzouk said that the Israeli army had occupied the Palestinian territories by force, adding that Hamas is determined to fight the Israeli occupation and liberate the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967.

He also said the movement had rejected Abbas's demand to dismantle the Palestinian factions and disarm them.

"The Islamic factions need the arms to defend themselves from the ongoing Israeli attacks," Abu Marzouk said.

Erekat said Abbas hopes the international community exerts pressure on Israel to end military actions if militant groups accept a cease-fire with Israel.

Despite the PLO executive committee's calls on militants on Sunday to halt attacks against Israel, Palestinian militants continued mortar attacks Monday against Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.

Al-Qassam Brigades claimed responsibility for attacking three Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and an Israeli lookout post near the border between southern Gaza Strip and Egypt.

Four separate leaflets signed by the group and sent to reporters said that Hamas militants fired mortar shells at the settlements of Gadid in southern Gaza Strip and the settlements of Nissanet and Eli Sinai in northern Gaza.

[Moses]

Date: January 19, 2005
Contact: Terry Walz, 202-863-2951

CNI URGES NEGOTIATION EVEN IN FACE OF VIOLENCE

Eugene Bird, President of the Council for the National Interest, returned from a ten-day visit to Palestine-Israel, where he and a delegation of five monitored the election of a new president for the Palestinian Authority. He said in a statement released today that the victory of Mahmoud Abbas could trigger false and unrealistic optimism on the part of the international community and foreign policy observers, specifically in the U.S., and that a resurgence of effort towards peace negotiations should proceed despite spurts of violence that may take place as Abbas transitions into power.

"The Palestinians are to be praised for getting to the polls despite illegal restrictions placed on them through Israeli roadblocks and other means. The overwhelming majority of the people with whom we talked risked the dangers of coming out to vote because they genuinely want an end to the occupation and a resumption of normal life. But the sad fact is the Israeli position has not changed with the death of Yassar Arafat and we can only expect more of the same in the near future. A cause for optimism is not warranted at this time.

"We need to create new facts on the ground, not the old 'Likud Party' facts that have undermined one ceasefire after another."

"However," he continued, "the U.S. might  make a difference yet if it pressures Israel to cease military operations/attacks, release prisoners that are held without charge, and curb the construction of settlements on the West Bank. Only then might it become clear to the Palestinians that the Israelis are interested in peace."

A new poll by the Shikaki Group and the Truman Institute indicate there has been some movement in the past year toward peace and compromise in both Palestine and Israel, but that the issue of Jerusalem shows a hardened opposition on both sides to sharing the city. (For the full polls, see www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2005/jointpreelections05.html).

Mr. Bird commented, "The Bush administration is being asked to give Israel another $180 million to make most of the key checkpoints permanent.  That will be a signal to every Palestinian that the U.S. continues to support the occupation into the indefinite future.

"The administration needs to seize this opportunity to gain an Israeli agreement to continue negotiations, regardless of violence, which is exactly what we did in Vietnam for almost three years.  If the negotiations are stop and go, that will give the radicals on both sides a means of preventing any real progress on the Road Map."

The delegation met with a number of officials in Jerusalem and the West Bank, with Dr. Mustafa Barthouti, one of the presidential candidates, Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, the Palestinian lawmaker, Hanna Nassir, head of the Central Election Committee, and with numerous international electoral observers from the E.U., the U.N., and the U.S.A.  They also visited Qalqilya and Kfar Saba, where they learned first-hand the effects of the enveloping Wall.  They listened as the mayor of Qalqiliya explained that Sharon himself had vetoed the construction of a new reservoir while approving the construction of 1,800 new housing units in Palestinian lands seized from residents living in nearby villages.

The delegation included Ambassador Edward Peck, former deputy chief of mission to Iraq, former Congressman Orval Hansen (R-ID), consultant Charles Carriker, attorney Peter Viering (head of CNI-Connecticut), and Chris Belcher, a videographer with Alchymedia, Inc.

[Moses]

The Middle East's Leading English Language Daily

---

Tuesday, 8, February, 2005 (28, Dhul Hijjah, 1425)

Editorial: Summit Hopes


THE meeting today, across a table in Sharm El-Sheikh, of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon represents the best chance yet for an end to almost sixty years of Palestinian agony. No one can possibly underestimate the immensity of the challenge. This could be but the first step in a long and tortuous journey and it is one fraught with danger from extremists on both sides.

The talks are being hosted by Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak and attended also by Jordan’s King Abdallah. All the participants will certainly be very conscious of the diplomatic shadow cast by the new US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Yesterday she concluded her first foreign trip by going from Israel to a meeting with President Abbas in the occupied territories. The US role will be pivotal to any advance toward peace. If die-hard Zionists, from whose ranks Ariel Sharon sprang, had felt that they could get away with maintaining the violent status quo in which they characterize themselves as the deserving victims and the Palestinians as the malevolent aggressors, they would not be talking now. Has the new Bush administration finally realized that as long as it simply sustains Israel economically and militarily, US influence in the Middle East will be seriously curtailed, even in Israel itself which long ago learned to take the American dollar and give precious little or nothing in return?

Over the last 50 years, no fewer than 16 US secretaries of state have tried with greater or lesser enthusiasm to find a solution to the Middle East problem. What makes Condoleezza Rice’s initiative different is that she has assumed office at the very moment when Washington’s hawks are fluttering uncertainly rather than soaring high. The application of brute force in Afghanistan and Iraq has not produced the anticipated sweeping successes but has instead created more problems than have been solved. No one should doubt that the new secretary of state could be as hawkish as her president. By turning back to the diplomacy, which was so neglected, in George W. Bush’s first term, she has given the administration a whole new set of doors to try.

The US pledge yesterday of $40 million to the Palestinian Authority within the next 90 days, though a fraction of the amount needed to begin rebuilding the shattered Palestinian economy and welfare and social services, is certainly welcome. Washington’s pressure probably produced the equally welcome Israeli announcement that up to 900 Palestinian detainees would soon be released from jails. The Rice visit appears to have also prompted a Sharon government rethink on the seizure of Palestinian property in Jerusalem and the West Bank, some of which Meni Mazuz, the Israeli attorney general, has now ruled illegal. What is unclear, however, is whether Rice was aware of the Israeli sleight of hand here. Mazuz has said that the 1950 Absentee Property Law does not apply and by acting with such apparent correctness, he is in fact reinforcing the very legislation that was used to dispossess Palestinians driven from their homes in 1947. The right of return or compensation for loss remains key issues for negotiation.

At the moment Israel is wearing its reasonable face. If the talks fail, it will want to blame the Palestinians and shake its head with mock sadness. It remains to be seen if Ms. Rice will be a sufficiently informed and firm umpire to ensure fair play. But it looks as if she has made a good start.

 <br>Copyright: Arab News © 2003

[Moses]

More on US Aid for Checkpoint Crossings: Update and A Correction
Date: February 11, 2005

The modernization of checkpoints between Israel and the Palestinian Territories is now being ironically cast as a "humanitarian" project to be undertaken by the either the Israelis or the Palestinians as a way of improving the Palestinian quality of life and ease of communication. Needless to say, the American taxpayer is being asked to underwrite the cost.

The new "humanitarian" approach to the checkpoints can be seen in the newest AIPAC action alert (February 8), in which Gen. Baruch Spiegel - identified in the Jerusalem Post as the "head of the Security Fence Team, a group appointed by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz to administer Palestinian humanitarian needs regarding the security fence" - outlined how Israel is "working to ease the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza." It is building "state of the art" checkpoint crossings "for Palestinians traveling from Gaza to Israel, modernizing five similar terminals between Israel and the West Bank and substantially reducing the number of security checkpoints and roadblocks in Palestinian areas. Israel is also building a Jerusalem bypass road that will enable Palestinians to travel between the northern and southern parts of the West Bank without moving through security checkpoints."

And in a press release from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs on January 27, the role of the team is clarified: "The establishment of this team is part of the Minister's overall policy of separating the general Palestinian population from the terror operatives in their midst. In the framework of this policy, the Minister held a meeting with heads of international organizations two weeks ago to address issues in the territories. At this meeting, a cooperative structure between the Ministry of Defense and the international organizations was agreed upon - with the objective of assisting the Palestinian population as much as possible."

Then, in news reports regarding Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's trip to Israel-Palestine this week and of President Bush's offer of $350 million in aid to the Palestine Authority last week it became clear that some of the money to fund the "state of the art" checkpoint crossings will be included in the aid package to Palestine. 

The figure of $50 million is mentioned in a JTA report and in an Haaretz article both dated February 4; but as Glenn Kessler pointed out in an article in the Washington Post on February 6,

"The Israeli government [too] has sought financial assistance from the United States for building the transit terminals. A White House official said $50 million of the $350 million that Bush announced in his State of the Union address to 'support Palestinian political, economic, and security reforms' could be given to Israel for the terminals because faster passage through Israeli checkpoints is presumed to be a help to the Palestinian economy."

Last week, in a time of confusing reports, CNI protested what it thought was an Israeli request of $180 million in aid to cover the cost of these "terminals." This was premature, as the Israelis had not made such a request. In its press release of February 4 CNI incorrectly allied itself with the details of the position of Americans for Peace Now, although both were agreed that the funding, however it is sourced, should not cover checkpoints in Palestinian territory outside the Green Line.

So, is funding for the checkpoint crossings to come out of the Palestinian or the Israeli aid pot? The question may be further confused by the $40 million grant for "short-term, high impact items" that Dr. Rice announced in Ramallah. She explained that "it will be provided over the next 90 days in a quick action program to make an immediate positive impact on the lives of the Palestinian people, through, for example, job creation, private sector development and infrastructure development" (Press release State Department 2/7/05).

Where did these funds come from, people in Washington have wondered? This week it emerged they were cobbled together from already funded projects in Gaza and the West Bank (desalination works, for example) that had never been spent. They will be administered through USAID (and not go through the Palestinian Authority, which still may not legally receive US funding), and will be used in part for constructing new roads through the territories - along Gen. Speigel's lines? And thus Peter is robbed to pay Paul.