Palestine: One step forward, 3,500 steps back

[cospicua]

TWO WEST Bank towns were handed back to Palestinian security control in the past week, as all-faction talks in Cairo resulted in an extension of the current calm, and Arab heads of state meeting in Algiers decided to reissue the 2002 Saudi Arab proposal to offer full normalization of ties with Israel, if Israel returns all land occupied in 1967 and negotiates a solution to the issue of Palestinian refugees.

Israel, however, announced plans to build 3,500 new settlement units in it largest West Bank settlement while a reported Jerusalem land sale of Greek Orthodox property inside Jerusalem’s Old City to foreign Jewish investors caused Prime Minister Ahmed Qrei’ to name a ministerial committee to investigate the matter.

On March 22, after several delays, Israel handed back security control over Tulkarm to the PA. That followed the March 16 transfer of Jericho, and the two are the first of five West Bank towns that according to understandings reached at the February 8 Sharm Al Sheikh summit between President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon are to be handed back to PA control. The other three are Qalqiliya, Behtlehem and Ramallah. Qalqiliya is reportedly next in line.

The transfer of both towns, however, did not happen until after much delay. Tulkarm was supposed to be handed back on March 21, but last minute disagreements over control of a cluster of villages in the governorate meant a compromise could not be trashed out until late that evening. Under the compromise, Israel will retain security control over three of the villages, two for another week, and one, Ramin, until further negotiations take place. Also under the agreement, armed members of Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades are to be absorbed into the security forces.

Palestinian factions meeting in Cairo on March 17, meanwhile, agreed to extend the informal truce with Israel, but stopped short of announcing a formal ceasefire. While not what Abbas had hoped for, the agreement will nevertheless give him time to pursue talks with Israel. In a joint statement on March 17, the factions announced they would adhere to a calm at least for the rest of 2005. The statement also reiterated that the Palestinian people have a right to resist occupation.

Hamas official Mohammad Nazzal said his group had agreed to a “calm until the end of this year as a maximum period of time in exchange for an Israeli commitment to withdrawal from cities and release prisoners,” but others claimed there was no time limit.
“The final formula does not specify a time frame,” Islamic Jihad's Anwar Abu Taha told Reuters news agency on March 17.

Sharon welcomed the agreement, but repeated Israeli demands that the PA dismantle the armed factions. According to a statement from Sharon's office, the Israeli prime minister told Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak by telephone the agreement was a “positive first step.”

For its part, the PA said it was now up to the international community to pressure Israel into abiding by agreements and understandings between the two sides.

“We have declared today a total ceasefire and now we are asking the international community to put pressure on Israel so they will abide by their commitments,” Abbas' aide Jibril Rajoub said on March 17.

“The ball now is in Israel's court. From our side we have a commitment to a ceasefire. This declaration will pave the way to restore the political process.”

That process, however, was dealt a blow with news on March 20 that the Israeli government has approved a proposal to build 3,500 new housing units in its largest West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim.

“[This] sabotages all efforts to get the peace process back on track,” chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told Agence France-Presse on March 20.

The units are set to be built between Maale Adumim and Jerusalem, effectively cutting the city off from the West Bank.

“The Israeli government wants to determine Jerusalem's fate by presenting the settlements and wall as a fait accompli,” Erekat said. “We ask the Quartet and American President George W. Bush: What happened to the two-state vision and how can we have peace while settlements and the wall continue to be built?”

Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal according to international law and a freeze on settlement construction is one of the conditions stipulated in the roadmap. But a 2004 exchange of letters between Sharon and Bush seemed to rubber-stamp Israeli sovereignty over some settlements.

Such a position is ostensibly anathema to Arab countries whose leaders met on March 22 in Algiers. After a spat over a Jordanian proposal to “better market” a previous Saudi initiative adopted unanimously at the Beirut Arab summit in 2002, Arab leaders made do with simply restating the 2002 initiative.

The Jordanian initiative met with fierce criticism because, unlike the Saudi proposal, it seemed to offer full normalization of ties with Israel without stipulating what was expected of Israel in return, and made no specific reference to lands occupied in 1967 or the issue of Palestinian refugees.

In other developments, Greek Orthodox officials on March 20 denied that the reported sale of a large plot of land in Jerusalem's Old City had been authorized by Greek Patriarch Ireneos I.

The plot of land, inside the Old City's Jaffa Gate comprises several buildings and cafes as well as two hotels. On Friday, the Israeli daily Maariv reported that the land had been sold to two foreign Jewish investors to eventually be transferred to Israeli ownership.

The report has caused fury among Palestinians especially the Christian communities. On March 19, hundreds protested in front of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and on March 20, spokesman for the Arab Orthodox Church, Archimandrite Attalla Hanna, condemned the affair as an attempt to Judaise the city of Jerusalem.

“The ‘Judaisation’ of the city is unacceptable and whoever concedes our rights to the city does not represent us,” he said.

On March 18, Qrei' formed a high level ministerial committee to investigate the affair.

Elsewhere, a European Union investigation into Israeli allegations that EU aid was diverted to fund Palestinian attacks against Israelis found no conclusive evidence and has been closed, the EU's anti-fraud office said on March 17.

The independent agency OLAF said in a statement that the PA had made significant progress since 2002 in introducing a single treasury account to reduce the risk of misuse of funds, but that the authority's audit capacity remained underdeveloped.

“Some of the practices of the past, such as the payment of salaries to convicted persons or the financial aid given to the families of `martyrs' as well as the Fateh contributions by PA staff, are liable to be misunderstood and so to lead to allegations that the PA is supporting terrorism,” the OLAF statement read. “These issues should be raised with the PA.”

The EU is the biggest donor to the PA at 250 million euros a year, which is now allocated through a carefully supervised World Bank trust fund. The EU executive stopped direct funding to the Palestinian budget at the end of 2002 after the Israeli allegations of abuse.

This is the second EU investigation to clear the PA of a misuse of funds. A working group of the European Parliament concluded last year that there was no proof to link contributions of EU taxpayers with “terrorism or other illegal activities”. -Published March 24, 2005©Palestine Report http://www.palestinereport.org/