The "Geneva Accords"

[Chris Alger]

From today's NY Times, describing a full-fledged (50-page) peace agreement drafted by former Israeli and Palestinian officials, outside channels, and dubbed "The Geneva Accords." <ul type="square"> "Under the proposal, a Palestinian state would be created that would include the entire Gaza Strip and almost all of the West Bank. The capital would be in the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. The plan identifies about 20 of the larger Israeli settlements among the 140 in the West Bank that Israel would keep, and Israel would give the Palestinians land in southern Israel in compensation. On another delicate issue, the plan calls for the Palestinians to have ultimate control over Jerusalem's most important and contested holy site, the mosque compound in East Jerusalem, called the Noble Sanctuary by Muslims. Israel would relinquish its claim of sovereignty over the site, which Jews call the Temple Mount. Israel would keep full control of the Western Wall, the Jewish place of prayer that borders the compound. On another complicated question, Palestinian refugees from the Arab-Israeli war in 1948 and their descendants would be allowed to live in a future Palestinian state, move to a third country or receive compensation for their losses. But they could not return to their old land inside Israel without Israeli consent, according to the plan." [/list] Not sure what "the Arab neighborhoods" means, but I presume something more than the village of Abus Dis that Barak apologists like to call a "toehold in Jerusalem." Ii sounds like a reasonable fix. Predictably, Israel immediately denounced it, rendering it null and void (no comment by the PA). More interesting was the sentence in the Times: "The right-wing Israeli government immediately denounced the proposal, calling it irresponsible, freelance diplomacy." Right-wing. The Times doesn't like Sharon but to slight his government this way is rare.

[ACPlayer]

From last night's Independent
Peace plan (http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=453125)

Wonder if Bush will throw his weight behind moving something like this forward, or continue his knee jerk support of Sharon's policies.

[Gamblor]

When someone straps a bomb to his chest and blows up your family, you'll sing a different tune, I can assure you.

[ACPlayer]

Hardline newspaper's reaction;
Arutz Seven, on surrender agreement (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=51039)

Extract:
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has dismissed out of hand the "agreement" reached between left-wing MKs and PA leaders. He told his aides that he would ordinarily not even relate to the matter, but he doesn't want "anyone in the world to fool himself into thinking that it could ever become a basis for a future arrangement with Israel."

The agreement itself, Sharon says, is a "catastrophe." Labor Party leaders Amram Mitzna and Avraham Burg, together with initiator Yossi Beilin, are planning to sign the agreement "on behalf" of Israel.

The agreement stipulates that the Temple Mount and most of the Old City of Jerusalem will come under Arab control. The Western Wall will remain Israeli, as will Zion and Dung Gates - but the other city gates will be under Arab control. Jews will be permitted, according to the agreement, to "walk freely" from Jaffa Gate to the Jewish Quarter.

Furthermore, the cities of Ariel and Efrat, as well as most other Jewish communities in Yesha, will be dismantled and evacuated, according to the agreement. All in all, 100,000 Jews are to be evacuated from their homes, according to Beilin/Mitzna/Burg.

The PA negotiators did not give up on the so-called "right of return," contrary to what has been publicized; the terms state that refugees will be able to live in Israel, but only with the agreement of Israel. Hisham Abdel Razek, one of the PA leaders who took part in the talks with Beilin's group, denied openly that his side had made any concessions on this issue. The Beilin/Mitzna/Burg agreement states that Israel will agree to absorb 30,000 refugees and the arrangement known as "reunification of families." The three left-wingers agreed that Israel will build two cities in the PA entity - in the Negev/Gaza and in Shomron - to house a half-million refugees.

[Gamblor]

Let us assume you are right about Israel and it's "ethnic cleansing" and "murderous rampages" and "incitement" and yada yada yada.

Here are a few questions:

Given the choice, would you rather Israel conquer the world or any given Arab "nation"?

Given that neither could, how would you see the world if it were run by the PA? How about Israeli government?

How would your political views change if your parents and brothers, god forbid, were killed enjoying a slice of pizza?

Is there anything, no matter how oppressed, subjugated, and all that crap you are, that could induce you, without any "help", brainwashing, or incitement, to strap a bomb to your chest and kill a whole bunch of Jews?

If you think the argument is any more complex than this, good luck to you.

[Chris Alger]

[Chris Alger]

From today's UN Monitor. BTW, the Times is the only major paper or network to carry the story so far in the US, and the two others (Minneapolis Star and Atlanta Constitution) merely reprinted the Times story. Washington Times led off with it's rejection by "Palestinian factions," which turned out to be the Marxist-Leninist PFLP).
_______________
Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and Israeli opposition leader Shimon Peres today gave qualified support to an unofficial peace deal drafted by politicians and seasoned negotiators from both sides, even as Israeli government and Palestinian refugee groups mounted opposition to the plan.

The "Geneva Accord" would give the Palestinians a state in 98 percent of the West Bank, all of the Gaza Strip and the Arab-populated areas of Jerusalem, as well as control over the al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third-holiest site. Israel would retain control over parts of the Western Wall, which runs alongside the mosque's compound (Ramit Plushnick-Masti, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Oct. 14).

The plan would also require Palestinian refugees to give up the right to return to lands seized by Israel during the 1948 war in exchange for compensation by an international fund.

"This shows that if there is a will for peace, there is an agreement that can be reached," said former Jenin Governor Zuheir al-Manasra, who participated in this weekend's negotiations in Sweimeh, Jordan (Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 14).

Among the issues blocking a peace agreement right now is Israel's construction of a security fence through the West Bank. The U.N. Security Council was to discuss a draft resolution on the fence today (Jim Wurst, U.N. Wire, Oct. 14).

Former Israeli Foreign Minister Peres, who has played a key role in official peace talks and shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 with Yasser Arafat and assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for their efforts to promote peace in the Middle East, said the 50-page document could prove a basis for renewed discussions.

"If in fact the Palestinians renounced the right of return and will recognize Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people, there is nothing wrong with this and it can be the basis for negotiations," he said in a statement.

Arafat also offered qualified support for the treaty.

But the Israeli government and Palestinian hardliners have rejected the plan, with Vice Premier Ehud Olmert of Israel accusing the Israeli delegation of "signing a quasi peace agreement with official representatives of a foreign entity, in direct contradiction to government policy" (Plushnick-Masti, AP/Yahoo!News).

A top Palestinian Liberation Organization leader, Faruq Qaddumi, also rejected the unofficial treaty as a "side negotiation" brokered by mavericks (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Oct. 14).

Aimed at boosting morale among average Israelis and Palestinians, the plan will be distributed to households in the region but will not be released officially until signing takes place in Geneva Nov. 4, the eighth anniversary of the assassination of Rabin, who was killed by an Israeli extremist unhappy with the Oslo accords (Plushnick-Masti, AP/Yahoo! News).

In related news, Israeli raids on the Rafah refugee camp began anew today as army bulldozers razed four homes and troops seized several buildings, according to a resident interviewed by AP.

The raid, the second in six days, is part of an operation to destroy tunnels said to have been used by Palestinian militants to smuggle weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles and rockets that could reach Israeli cities from Gaza (Khalil Hamra, AP/Yahoo!News, Oct. 14).

According to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, last week's raid in Rafah demolished 114 refugee shelters and left 1,240 people homeless. U.N. relief workers have been providing the homeless with tents, food and rent money, the group said yesterday (U.N. release, Oct. 13).