NEW MIDEAST PEACE BIDS - A POCKET GUIDE

By Bradley Burston, Haaretz Correspondent
December 10, 2003

Without warning, a drought in Middle East peacemaking has yielded to a flash flood of unofficial initiatives, trial balloons and truce bids, all of them intended as alternatives or supplements to the road map, and prompting wide speculation over the shape of an eventual solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Here, in summary and comparison, are a number of the most recent plans.

GENEVA ACCORD

An unofficial model for a future permanent peace agreement, the self-styled final stage of the U.S.-EU-UN-Russian-backed road map peace plan.

STRIKING FEATURES: Palestinians would effectively if not explicitly renounce the right of return of refugees to Israeli territory, and Israel would co! ncede sovereignty over the Temple Mount, or Noble Sanctuary.

BACKGROUND: Under the plan, unveiled in October after more than two years of discussion between Palestinian officials and Israeli opposition leaders, an independent Palestine would arise on nearly the whole of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In return for full Israeli recognition, Palestine would explicitly recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and end all violence and incitement against it.

The sovereign territory of Palestine would encompass nearly all existing settlements, including Ariel, Efrat, Kiryat Arba, Ofra, Elon Moreh, Bet El, Eli and Har Homa, and all Gaza Strip enclaves.

The exceptions would include Maaleh Adumim, the Etzion bloc excluding Efrat, a number of Jewish neighborhoods in the north of Jerusalem, and a strip near Latrun, intended for defense of Ben-Gurion International Airport. An equivalent small area of the Israeli western Negev would be appended to Palestinian Gaza.

According to the plan, "Palestine shall be a non-militarized state, with a strong security force" for law enforcement. An international force would be deployed for supervision of implementation.

Jerusalem would be physically divided, with Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem and the Old City to become the capital of Palestine, and western and northern Jewish neighborhoods of the city, as well as the Old City's Jewish Quarter to be the capital of Israel.

The Temple Mount or Noble Sanctuary would be under Palestinian sovereignty, the Western Wall under Israeli.

Although it refers to the controversial UN Resolution 194 and the Saudi peace initiative as part of the basis of a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem, Israeli proponents and Palestinian opponents say the Geneva plan would effectively end Arab demands for a right of return of Palestinian refugees to Israel proper, by granting Israel the authority to decide how many could come back.

Based on the Clinton Plan - the series of far-reaching proposals brokered by then-president Bill Clinton after the collapse of the Camp David peace summit in July 2000 - the accord, which received key funding and sponsorship by the Swiss foreign ministry, was formally launched on November 30 at a gala ceremony in Geneva.

PRINCIPAL AUTHORS: Ex-Palestinian information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo and former Israeli justice minster Yossi Beilin.

ENDORSEMENTS: British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, King Mohammed of Morocco, former U.S. president Bill Clinton, Nobel peace laureates Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Lech Walesa of Poland and ex-U.S. president Jimmy Carter, and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

CRITICS: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Labor predecessor Ehud Barak; nearly the whole of the Israeli right and a sizable portion of the center-left Labor Party; the militant Palestinian Hamas movement; and ! the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed militia wing of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.

CURRENT STATUS: Soon after its formal launch, the plan was given a boost when U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan invited Beilin and Abed Rabbo for separate talks last Friday.

Following his meeting, Powell said that while "We welcome other ideas," the administration remained solely committed to the road map. Annan's response was similar.

American officials said the Geneva Accord would not alter the text of the road map, which is more phased than the unofficial plan, and whose interim stages require such steps as strong PA action against terrorism and substantive Israeli curbs on settlement construction.

Israel remains on record as strongly opposing the Geneva Accord, calling it subversive and dangerous. A Haaretz poll of Israelis published this month found that 31.2 percent of Israelis approved of the accord, while 37.7 percent! opposed it. A separate poll taken in October showed that only 25 percent of Israelis had backed the accord, while 54 percent were opposed. A large number of respondents in the recent poll said they had yet to make up their minds, or had learned little about the Accord.

Yasser Arafat, believed to have been behind many of the Accord's provisions, has given ambivalent support, but has undercut the plan's backers by emphasizing Resolution 194, which many Palestinians cite as the grounds for a right of return, a concept anathema to Israelis.

OLMERT INITIATIVE

STRIKING FEATURES: In the absence of a meaningful peace process, Israel would unilaterally pull out of most of the territories and parts of East Jerusalem, leaving the bulk of the West Bank and Gaza to an independent Palestinian state.

Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has yet to detail his plan, but according to Nahum Barnea of Yedioth Ahronoth, who interviewed Olmert last week, Israel would set its ne! w borders according to demographics, such that 80 percent of its residents would be Jews and 20 percent Muslims, a percentage similar to those of the current Israel proper.

In practice, this would likely bring the borders close to the Green Line and major settlement blocs such as Ariel, Maaleh Adumim, and Gush Etzion, would be annexed to Israel.

Israel would also cede Arab "outlying neightborhoods" of East Jerusalem.

ENDORSEMENTS: Ehud Barak, Likud cabinet minister Tzipi Livni, and a small number of Likud MKs and Central Committee members.

CRITICS: Likud cabinet ministers Tzachi Hanegbi and Uzi Landau, who have called the initiative "more dangerous than Oslo and Geneva," National Religious Party chief Effi Eitam, leaders of the far-right National Union party; the Yesha settlers council; and Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

Also opposed are U.S. officials, who fear that unilateral moves will compromise or undermine the road map peace plan, and Pale! stinian officials, anxious that the steps will leave them with less territory than they would have received under a peace deal, and with less international backing than they enjoy today.

ON THE FENCE: Sharon, who may quietly advocate parts of the plan; Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, who likely opposes but has kept mum; and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, who is seen as a centrist pivot vote of senior cabinet decision makers. Other key voices yet to have been definitively heard are those of centrist Justice Minister Yosef Lapid and Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

SHARON PLAN

STRIKING FEATURES: Could put strong pressure on Palestinians by setting out unilateral steps to be taken in the absence of progress in peace talks.

PHASE I - In a preparatory unilateral stage, a number of existing Gaza Strip settlements "will be moved," or evacuated of settlers. In some cases, soldiers may take their places and the enclaves will be restructured as army bases, th! e Maariv daily and other Israeli media have reported. A small number of isolated West Bank settlements may also be removed at this stage.

At the same time, Israel may effectively annex such settlement areas as Maaleh Adumim and Gush Etzion, considered an integral part of any future map to which Sharon would grant approval.

PHASE II - In part as a gesture to President Bush in the home stretch of his re-election campaign, Israel would resume talks with PA Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia's government, based on the road map, with Sharon's objective the establishment of a Palestinian state with interim borders by mid-2004.

PHASE III [Conditional] - If Phase 2 ends in deadlock or collapse, Israel would declare that there was no possibility of reaching an accord at present, and would define its own borders.

Speculation has it that Sharon would set the borders according to the route of the separation fence, including an eastern strip that would place the Jordan Rift! valley within Israel.

This would leave approximately 43 percent of the West Bank in Israeli hands, including the bulk of the settlers and settlements. The plan would still require dozens of settlements to be dismantled, but would leave only 57 percent of the territory to the Palestinians, much less than they could expect to receive in negotiations.

CURRENT STATUS: Sharon is expected to unveil the plan at the Herzliya Conference next week. The prime minister has revealed few details thus far, but has told the cabinet that even if most of the West Bank city of Hebron is ceded to the Palestinians, Israel would retain control over the Cave of the Patriarchs, the adjacent settlement of Kiryat Arba, and a strip of Jewish settlement within Hebron linking the two.

Inching closer to parting the shroud over the plan, Sharon told the Boston Globe in an interview published Monday that "We have to make it easier to try to deploy smaller forces," creating a "need to make s! ome changes in the deployment of military forces and also the deployment of some of the Jewish communities [settlements] in the area."

THE PEOPLES' VOICE

STRIKING FEATURES: "Jerusalem will be an open city," the capital of the respective states of Israel and Palestine, with neither side holding formal sovereignty over the holy places.

BACKGROUND: Similar in many principles to the Geneva Accord, which it predates by more than a year, the Peoples' Voice is a less detailed statement, which aims to build grass roots Israeli and Palestinian support through a mass petition campaign.

AUTHORS: Ami Ayalon, former head of the Israeli navy and of the Shin Bet security service, and Palestinian intellectual and Al-Quds University President Sari Nusseibeh.

ENDORSEMENTS: In a surprise move, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz met Ayalon and Nusseibeh in October, praising their initiative.

Joining Ayalon last month in a newspaper interview hi! ghly critical of government policy toward the Palestinians, three other former Shin Bet chiefs, Yaakov Peri, Avraham Shalom, and Carmi Gillon, have signed the petition of support for the initiative.

CURRENT STATUS: Overshadowed by the gala launch of the Geneva Accord, the petition campaign has continued. Recent figures show that at least 126,000 Israelis and 65,000 Palestinians have signed the petitions of support.

ONE VOICE

STRIKING FEATURES: Aims to hold an extensive referendum of Israelis and Palestinians on a wide range of core issues, in order to determine areas of common ground between the peoples.

The organization has attracted a roster of marquee celebrity backers, many of whom whom it hopes to bring to Israel in the coming months.

It has also has mobilized a number of local figures, with a catholic range of outlooks on the Middle East conflict.

ENDORSEMENTS: Former boxing champion Muhammad Ali; actors Brad Pitt, Jennifer Anist! on, Edward Norton, Jason Alexander, Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman; businessman and Jewish leader Edgar Bronfman Sr.; former senior White House aide and deputy cabinet secretary Stuart Eizenstat.

Locally, Likud Deputy Public Security Minister Michael Ratzon; senior Labor lawmaker and former general Matan Vilnai; secular-centrist Shinui MK Etti Livni; former cabinet minister Rabbi Michael Melchior; Dr. Fathi Arafat, brother of the Palestinian Authority chairman; Yasser Mahmoud Abbas, the son of former PA prime minister Mahmoud Abbas; Palestinian journalist and envoy Hanna Siniora, and Israeli Arab conflict resolution activist Mohammad Darawshe.

FEIGLIN'S PLAN (OR 'THE JEWISH ROAD MAP')

STRIKING FEATURES: Calls for full Israeli sovereignty over the whole of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, declaring that, "The regions from which the terror originates will be made suitable for Jewish settlement... As soon as the Arabs realize that the Jews are going to stay ! in the country forever - and that they will be expelled for attacks upon Jews - the terror will vanish overnight."

Regarding U.S. and international pressure, "The current U.S. Congress is far more Zionistic than the Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem, and the speeches of Tom Delay [the Republican Majority Leader] put the Mafdal [National Religious Party] and Ichud Ha'Leumi (National Union) to shame."

The Palestinians in the territories "who demonstrate their loyalty to the Jewish State's hospitality and accept the Jewish People's sovereignty over the Jewish People's land will be granted legal residency and issued a legal resident's identification card.

"They will be permitted to continue to conduct their private affairs without anyone harming their human rights: they will be able to make a good living, build their homes, bring up and educate their children as they wish in their current place of residence, etc. However, they will have no political right to vote for ! the Knesset, or any national rights.

"National rights may be obtained and exercised in any one of the 22 Arab countries of their choosing."

While in initial phases, Arabs will be encouraged to voluntarily emigrate, "Transfer [expulsion] is a just solution, and it is likely that sometime in the future it will be foisted upon us, whether we like it or not."

AUTHOR: Moshe Feiglin, far-right activist and head of the Likud's small but vocal hardline Jewish Leadership faction.

RIGHT ROAD TO PEACE

STRIKING FEATURES: Calls for recognition of Jordan as the "only legitimate representative of the Palestinians," and Israeli annexation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Makes no direct reference to transfer, but states that, "The relocation and rehabilitation of the Palestinian refugees in Arab lands will complete the population exchange process begun in the 1940s."

AUTHOR: Tourism Minister Benny Elon, of the National Union party.

HUDNA II

An as-yet unsuccessful bid to forge a new hudna, Arabic for temporary truce. In contrast to the abortive first hudna, declared unilaterally by Palestinian groups last summer, the intra-Palestinian contacts on "Hudna II" have centered on an Egyptian-Fatah proposal, under which armed Palestinian groups would suspend terror attacks for a period of at least a year, in return for assurances by Israel that it would freeze construction of settlements and the separation fence, pull the IDF back from PA territory re-occupied during the intifada, and halt assassinations of Palestinian militants.

The proposal was aimed at bringing the sides in line with recommendations of the road map.

ENDORSEMENTS: Mubarak and Qureia.

CRITICS: The Sharon cabinet, Palestinian hard-liners.

CURRENT STATUS: Talks have broken down, after Hamas demanded that the truce only cover Israel proper, with attacks continuing against settlers and soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza.

Sharon rejected the terms, saying that Israel would never agree to such an arrangement.

YESHA COUNCIL OF SETTLEMENTS PLAN

STRIKING FEATURES: A proposal for a single Jewish state in all of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. The Palestinian Authority would be entirely dismantled, and the territories would be divided into gerrymandered districts or "cantons," with representation apportioned so that Jews would retain overall control regardless of the demographic distribution. Law would mandate that the prime minister of Israel be a Jew, regardless of demography.

CURRENT STATUS: Attacked from all sides. The settlers have yet to be able to agree on a single draft text. The measure has even engendered bitter opposition even within settler circles. Leading right-wing rabbis have rejected the plan, saying that they will fight any attempt to formally partition the Land of Israel, even if continued Jewish control is the proposal's stated goal.

THE SHEIKH YASSIN VISION

STRIKING FEATURES: A one-state solution under which "all Palestinians can live in their homeland, with all religions together: Muslims, Christians and Jews."

In an apparent nod - or swipe - in Olmert's direction, the Hamas leader has rejected the notion of a Jewish state, even within the pre-1967 borders. "That would not work," he said. "The Israelis claim 80 per cent of the territory and will only let us have 20 per cent. It would only be an interim solution."

In an interview with the German Der Spiegel, Yassin was asked if he saw no place for a Jewish state. "They could set up a state in Europe," Yassin said.

---

Copyright 2003 Haaretz. All rights reserved
Care, Speak, Vote