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| Israel-Palestine |
| Israel, Palestinians call truce |
| 2005-02-08 |
| ISRAELI and Palestinian leaders proclaimed a formal end to more than four years of bloodshed at a summit in Egypt today. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he agreed with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to stop all violence. Mr Sharon declared an end to military action at the meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, which was seen as a step back towards peace talks. "We have agreed with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to cease all acts of violence against Israelis and Palestinians wherever they are," said Mr Abbas at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. "The calm which will prevail in our lands starting from today is the beginning of a new era." Mr Sharon said: "For the first time in a long time there is hope in our region for a better future for us and our grandchildren." It was the highest-level meeting between the sides since a Palestinian uprising blew up in 2000 after peace talks collapsed. The two sides did not sign a formal ceasefire agreement and Israel emphasised it was dealing only with Mr Abbas's Palestinian Authority and not the militants behind attacks. The host, President Hosni Mubarak, and Jordan's King Abdullah added their weight to a summit that could prepare the ground for the revival of a US-backed "road map" towards a Palestinian state beside a secure Israel. The US has emphasised its new commitment to pursuing peace after the death of iconic leader Yasser Arafat, who was seen by Washington and Israel as an obstacle. "Optimism is certainly justified at the moment as far as the Middle East is concerned," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Italian state television after a brief visit to the region on which she met Mr Abbas and Mr Sharon. "...I saw that these leaders have understood that it is time to move ahead," she said. However, Islamic militant factions have so far agreed only to a conditional ceasefire, while neither side shows signs of budging on key obstacles like borders, and whether Palestinian refugees get a "right to return" to land in what is now Israel. Israeli and Palestinian flags flew side by side in the sunshine at the Red Sea resort. Hundreds of Egyptian police, some with sniffer dogs, were deployed to ensure security. Violence broke out in September 2000 after the collapse of talks for a Palestinian state on land captured by Israel in the 1967 war. Some 3350 Palestinians and 970 Israelis have been killed. But despite today's announcements, doubt remains over the vital agreement of militant groups behind suicide bombings, rocket and shooting attacks, though they have gone along with a de facto truce. "There is no sense now in talking about a truce," Hassan Youssef of Hamas told Al Jazeera television. "We have not seen any serious pressures on the Israeli side to take measures on the ground to prove its seriousness." The factions have said Israel's promise to free 900 out of 8000 Palestinian prisoners, to pull back troops and end assassinations are not enough. Although Mr Abbas wants to co-opt the militants, rather than use force to rein them in, Israeli officials said they wanted the groups dismantled and suggested that even continued rocket building by the groups would be a ceasefire violation. Mr Abbas, then Mr Arafat's prime minister, met Mr Sharon in 2003 at the summit that gave birth to the road map. But the peace plan soon foundered amid violence. Israel says it is ready to coordinate with Mr Abbas on its plan to withdraw settlers from occupied Gaza and part of the West Bank this year if violence stops and Palestinians rein in militants, as they are meant to under the road map. Palestinians fear Israel aims to cement its hold on the West Bank, and demand the Jewish state abide by a road map commitment to freeze settlement growth and also stop building a barrier inside the West Bank. Israel says it stops suicide bombings. More potential pitfalls for peacemaking lie ahead. Mr Abbas holds strongly to the Palestinian line that a state must include all the West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem, and Gaza, and that refugees and their millions of descendants should have the right to return to lands in what is now Israel. Those demands remain deal-breakers for Israel, which wants to keep major West Bank settlement blocs, sees East Jerusalem as part of its own "indivisible capital" and categorically rules out the possibility of refugees returning to the Jewish state. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #6 My fear is that the only strategy Abbas use to walk away from this is if he makes what Israel deems to be unreasonable demands, i.e., unlimited "right of return," all of Jerusalem as the capital, etc. That would make Israel the bad guy, again. I don't know about that; whereas before the media could skew the story the way they saw fit and rest assured that little if any challenge would be made against it, such is no longer the case. The media's monopoly on the megaphone is no more. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2005-02-08 9:46:11 PM |
| #5 Agreed, AP, B-rama. Abbas can't and won't dismantle the various terror factions. And because they continue to exist, they will never allow the paleos to accept a reasonable negotiated offer. After all, the Clinton/Barak/Arafat deal was better than anything Sharon will ever accept, and the paleos still think that deal didn't go far enough. My fear is that the only strategy Abbas use to walk away from this is if he makes what Israel deems to be unreasonable demands, i.e., unlimited "right of return," all of Jerusalem as the capital, etc. That would make Israel the bad guy, again. There's already pressure on him to make these demands. It's probably not a matter of if this thing will fall apart, it's a matter of when. So: build the wall, play the PR game (negotiate, make a big deal of making painful concessions, etc), gather intelligence about which paleos are doing what, shore up defenses, and wait. |
| Posted by: PlanetDan 2005-02-08 4:09:07 PM |
| #4 All these media outlets talking about a formal end to fighting, bloodshed, etc. need to remember that this "truce" hasn't changed any basic positions, nor has it changed the reality on the ground. The Paleos want something that Israel cannot give them, if it wants to ensure its own security, and Hamas, IJ, and the rest of the terror-peddlers haven't gone away. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2005-02-08 3:24:13 PM |
| #3 With all this hope and peace and love and goodwill a-floating around, Sharon needs to play the game. Abbas cannot deliver. But since everyone is on this goodwill kick, the US will throw money away on the Paleos PA on their promise of an agreement. The US should insist on some milestones before we give money away. Just like dealing with a client with a bad credit history. Back to the peace overtures by Abbas. Nothing will happen because Hamas and Hizb'Allah will not let it happen. They are radical Islamists and they are nutcakes. They do not think rationally, so they will never let Israel exist. So what to do? Israel needs to 1. Quietly complete the wall, 2. Abandon undefendable settlements in Gaza and the West Bank, 3. Quietly set up devastating counterbattery fire to take out terrorists that set up missile attacks on Israel. 4. Go through the motions of negotiation and talking nice in the 1 in a million chance that Abbas can deliver. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2005-02-08 3:11:03 PM |
| #2 Not to worry trailing wife. This cease fire is going to end just like all the previous ones, and all the future ones --- until the the general problem of ROP solved. |
| Posted by: gromgorru 2005-02-08 1:12:29 PM |
| #1 Mr Abbas holds strongly to the Palestinian line that a state must include all the West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem, and Gaza, and that refugees and their millions of descendants should have the right to return to lands in what is now Israel. In other words, Abbas is open about his plan to peacefully bargain Israel's existence away. If Sharon agrees to Palestinian right of return to lands in what is now Israel, the Jew-hating, "Zionist entity"-hating Palestinians will have made Israel -- just using the common tools of majority rule in a democracy -- Judenfrei within the year. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-02-08 12:55:47 PM |