Sharon aide sees no final peace accord with Abbas
Reuters
Date: 01-23-05
By Dan Williams
JERUSALEM, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Israel seeks only an interim peace accord with moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, seeing him as unyielding on core disputes, a senior adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on Sunday.
"On the major issues, Abu Mazen (Abbas) will not be able to compromise any more than (Yasser) Arafat. That being the case, it is clear that negotiating on a final accord now would be a recipe for disaster," Zalman Shoval told Reuters.
"Both the Palestinian and Israeli sides have an interest in putting this off to another time."
It was the latest indication Israelis and Palestinians could be on a collision course in their reading of a U.S.-led "road map" hailed as the best chance to end decades of conflict.
"There will be no final accord in our generation, in my opinion," said Shoval, outlining a vision of a provisional Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Abbas, whose election as Yasser Arafat's successor stirred peacemaking optimism, has come out against interim deals that Palestinians fear would leave them only a fragmented entity with Israel in control of its borders.
"Partnership cannot be achieved by dictates, and peace cannot be reached by partial or interim solutions," Abbas said in his inaugural speech earlier this month.
Israel and the United States shunned former Palestinian President Arafat as a man they could not deal with, accusing him of links to militant groups involved in violence against Israelis during a Palestinian uprising, while piling plaudits on Abbas for preaching non-violence.
PEACE VIA PROSPERITY?
Yet Abbas has stuck to Arafat's demand for independence in all the West Bank and Gaza -- captured by Israel from Jordan and Egypt in the 1967 war -- and a "right of return" for millions of Palestinian refugees to lands now inside the Jewish state.
Israel rules this out as strategic suicide. While it plans to quit Gaza this year, it intends to keep Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank and insists refugees be resettled in a future Palestinian state -- both with U.S. endorsement.
But Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said his people would not accept interim deals for a "road map" which envisaged an end to Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza.
"I don't think there is room for an interim period. It is time for the end game, time for the final status treaty," Erekat said when asked about Shoval's remarks.
Abbas has shown some success in coaxing a ceasefire from Palestinian militants. Shoval said this was not enough.
He said Palestinian frustration at seeing dreams of full statehood shelved could be offset by benefits of normalisation and reviving an economy crushed by Israeli army clampdowns.
"Abu Mazen can come to his people and say: 'I have brought you international recognition, an end to Israeli military action, prosperity'. Israelis can get used to living without terrorism. In years to come, it could evolve into an accord."
Palestinians fear Sharon plans to leave them Gaza for a state but no viable sovereignty in the West Bank, where they now exercise limited self-rule in cities hemmed in by settlements.
Shoval did not allay this fear. Asked if Palestinians could expect to win more of the West Bank under a future accord, he said Israel might expand their self-rule areas. But for now it planned to remove only four of some 120 West Bank settlements. (Additional reporting by Mohammed Assadi and Cynthia Johnston)
Source
FAIR USE NOTICE
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. |
|