Ami Ayalon and Sari Nusseibeh launched the Peoples' Voice
in Tel Aviv Wednesday with a vow to get enough signatures on
their vision for co-existence to pressure Middle East leaders
into ending 33 months of bloodshed.
"Force does not work, so we must find a solution through
negotiations," said Nusseibeh, a Palestine Liberation
Organization (news - web sites) veteran and head of Jerusalem's Al-Quds
University.
With diplomatic efforts under way to save a U.S.-backed
peace "road map," officials on both sides were quick to dismiss
the petition initiative.
"It's hardly relevant, given all the ongoing violence,"
said a source in Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites)'s office.
But retired Shin Bet security service chief Ayalon said the
Peoples' Voice complemented the road map, which calls for a
Palestinian state by 2005 but does not address borders,
Jerusalem's disputed status or Palestinian refugees who demand
to return to lands now in Israel.
"We provide a destination for the road map," said Ayalon,
who like Nusseibeh enjoys popularity in many Middle East
circles but has limited leverage in political decision-making.
The petition sets out basic terms for resuming peace talks
which broke down in September 2000.
These include Israel's withdrawal from the West Bank and
Gaza Strip (news - web sites), lands it captured in the 1967 Middle East war and
which Palestinians want for a state.
Jerusalem would be a bi-national capital and in exchange
for Israel removing Jewish settlements in the occupied
territories, the Palestinians would forgo the "right of return"
for 4 million refugees and their descendants.
Nusseibeh, who took out newspaper advertisements with the
names of 1,200 West Bank and Gaza notables backing the Peoples'
Voice, has been denounced by Palestinian officials and militant
leaders as out of step with public opinion.
"The right of return is not to be decided by Nusseibeh and
Ayalon. It is a holy right of every refugee and no one has to
decide on behalf of millions of people," Mohammad al-Hindi, a
top Islamic Jihad official, said in Gaza City.
Citing polls indicating most Israelis and Palestinians
favor resuming negotiations on a two-state solution, Nusseibeh
and Ayalon hope for hundreds of thousands of signatures at
polling booths in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.
That would unprecedented in the Holy Land, with its
combined population of 10 million.
"We feel it would make it easier for the people in the
leaderships to come out in support," Nusseibeh said. "And we
have nothing to lose."
(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi)
