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Diabolic Digest
Peace and its alternatives
As
prominent European politicians come out in favour of an alternative Middle East
peace plan, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei has embarked on a European
tour to jumpstart the ailing Quartet-backed Road Map.
By Katleen
Maes and Khaled Diab
February 2004
While the crisis in Iraq takes centre stage,
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict grinds on relentlessly in the background. With
US attention elsewhere, the other members of the Quartet – the EU, the United
Nations and Russia – have been left to pick up the pieces of their Road Map to
peace in the Middle East.
Against this backdrop, several EU officials and
European politicians have expressed their support for the unofficial Geneva
Initiative. This complete final accord was negotiated by private Israeli and
Palestinian citizens in Switzerland to show that a comprehensive settlement was
possible.
As leaders of
this group, Yossi Beilin and Yasser Abed Rabbo – members of former Israeli and
Palestinian cabinets – went on a European tour last week to promote the
informal plan. Their visit elicited positive reactions from top EU officials
and European politicians, including EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana,
External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten, and UK and Danish foreign
ministers Jack Straw and Per Stig Moeller.
“I think the
Geneva Initiative is perfectly compatible with the Road Map and, in fact, I
think it may help not only to implement it but to resolve its last phases,” Solana
said after meeting the veteran politicians. In contrast to other plans on the
table and the defunct Oslo Process, the Geneva initiative takes as its starting
point a final status agreement.
By tackling
the sticking points of Jerusalem and the exact borders of a future Palestinian
state, the plan’s authors hope to overcome grassroots scepticism. They firmly
believe that their leaders should “put the plan directly to their respective
peoples”. They have sent the text of the agreement to every Israeli household
and it was made available in the Palestinian media.
The
international community should mount “a concerted political campaign, calling
on Israelis and Palestinians to vote in favour of the plan,” Rob Malley of the
International Crisis Group, the Brussels-based think tank behind the unofficial
accords, wrote in a recent article. Malley was a Middle East adviser to former
US President Bill Clinton.
Patten has indicated his willingness to put
some EU money behind the project once more detailed proposals have been
hammered out. “We’ll certainly consider those proposals in an open manner and
within our existing budgetary rules and framework,” he noted.
While civil society explores alternative
avenues to peace, Palestinian premier Ahmed Qurei has been revisiting older
ones. This week, he embarked on a six-nation European tour to muster support
for the Road Map.
Speaking in Ireland, which currently holds the
EU presidency, he urged the international community to persuade Israel to halt
construction of its controversial 720-km long security barrier. “It is time for
the quartet to move,” he told reporters after talks with Irish Prime Minister
Bertie Ahern on Monday.
Querei said the barrier endangers the prospects
for the Road Map’s two-state solution by annexing to Israel large tracts of
Palestinian-owned land earmarked for their future nation. “It will kill the
choice of two states,” he warned.
Although Palestinians view the Security Wall as
little more than a land grab, many Israelis defend it on the grounds that it
can help defend their country against suicide bombers.
Israel's Supreme Court has begun hearing a case
against the barrier brought by two Israeli human rights groups who argue that
it has been built illegally on occupied territory and it should be re-routed.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague is also due to hold
hearings into the legality of the Wall later this month.
Ahern said that his talks with his Palestinian
counterpart had been very useful and he would be discussing the situation in
the Middle East at a meeting with US President George W Bush next month.
ã2004 Katleen Maes and Khaled Diab. All rights
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