Momentum Gaining for Signing Geneva Accord Monday

News, November 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

Switzerland to Become ‘the Guardian of the Text’

29/11/2003

Palestine Media Center – PMC

Ahead of Switzerland’s hosting on Monday the launch of the so-called Geneva initiative, Israeli President Moshe Katsav on Wednesday joined Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in welcoming the peace effort, but reminded that the roadmap’s alternative to Middle East peace was not an official document.

Katsav on Wednesday received a Palestinian delegation led by the member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and former information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo, Palestine National Authority (PNA) Planning Minister Nabil Kasis and Minister of State Kadoura Fares, who were accompanied by former Israeli Justice minister Yossi Beilin, and MPs Avraham Burg and Haim Oron.

The Palestinian delegation presented a copy of the Geneva document in Arabic to Katsav.

Katsav refused to support the plan or say anything positive about it, other than saying that he believes it is important for Israelis and Palestinians to engage in dialogue.

"Only the democratically elected Israeli government has the legitimacy to negotiate and conclude a formula for peace," Katsav told the Palestinian delegation. "Your decision to bypass the Israeli government may boomerang. It is a mistake to seek international approval for this initiative before trying to convince the Israeli people."

However Abed Rabbo said the meeting sends a message to the Palestinian and Israeli public that there is no alternative to an agreement reached via dialogue.

"We tried to introduce a model for a future agreement," Abed Rabbo said. "We are not an alternative to the official representatives of both sides."

Abed Rabbo stressed to AFP before meeting with Katsav that he does not have the official endorsement of the leadership in Ramallah.

"I'm not talking here as a minister but as one of a group that signed the accords," he said.

"This group included PLC (parliament) members, ministers, independents and representatives of important parties."

Palestinian MP and a leader of Fatah in Jerusalem Hatem Abdel Kader said he and his colleagues conveyed to Katsav “a message of peace.”

Abdel Kader and Fares met earlier in the week in Jerusalem with Israeli Labor party leader Shimon Peres and called upon him to accept the initiative as Labor's diplomatic plan, Israel Radio reported.

The accord would give the Palestinians a state on 98 percent of the West Bank, all of the Gaza Strip, and the Arab-populated areas of Jerusalem, as well as control over the Al Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam's third-holiest site, and gives Palestinian refugees five options based on UN resolution 194.

Yossi Beilin, the driving force on the Israeli side of the Geneva Initiative, sees the virtual Middle East peace plan as a chance to galvanize public opinion and bend Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's policies.

"If he (Sharon) sees there is a support in the public opinion for our project, he will have eventually to return to the negotiations on a permanent solution," Beilin said.

Abed Rabbo said that the initiative would eventually have to be endorsed officially by the PNA and warned that the future would be "very bleak" should Geneva join all its predecessors in the ever-growing cemetery of dead peace plans.

PNA Welcomes, but Waiting for Israel’s Reaction

Both President Arafat and Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qurei have been generally supportive of the initiative although they have stopped short of officially endorsing it.

"It's not an official agreement," Arafat said on October 14.

"Our policy is not to hamper any attempt at reaching the peace of the brave I had put in place with my late partner Rabin," he said in reference to former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, with whom Arafat received the Nobel Peace Prize for the 1993 Oslo accords.

Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qurei said he would wait for Israel's response to the blueprint before giving his own reaction, even though his Israeli counterpart Ariel Sharon's government has already rejected it.

Three of the most prominent Palestinian supporters of Geneva accords are members of Qurei's cabinet but the premier told AFP recently that the "ministers are not participating in any official capacity."

The speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) Rafiq al-Natshe also denied that the PNA had adopted the Geneva accords.

“Those who negotiated and signed this agreement represented only themselves. We in the Palestinian Authority don’t adopt this document but we don’t reject every part of it,” al-Natshe said last week.

Abed Rabbo: Solution not a Pipe Dream

After the collapse of the 1993 Oslo accords, Abed Rabbo said that the biggest challenge was to prove that a solution was ever attainable with the Israelis.

Abed Rabbo insists a solution is no mere pipe dream.

"We're not dreamers or academics formulating a proposition for the future away from the real facts on the ground," Abed Rabbo told AFP in a recent interview.

"Here we seek to prove there is a solution... We seek to advance a solution without prejudicing the goals of both peoples, their right to freedom and, for us, the creation of a Palestinian state on the June 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital."

He said that the Palestinians had learned from past mistakes at previous peace talks such as at the US presidential retreat of Camp David in July 2000 and the Egyptian resort of Taba in January 2001.

"This document is a detailed model for the permanent status, touching on all the problems discussed before at Camp David and Taba. We then hadn't managed to get answers to all the problems," he said.

Switzerland to Become ‘the Guardian of the Text’

Once the initiative is presented, Switzerland will become "the guardian of the text," Paul Fivat, an ambassador at the foreign ministry told AFP.

Micheline Calmy-Rey, Switzerland's dynamic foreign minister, has been one of the keenest supporters, promoting the accord in Europe and at the United Nations in New York.

Calmy-Rey, told swissinfo the accord was not a substitute for the “roadmap” but could provide a new impetus for peace.

“It complements the road map. It answers questions that are not solved by the road map, so it could be considered a useful addition.”

He thinks the reaction has been on the whole positive. “Take the example of Israel first - 39 per cent of the population, of the Israeli people, are in favor, according to a survey,” he said.

“In Britain the prime minister and the foreign minister publicly welcomed this initiative. In America, some reactions were neutral ones, and others recognized the merit of this initiative [such as US Secretary of State] Colin Powell,” he added.

Paul Fivat of the Swiss Foreign Ministry said the Swiss government helped facilitate the talks, but he emphasized that the Swiss government has no hand in the content of the 50-page agreement.

Martin Griffiths, head of the Swiss-based Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, said his neutral peace-mediating organization was enlisted to help fund and promote the initiative.

"One of our functions is to raise international support, principally financial," Griffiths said.

The 50-page document, which was finalized on October 12 in Jordan, offers a model for the permanent resolution to the conflict -- addressing some of the thorniest issues including the status of Jerusalem, the future of West Bank settlements and tackling the right of return issue.

Preparations for Official Signing Gaining Momentum

In Geneva meanwhile the preparations for the official signing of the unofficial Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative are gaining momentum.

"December 1 is not going to be the end, it's going to be the beginning," Ghaith al-Omari of the Palestinian delegation said at a joint news conference with Daniel Levy, representing the Israeli side.

Al-Omari said the accord does not conflict with the “roadmap,” which is "officially the only game in town."

A two-hour ceremony for the Dec. 1 signing will include music and the participation of hundreds of Palestinians and Israelis flown in for the event. Actor Richard Dreyfuss will be the master of ceremonies, al-Omari said.

Levy said support from other prominent people can be expected and will be welcome, but "we're not going to play a numbers game with international signatories."

About 700 people will attend the event, including 200 from both the Israeli and the Palestinian sides. Participants will come from all walks of life -- politicians, business people, artists and the general public -- to reflect the broad scope of the initiative, officials said.

Former US president Jimmy Carter, who took part in the Camp David Accords of 1979, is expected to attend.

Carter told swissinfo that the accord could help boost the United States-backed “roadmap,” but added that the US must rein in its perceived pro-Israeli bias.

Carter, who was US president from 1977 to 1981, was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2002 for his work in mediating conflicts.

Secretary of State Colin Powell has encouraged the initiative, and the two delegations are planning to send representatives to Washington after the signing, Levy and al-Omari said.

Abed Rabbo and Beilin are due in Washington next week for a number of events.

Earlier in the month, the United Nations secretary-general, Kofi Annan, released a statement voicing his support for the Geneva Accord, adding that the plan was compatible with the aims of the road map.

The Swiss foreign minister, Calmy-Rey, presented the peace plan to Annan during a visit to New York at the end of October.

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python (Alquds, 1/25/03.

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