Arab News
30 June 2003

Arab News

Washington’s recent re-engagement in the Middle East has apparently brought swift dividends. On the table are a pending withdrawal of Israeli troops from some Palestinian areas and an expected formal announcement of a truce by Palestinian activists, albeit not all groups, who have agreed to halt attacks against Israel, at least temporarily. President Bush’s National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice continued the United States’ Middle East peace effort yesterday in talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Rice already reviewed the peace process with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas. Their talks on Saturday covered the final details of a troop pullout from parts of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Bethlehem.

Israel has agreed to stay out of those areas as long as the Palestinian Authority can maintain security and prevent attacks against Israelis. In return, Islamic Jihad and Hamas say they are about ready to announce a three-month truce on such attacks if Israeli halts its raids against activists.

Whatever truce agreement eventually emerges from the discussions, all are aware that it will not endure without an Israeli withdrawal, an end to the assassinations of Palestinian political and military leaders, a genuine start to a halt in further settlement expansion and the release of Palestinian prisoners. Also, the cease-fire will not be unilateral. If Israel does not accept these Palestinian conditions, there will be no truce.

To be sure, neither Israel nor the United States is interested in a truce of this kind. They want what will allow a temporary cease-fire to become a permanent condition. Israel in particular views any Palestinian cease-fire as simply a prelude to the Palestinian Authority’s “true war against terror.” And should the PA not join this “true war,” Sharon has signaled that Israel will act in its stead, within the PA areas and out, road map or no road map. A cease-fire by the Palestinian activists, however partial and fragile, is essential for peace. The idea of a truce does not require the Palestinians to give in on the fundamentals of the dispute between them and Israel, but only to alleviate its intensity and prevent it from spiraling out of control.

But some problems need to be addressed immediately. Sharon has come under intense American pressure to implement the conditions required of him in the first phase of the road map: the freezing of settlement growth and the removal of dozens of illegal outposts established under his premiership. All settlements are illegal under international law.

But there is little reason to believe that Sharon’s relationship with the decades-old settlement project in the Palestinian occupied territories is about to be broken.