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Dispatch from Jerusalem - Wednesday, June 20

APN Spokesman Ori Nir reports on a tour of West Bank Settlement construction and meetings with Knesset members and others...

APN's Board of Directors, accompanied by members of the Executive Staff, will be on a fact finding mission to Israel, starting on June 17th. Watch this space for ongoing updates.


Read Previous Dispatches:

Tuesday, June 19
Sunday, June 17

Friday, June 15


By Ori Nir
APN Spokesman

20 June - President Bush's agreement with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert yesterday to pursue a diplomatic breakthrough with Fatah's emergency government in the West Bank is received with a mixture of support and skepticism in Israel.

On the hard-line right, as expected, there is much skepticism and hardly a modicum of support. But even in the peace camp there is a healthy dose of doubt, as APN Board members, on their annual mission to Israel, heard in a day of back-to-back meetings with left-of-center politicians and political analysts.

Not that anyone doubts that time has come for serious Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. The questions that many are asking are whether Olmert, with very little public Israeli support, is capable and serious about pursuing it, whether Bush is willing to invest the political capital needed for making it happen and whether Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his new prime minister, Salam Fayyad, are able to deliver.

Olmert and Bush are nobody's cup of tea. They are certainly not the favorites of Israel's peace camp. But the main concern that Israeli doves seem to have - as do most in Israel - is whether Abbas and Fayyad can credibly do more than discuss ways to make life more livable in the West Bank. Israel's leading columnist Nahum Barnea, in his front-page Yedioth Ahronoth column, today depicted the Bush-Olmert initiative "a tower built in the air." The gap between Israelis and Palestinians is as wide as it ever was, explains Barnea, "but the (Palestinian) partner only gets weaker."

What to do about this weakness? In Israel, as one would expect, views vary.

APN Board members started the day Tuesday by viewing one of the main reasons for the weakness of Palestinian pragmatists. Escorted by the incoming director of Peace Now's Settlement Watch Project Hagit Ofran, Board members witnessed up-close Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank.

The sobering tour enhanced the need for assertive political action. Not less sobering, however, were assessments that Board members heard regarding the prospects of engagement with a weak Palestinian leadership. Abbas and Fayyad are still scrambling to stabilize their rule in the West Bank. On Tuesday they reportedly decided to cut off all contacts with Hamas' leadership, whether in the West Bank or in Gaza. On Wednesday, the respected London-based Arabic newspaper al-Hayat reported that Abbas' Fatah decided to demolish the infrastructure of Hamas in the West Bank.

What to do about Abbas' weakness? Many of our interlocutors urged strengthening his leadership through a robust diplomatic initiative. Others recommended rehabilitating Fatah's leadership by releasing its charismatic young leader Marwan Bargouthi, who is currently serving five consecutive life sentences in an Israeli prison for killing Israelis. This recommendation is emerging not only from the Israeli left but also from some in the center. Minister of Environmental Affairs Gideon Ezra, a former deputy director of Israel's Secret Service (Shin Bet), on Tuesday surprisingly said that releasing Bargouthi would be the right thing to do now. Three members of Israel's Knesset who spoke with us, Avishai Braverman of Labor and Yossi Beilin and Haim Oron of Meretz-Yahad agreed. Oron is the only Israeli who has been regularly visiting Bargouthi in prison, serving as a vital link between the former secretary-general of Fatah in the West Bank and the Israeli political leadership. Bargouthi, he said, enthusiastically supports "serious negotiations" toward a peace process. Given the weakness of the Palestinian and Israeli leadership, Oron counseled, Olmert and Abbas can start talks over the broad principles that would be the foundations of a future agreement: West Bank border-lines that would follow the contours of the pre-1967 Green Line, recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of both Israel and the future Palestinian state, an agreed solution to the refugee problem, and security arrangements. The Arab League's peace initiative, which promises full normalization of relations between Israel and the entire Arab world in return for the resolution of Israel's conflict with The Palestinians and with Syria, could serve as a basis or as an incentive for talks over such principles.

MK Beilin, who chairs Meretz-Yahad, said that this is the appropriate time for accelerated Israeli-Palestinian final-status negotiations. Israel needs a peace treaty with the Palestinians, he explained, and it may find it easier to achieve such a treaty with a weak Palestinian leader. A peace treaty with Abbas will dramatically change Israel's relations with the Arab world, he said. It could be implemented in stages, first in the West Bank and then in Gaza, when political conditions there are ripe.

Our Board members ended the day with a fascinating debate between a proponent of immediate engagement with the Palestinians and a proponent of immediate engagement with Syria. Former Director General of Israel's Foreign Ministry Alon Liel, who conducted back-channel negotiations with Syrians over the past several years, said that because Israel cannot conduct negotiations simultaneously with Syria and the Palestinians, it should opt for the most viable option. Syria's President Assad is ready and willing to talk. There are several drafts for an Israeli-Syrian peace accord. Negotiations could be quick and decisive and their impact on the Palestinian track would obviously be positive, he said. Starting with the Palestinian track now is impossible, Liel said. Olmert is politically incapable of negotiating contentious issues such as Jerusalem and refugees. Abbas certainly is not capable of making concessions on such issues, he explained.

Akiva Eldar, chief political columnist of Ha'aretz Daily disagreed. Although negotiations with Syria may seem more tempting, negotiations with the Palestinians are more urgent, he said. Although Israeli governments traditionally avoid simultaneous negotiations with more than one Arab partner, such parallel negotiations can be done under the umbrella of the Arab League's peace plan.

On Wednesday we are meeting with Palestinian leaders. We'll have some interesting news, albeit troubling, from that meeting tomorrow.

And a final note: Americans for Peace Now grieves the death of Zeev Schiff, one of Israel's greatest journalists, a voice of responsibility and reason, who died in Tel Aviv Tuesday. His analyses on military and strategic affairs