Issues

Palestine

Summary on Palestinian Authority Negotiating Authority Briefing

Posted on Wednesday May 31, 2006

Panelists:
Maen Areikat—Director General, PLO Negotiations Affairs Department
Khaled Elgindy—NSU Technical/Policy Advisor
Leila Hilal—NSU Legal Advisor
Lamia Matta—NSU Legal Advisor

The event was held at The Palestine Center, from 12:30-1:30 pm.

On May 31, three advisors from the Palestinian Negotiations Support Unit, in addition to its Director General, Maen Areikat, visited The Palestine Center to discuss Israel’s new plan for unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank. The visit comes on the heels of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s trip to Washington, where he spoke with President Bush and Congress on the Israeli government’s new plan.

Mr. Areikat began by speaking about the Wall, currently under construction in and around the West Bank. He discussed its harmful impact on the Palestinian people, including its ability to disconnect Palestinian agriculture sites from urban areas, in addition to cutting off Palestinians from their communities.

The creation of roads and tunnels is also included in the new Israeli plan, and this creation further harms the Palestinian people. Under Olmert’s plan, two sets of roads would be constructed, one for Israelis, one for Palestinians. On the Israeli side, the roads act as the very lifeline of the settlements in the West Bank, while still restricting Palestinian access to their own communities. On the Palestinian side, according to Areikat, these roads and tunnels would act only to “superficially connect the Palestinian communities,” and would fragment Arab communities, once again disrupting the Palestinian economy. Areikat went on to discuss Olmert’s intention to consolidate 88% of the settlement blocks in the area, which fits with Israel’s “land grab” efforts in the unilateral withdrawal.

Mr. Areikat went on to emphasize that the Olmert plan represents a fundamental contradiction with stated U.S. Policy, under the Bush Administration’s Roadmap for Peace.

Areikat also discussed the effect of Olmert’s plan on East Jerusalem. He noted that the section of the city itself represents the greatest concentration of Palestinians in the entire West Bank, at 250,000, and accounts for 35 to 40% of the entire Palestinian economy. Regardless, Israel has proven extremely reluctant to relinquish any areas in Jerusalem that do not coincide with their own demographic interests. For instance, Israel aims to retain control over key Muslim holy cites within the Old City in Jerusalem. In addition to being highly damaging for Palestinian national, if not religious identity, doing so would eliminate a significant source of revenue for the nascent Palestinian state. Furthermore, if certain areas of East Jerusalem were relinquished by Israel, travel would still be restricted for Palestinians, as it is now.

All the panelists from the Palestinian NSO wished to stress the importance of small numbers in the debate over Israel’s unilateral intentions. While Olmert champions that 93% of the West Bank would be given back to the Palestinians, the remaining 7% must be examined. The entire city of Jerusalem, for instance, represents only 1.2% of the entire West Bank. In essence, Israel could offer 98% of the West Bank and a viable Palestinian state still could not exist. Furthermore, the settlement blocs that would exist under the plan are found on incredibly rich areas within the West Bank. For example, roughly 90% of the largest proposed settlement block is found on highly arable, highly valuable land.

The panelists concluded by issuing their intentions for their current visit in Washington. The negotiating team would like to call upon the international community to bring the conflicting parties back together, in order to produce an effective peace agreement which represents the interests of both sides, or at the very least compel the Israeli government to uphold the roadmap. They stressed that unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank will not bring peace and stability between the two states, and the interests of the Palestinian people must be taken into account. Finally, they stated the importance of finding a solution to this conflict, as well as its role within the Bush Administration’s current agenda. Mr. Areikat himself personally felt that the situation lacked the attention of the Bush Administration, as a result of the current war in Iraq. They emphasized the importance in finding this solution, as it would help to ease tensions around the Middle East, and the world.