US wants greater redeployment
Regional-Palestine, Politics, 12/8/1997

The Israeli cabinet Monday failed to discuss the details and scope of the upcoming phase of military redeployment in the West Bank due to the absence of the defense minister, who is currently on a visit to Turkey.

Instead, the cabinet listened to reports from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his latest round of meetings with German and French officials, in addition to US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Israeli sources said the cabinet is due to meet again on Sunday and, if both Mordechai and national infrastructure minister Ariel Sharon finish their maps of the redeployment, the issue will be brought up for discussion, and possibly for voting as well.

Mordechai and Sharon have created a joint working group to crystallize maps of so-called security zones the Israeli government plans to set up in the West Bank, one along the Jordan Valley to separate the West Bank from Jordan in order to prevent the entry of a foreign army into the area as Israel claims, and one along the 1967 borders between the West Bank and Israel in order to separate Israel from the Palestinian territories.

Netanyahu returned to Israel Sunday and press reports spoke of a difficult meeting he had with Secretary Albright who asked him during their meeting in Paris last week to come to their next meeting on December 17 in Europe with answers regarding the scope of the second-phase withdrawal and made clear to him that she expects a ³double digit² redeployment of, for example, more than 10 percent. Albright said she would be meeting with both Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Netanyahu in Europe upon her return from her present tour in Africa.

Israeli sources said Albright told Netanyahu that the offer he made came too late and, because it was too late, it was also too little. Albright said that Netanyahu's proposal of deferring the second phase for five months was unacceptable. She also told President Arafat that his expectations of a 70-percent redeployment were exaggerated, but agreed that Netanyahu¹s offer is small and ridiculous, Hebrew papers said Monday.

Meanwhile, former head of opposition Labor party Shimon Peres reiterated his call on party leaders to take off their masks and to make clear statements concerning the Palestinian right to independent statehood. In an interview with Israel Radio Monday, Peres said the present government of Israel has wasted a year and a half doing nothing to promote the peace process and stressed that "time has come to tell the people the truth."

Peres one night earlier had delivered a sharp political speech in which he called for the creation of a Palestinian state and for the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Golan Heights in exchange for peace with Syria. Peres spoke at the Labor party convention which opened Sunday afternoon. Peres, who was received with roaring applause that lasted several minutes, said that peace "is stronger than the government and history is stronger than politics.² He added: "There is no room here for a bi-national state and we will not be forgiven if we will be blind during an hour of an opening to peace. I don¹t hear voices from the Arab side calling for war. Now that it¹s clear to us that Assad doesn¹t want war and that someone lied to us, we will make a mistake if we postpone the process. The price of peace will not go down, but the cost of victims is likely to rise.²

Meanwhile, the settlement surveillance team for the Peace Now movement said that in the second quarter of 1997 there was a rise in Jewish settlement construction as compared to the first quarter of the year. Based on data issued by the Central Bureau of Statistics, Peace Now found that the construction of 320 housing units in the West Bank had begun in the second quarter of the year, as compared to 260 that began in the first quarter, an increase of 23 percent. The movement noted that most of the construction works took place in the Jewish settlements of Ma'aleh Adumim, Efrat, Beitar Elite, Givon Ha Hadashah and Givat Ze'ev, all of which are defined as part of the so-called greater Jerusalem area, which the Likud government had prepared in the mid-'80s.

Previous Stories:
  Moratinos pledges substantial European Middle East peace role   (12/6/1997)
  Kohl urges Netanyahu to join peace track   (12/6/1997)
  2nd redeployment is approved but no lines   (12/1/1997)

Please add a link on your webiste pointing to ArabicNews.com and bookmark ArabicNews.com & subscribe to our daily email news bulletin.

Search