Israel offers no more than 10% redeployment
Palestine-Israel-USA, Politics, 3/24/1998

Israel might be ready to consider a further 10 to 11 percent redeployment of its troops in the West Bank provided the Palestinians skip their demand for a third phase redeployment and agree to include that withdrawal in final status talks, Israeli sources said Tuesday.

The sources said Israel was willing to compromise and that a solution can be found for the third phase. Israel will refrain from saying that the third phase redeployment has been canceled and the Palestinians can then say that it will be carried out. The sources added that US special envoy to the Middle East Dennis Ross will discuss those points first with Israeli defense minister Yitzhak Mordechai in Washington upon the latter's arrival in the US capital on Wednesday and then in Israel and Gaza in his meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials.

Ross is due to leave Washington after his meeting with Mordechai, who voiced his open opposition to the 13 percent scope of withdrawal demanded by the US.

Palestinian sources, meanwhile, downplayed the significance of Ross's tour in the region arguing that his major objective is to avoid a real political showdown between the US Administration and Israel. "Let us not forget that Ross has always sided against any US attempt to declare its own initiative for peace in the region and therefore he is here this time to bridge the differences between Israel and the US and not those between Israel and the PNA," said a Palestinian senior official Tuesday.

In his meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, Ross is expected to raise a number of proposals including Israel's release of some Palestinian prisoners. Sources in Washington said Ross' visit to the region is critical and a US State Department spokesman confirmed that Ross will not carry during his coming visit to the region any peace plan or identified official ideas for recovering the peace process between the Palestinians and Israel but will try to bridge the differences between the two sides.

Ross was quoted as saying earlier in the week that the US peace initiative is the only one which can break the impasse, and that the US are determined to go ahead with it but Palestinian officials believe the US initiative will not be published before the end of the upcoming tour to the region by Ross.

Though Ross is trying to avoid taking a tough stand on Israel, his talks with Netanyahu, observers said, are not going to be easy. Netanyahu had already ruled out any possibility that Israel would accept any foreign dictate, meaning European or American, concerning the scope of an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank.

Responding primarily to a US intention to demand from Israel a withdrawal on a 13 percent level, Netanyahu said as he was leaving from a meeting with the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday: "The party which knows, and is able to determine, our security needs does not sit in London, Paris, or even in Washington. Despite all the respect we have for the United States, and we have a lot of respect for her, the side which must determine the security needs of Israel is the government of Israel. We have a written agreement about this with the Americans."

Netanyahu added that Israeli is not talking about just a little territory. "Every percentage point is the size of the city of Tel Aviv," he said, noting that in his talks with US officials, Israel has not referred to specific percentage points, "but we find it hard to reach a double digit" number.

Opposition Labor Party leader Ehud Barak compared the government to the Titanic saying that "an arrogant captain who, instead of looking straight ahead, is leading us knowingly toward a collision." Barak accused the government of "putting relations with the United States on a downward slope, and harming our strategic interest."

At the same time, he stressed that nobody can dictate policies to Israel, and that only Israel is responsible for its fate. "The question is whether we are moving ahead toward a just solution and toward separation from the Palestinians, or toward a dead end, isolation, total regional explosion, and a deep fracture in our people."

Labor Party member Dalia Itzik told Israel television's channel one program on Monday night that Netanyahu has already worked out the scope of the withdrawal with the Americans, the figure being 10-11 percent. She presented a US State Department document which alludes to the agreement between Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright about the scope of the withdrawal. "Netanyahu¹s trick is to tell the public that the Americans are asking for 13-14 percent, and that he has managed to get them down to 10 percent. This scheme has been exposed," she said.

Meanwhile, security delegates of both Palestine and Israel met Monday night in part of the continued security negotiations between the two sides, Major General Abdul Razzaq Al Yihya, head of the Palestinian side in the joint security committee, said the two sides discussed issues related to the shooting incident in Hebron earlier in the month in which three Palestinian workers were shot dead by Israeli soldiers, and the demolishing of an Arab house in Hebron. He said the Palestinian side is still waiting for the official outcome of the Israeli investigation into the Tarkumia shooting near Hebron.

Previous Stories:
  US and Israeli plan details reported, embarrassment in Israel   (3/20/1998)
  A snow storm hits Israeli government after Cook's political storm   (3/18/1998)
  Foreign leaders to visit Palestine   (3/4/1998)

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