London talks: background
Palestine-Israel, Politics, 5/4/1998

Gloomy forecasts preceded the separate London summit meetings of US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu. for today's London summit.

Even before leaving to London, Netanyahu made it clear to his cabinet ministers that he did not foresee any breakthrough at the London meetings. He said the US 13.1 percent scope of withdrawal of Israeli troops in the West Bank could not be acceptable by Israel and that in any case, the decision would not be made in London. He pledged to bring any decision to his government first to ratify before he takes it.

Palestine, meanwhile, has accepted the US scale of withdrawal out of hope that its acceptance would make it easier for the Clinton Administration to exert some real pressure on Israel. But Israeli observers are not certain that a rejection of the U.S. ideas by Israel would lead to an open confrontation between Tel Aviv and Washington. Some believe that the rejection of the ideas would allow Secretary Albright to deliver a speech in which she would directly blame Netanyahu and his government for obstructing the peace efforts in the region.

Sources in the foreign ministry, who are usually more concerned about Israel's image worldwide and its relations with foreign countries, believe that such a condemnation by Albright would lead to a united international front against Israel. The sources expressed concern over the unprecedented situation, in which Israel would be blamed directly by the US for the failure of the peace process. They sources said that casting blame upon Israel would lead, sooner or later, to European sanctions, to further deterioration of Israel's relations with Jordan and Egypt and to outburst of a new wave of anti-Israel violence in the Palestinian areas that are currently under Israeli military occupation.

Others who are close to Netanyahu's way of thinking believe the opposite. According to them, a confrontation with the US would lead to a crisis that would end in a compromise that accommodates the Israeli position. According to this assessment, Netanyahu is incapable of implementing the second phase redeployment due to internal threats to his coalition government. Therefore, they believe, he might find it easier to head towards a "controlled" confrontation with the US. Such a confrontation would eliminate most of his internal coalition threats on one hand and would ultimately lead to a new round of negotiations in which he might have to implement the second phase redeployment at a much lower scale.

Israel has announced its rejection of the 13.1 percent scope for the withdrawal of its troops in the West Bank. It said it would not pull out of more than nine percent but latest reports said that Netanyahu's maximum scale that he would be ready to accept is a withdrawal of no more than eleven percent. Palestine originally was expecting to receive by the end of the second phase withdrawal no less than 40 percent of the West Bank, yet it decided to compromise its demand due to various difficulties and obstacles over the past two years. The figure later went down to 30 percent and Arafat last week, during his joint press conference with visiting Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa, Arafat said he would be ready to accept the US proposal which spoke of at least 13.1 percent. Besides, Israel wanted to cancel the third phase redeployment and to go directly to the final status talks.

The US, by contrast, has insisted that the second phase redeployment should no cover less than 13.1 percent of the West Bank. That proposal formed a sort of a compromise between Palestinian expectations of 40 percent and Israeli insistence to pull out of no more than nine percent of the territories.

US officials were quoted as saying, on a number of occasions, that Netanyahu had led them to understand that after the budget was passed late last year, he would be ready also to pass the 13.1 percent scope of withdrawal. The US also supports the implementation of a third phase redeployment in the West Bank before the two sides head to the permanent status talks.

It is within this context that the US believes that all clauses of the Oslo Accords should be implemented. The Palestinians, meanwhile, demand that in return for their acceptance of the US-proposed scope of withdrawal, they would like to get US guarantees that a second redeployment would be followed by a third one before the talks on the permanent status are renewed between the two sides. They also hope to receive US guarantees that Israel would carry out all the pending clauses of the interim agreements, and take positive steps with regard to the issues of the Gaza International Airport, the Gaza port; the safe passage between Gaza and the West Bank; the industrial zone between Gaza and Israel and the release of Palestinian prisoners still held in Israeli jails.

Previous Stories:
  Will London meeting be canceled?   (4/30/1998)
  Netanyahu fears US recognition of Palestinian state, as Ross and Indyk lack breakthrough   (4/27/1998)
  Current conditions reviewed with Arafat's advisor Nabil Abu Rudeineh   (4/21/1998)

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