Erekat is pessimistic, while al-Baz is certain of redeployment
Palestine-Israel, Politics, 6/8/1998

Palestinian officials insist there are no grounds at all for the latest round of optimistic reports in Israel that suggested a second phase redeployment is soon going to take place.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the Israeli reports are part of a media campaign Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is using to make it seem as if he is willing to implement the second phase of Israeli troop withdrawal in the West Bank.

Erekat reiterated the Palestinian assessment that the London meeting held a few days ago between US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Palestinian officials Mahmoud Abbas and Ahmed Qurei' had led to nowhere. Abbas (Abu Mazen) and Qurei' (Abu Ala') told Albright that the Palestinian government under no circumstances would be ready to accept a new modification of the US ideas for pushing the peace process forward. "We have agreed to the US ideas as part of a compromise we accepted simply to help the US Administration convince Israel to implement the second stage of withdrawal," said Erekat. He again urged the US Administration to declare openly its own initiative in order to pinpoint Israel as the sole party that has led to the present impasse in the peace process.

Palestinian sources said the meeting in London was held apparently to give the impression that the US peace efforts were still going one since it was convened just by the end of the extra week extension that the US has asked the Palestinian government to give for American peace efforts.

Not satisfied with the outcome of the London meeting, Palestinian officials believe that perhaps an Arab summit would bring effective pressure on Israel. President Yasser Arafat's spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said the Palestinian government would continue its efforts to convene the Arab summit and expressed hopes that the Arab states would overcome their differences. Abu Rudeineh said that Arafat would visit a number of Arab states immediately after his current visit to Burkina Faso.

Over the past week, Israeli officials, including Netanyahu's media advisor Shai Bazak, spoke of the second redeployment of Israeli troops as if it were to take place in days. Besides, an Israeli peace activist who met in Cairo with senior Egyptian officials reported that Egypt too expected the redeployment to take place this week. Chen Raz, spokesman of the Israeli Peace Now movement, had met with Osama Al Baz, special advisor to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. After the meeting, Raz said Al Baz sounded very certain that Israel would implement the second phase redeployment this week. "Al Baz even bet with me on a one thousand US dollars that the withdrawal will take place this week," said Raz in a telephone interview with Israel radio on Monday.

Jewish settler leaders in the West Bank too felt the redeployment was imminent and one of them warned that should Netanyahu go ahead with the plan to pull his troops out of parts of the West Bank "he would simply become a Knesset member and not a prime minister anymore." Uri Ariel, head of Beit El settlement near Ramallah said that an Israeli withdrawal of 13 percent of the West Bank would endanger the security of at least 18 Jewish settlements and make them what he called Jewish islands in Palestinian enclaves. Therefore, he said, the settler movement would not allow such a step to take place.

Previous Stories:
  Arafat continues tours to advance Arab summit   (6/5/1998)
  Mordechai: If redeployment not made, conditions in territories will explode   (6/5/1998)
  Arafat gives two-week time limit to the U.S. administration   (6/4/1998)

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