Erekat is cool toward announcements of pending Palestinian - Israeli agreement
Palestine, Politics, 7/9/1998

The Palestinian government expressed a reserved reaction to claims of acceptance by Netanyahu of the US intiative in the faltering Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

Earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated that an agreement may be near on a US initiative for redeployment, to which the Palestinian government has already agreed. "We have succeeded in closing the gaps between us and the American administration regarding the implementation of the second and third redeployments," Israel's Haaretz newspaper quoted Netanyahu as telling the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday.

The US expressed that some progress is being made, as a result of phone communications made by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

Answering a question about the status of the peace process, State Department spokesman James Rubin said yesterday, "We're continuing to make sufficient progress to justify further work," in what he termed as an "intensive end-game negotiation" on the US initiative.

Netanyahu was blasted a couple of days ago by Israel's opposition Labor leader Ehud Barak who said that Arafat does not talk to Netanyahu anymore, an indication that the negotiations are being carried out almost exclusively between the US and Israel.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told ArabicNews.com that the Palestinian side has no new information confirming or denying what was announced, pointing out that during recent months, Netanyahu presented a great number of promises to the US, European and Arab leaders about the nearing of its approval of the US initiative, yet none of these promises were fulfilled.

Palestinian sources stated that U.S. efforts are currently concentrating on convincing Israel to accept withdrawal from 13% instead of 10% of the West Bank.

Netanyahu has continuously suggested new ideas about this subject such as convening a "new" Madrid conference, while constantly referring to the National Council Palestinian Charter that he claimed as recently as this week in an address to the Keneset, needs modification.

The US had stated its satisfaction with regard to the issue of the charter modification as not being a problem. US Secretary of State Albright said on January 22 "I think that there is not a question, frankly, of the substance. They have agreed that... those articles are null and void."

Arab officials have come to view Netanyahu's strategy as mere delaying tactics and an effort to torpedo the Oslo agreement signed between Israel and the Palestinian government. Netanyahu ran his political campaign based on "killing" the Oslo agreement. One analyst told ArabicNews.com that "as soon as Netanyahu says we (Israel) are going to agree to the U.S. proposal, he goes and adds conditions that he knows are unacceptable to the Palestinians."

US spokesman Rubin said, "It is my understanding that the goal of this is to get enough completed in Oslo -- that is, of Oslo - in the area of the further redeployment and the terrorist infrastructure so that they can move immediately and launch immediately the permanent status issues precisely because there aren't that many months left before the five-year deadline of Oslo is reached. That is some nine to ten months away," Rubin said.

Palestinian officials are on their way to the U.S. and are expected to meet with top US officials. This coincides with the arrival to the US of Egypt's Foreign Minister.

Previous Stories:
  A victory for Palestinians at the UN, status upgraded   (7/7/1998)
  Arafat-Mordechai meeting unlikely   (7/7/1998)
  Security map strips Netanyahu naked   (7/1/1998)

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