No plans defined for redeployment, intelligence report Sunday
Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai and Infrastructure Minister Ariel Sharon took a joint helicopter flight over the West Bank Friday in advance of the government meeting on Sunday in which they will present ministers with the alternatives for mapping out Israeli security zones in the region.
These zones will become the territories Israel retains after a final status agreement is reached with the Palestinians. Netanyahu’s kitchen cabinet, which is comprised of Mordechai, Sharon and foreign minister David Levy, didn’t reach an agreement Thursday over the extent of a second phase withdrawal that they will offer the Palestinians. Nor did they agree on a map of Israeli security interests for the final status agreement.
Officials close to the prime minister were quoted as saying that despite US pressure, Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t plan to present US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright a map of the withdrawal or tell her its extent during their meeting this week. Yet, they said, Netanyahu will tell Albright the redeployment phase will be larger than 10 percent. Foreign Minister Levy said during the kitchen cabinet meeting that Netanyahu must arrive to his meeting with Albright with a “clear proposal” on the second phase and not “empty-handed.”
“We will be caught in an impossible situation, in which we will be isolated. It’s a very dangerous gamble,” Levy warned.
Meanwhile, senior army and intelligence officers are expected to present to the Israeli government on Sunday their own set of recommendations on the redeployment. According to press reports circulating in Tel Aviv Friday, the officers will propose a withdrawal from some 20 percent of the West Bank territories, 10 percent from Area C (currently under full Israeli control). Most of these will be redesignated as area B (under Palestinian civil control and Israeli security control), and only a small part as area A (full Palestinian control). The other 10 percent will come from Area B and will become area A, fully under the control of the PNA.
According to recent discussions within army and intelligence circles, the second phase will not create territorial continuity between Palestinian-controlled territorial blocs. The proposal being worked on by those officers includes expanding the regions around Jenin, north of the West Bank, and Hebron in the south. As a result, a number of Jewish settlements in the Jenin area will face practical difficulties, since they will end up being isolated and will have transportation problems to and from Israel. Israeli political sources reportedly said the proposal will probably satisfy US expectations for the redeployment, but they noted that it appears the US also wants to see territorial continuity between the Palestinian areas that have been redeployed.
Meanwhile, PLO Executive Committee member Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) had met last Wednesday with Likud Knesset member Dan Meridor, it was revealed yesterday. The meeting, which last for a couple of hours, was the first of its kind between the two and bore some significance because of the hawkish views that Meridor holds within his party on the Arab-Israeli conflict and ways to solve the Palestinian question. Both sides discussed relations between the Palestine National Authority and Israel and the future agreements between the two parties. Over the past few months, Abu Mazen has met with a number of key figures in the Likud in what was seen by Palestinian observers as an attempt to penetrate the Likud and find interlocutors from within. In this context, Abu Mazen met with hawkish minister Ariel Sharon at his ranch in the south and with Tel Aviv Mayor Roni Milo.