African meeting for supporting Palestinian rights

The first plenary session of the United Nations African Meeting in Support of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People took place this week in Windhoek, Namibia, chaired by Namibia's ambassador to the United Nations, Martin Andjaba, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Special Envoy of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

Participants in the meeting were critical of Israeli practices toward the Palestinian people, singling out Israel's taking of the city of Jerusalem, Israel's settlement policy and the timing of the May 17 elections among areas for criticism.

The Observer for Palestine at the United Nations, Nasser Al-Kidwa, stressed that Israel must be pressured to comply with the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Gershon Baskin, the Director of the Israel/Palestinian Center for Research and Information, suggested several points for Palestinian negotiators to help in final status negotiations. He said that Palestinian negotiators should try to correctly anticipate Israel's true positions, get Israel to respond to Palestinian positions, be mindful of Israeli security concerns without allowing these concerns to be the focus of the talks. The Palestinian negotiators should prepare questions for the Israelis, rather than responding directly to Israeli discussion documents so Israel cannot set the agenda, he said.

Baskin continued that the Palestinians should demand special contingencies for partial or non-implementation of agreements reached with Israel and that the Palestinian negotiators should have clearly-defined "red lines" within which to negotiate.

Ambassador Badr Hamman of Egypt questioned whether Israel was occupying as much land as possible so that any Palestinian state will not be viable. He said the international community should not recognize "any part of Israel that was not part of the Jewish State before 1967" and deny economic aid that could be used to build new settlements.