Moderates launch Middle East plan

[Salem6]

An alternative, unofficial peace plan for the Middle East is being launched in a glitzy ceremony in Geneva.
Drafted by left-wing Israelis and Palestinians, the accord goes much further than the US-backed roadmap.


There seems to be public support for the accord on both sides

Former US President Jimmy Carter said at the ceremony it was "unlikely that we will ever see a more promising foundation for peace".

Shared Jerusalem sovereignty and the waiving of the Palestinian right of return are the key points of the plan.

Israel rejection

An audience of Nobel peace prize-winners - such as former US President Carter and ex-Polish President Lech Walesa - are attending the ceremony, organised by the Swiss Government.


Hundreds of Israelis and Palestinians are also in Geneva to support the launch.

The 50-page accord is the result of two-and-a-half-years of secret negotiations led by former Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin and former Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo.

The initiative has European backing and also verbal support from United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, but no official status.

However Israel has rejected the plan outright, calling it an attempt to undermine its government, and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has refused to give it public support, despite sending his top security advisor to attend the Geneva ceremony.

Controversial aspects

There were also protests in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday - including members of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad militant groups - against the accord.

GENEVA ACCORD: MAIN POINTS
Israeli withdrawal from almost all West Bank and Gaza
Shared sovereignty over Jerusalem
Palestinian renunciation of 'right of return'


The accord - which calls for a two-state solution - envisages an almost complete Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza and the recognition of Israel by the Palestinians.

In addition, Palestinians would effectively give up the right of return for the millions of refugees who left or were expelled during previous wars, although some may be permitted to return with Israeli agreement.

While the roadmap seeks to create secure conditions under which a political agreement could take place, the Geneva accord envisages a settlement first, which should then lead to peace.

The BBC's Middle East analyst Roger Hardy says the Geneva accord represents what most of the world regards as the basis of a fair settlement.

Ramallah incursion

The launch comes amid continuing violence in the Middle East, as earlier on Monday Israeli troops - supported by more than 60 tanks - carried out a raid in the West Bank town of Ramallah, arresting at least 30 Palestinian suspects.

Four Palestinians - including a nine-year-old boy - died in the raid, Palestinian sources said.

The BBC's Barbara Plett in Jerusalem says many Palestinians will see the timing of the Israeli incursion as provocative.

The raid also occurred as United States envoy William Burns was visiting Israel.

On Sunday he reiterated Washington's call for Palestinians to stop violence and for Israel to dismantle settler outposts.

Talks due to be held between Palestinian factions in Egypt on Tuesday to discuss halting attacks on Israel have been also postponed until later in the week because of procedural delays, officials said.

[Salem6]

Q&A: The Geneva accord


The "Geneva accord", an alternative peace plan for the Middle East, is being launched in Switzerland. Its proposals have already been received with broad support by Israelis and Palestinians but has not been endorsed by the Israeli Government and Palestinian Legislative Council. Is it, therefore, destined to be just a sideshow? BBC News Online looks at the issues surrounding the plan.


The accord was sent to every home in Israel

Q: What is the Geneva accord?
It is a detailed, "unofficial" blueprint for peace sponsored by what is left of the Israeli and Palestinian peace camps. It is the result of two and a half years of secret negotiations led by former Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin and former Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo. Both are former official peace negotiators.

It is called the Geneva accord because the negotiations were supported by Swiss diplomats.
The initiative, which is being officially launched in Geneva on 1 December, has European backing, as well as verbal support from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Q: What does it propose?

The basic framework looks like this:
· Palestinians would, in effect, give up the right of return for the millions of refugees who left or were expelled during previous wars. A few might go back, but only with Israeli agreement, while others would be able to come back to a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza or settle for good in their present host countries, mainly Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Some would get some form of compensation.
· In exchange, the Palestinians would recognise the Israeli state and get 97.5% of all the land occupied by Israel in the 1967 war.
· Most of the settlements in the West Bank and Gaza would be dismantled but Israel would annex two big settlements south and east of Jerusalem, plus another 12 in East Jerusalem.
· Jerusalem would be divided administratively though not physically. The most sensitive site, the Temple Mount as Jews call it, or the Noble Sanctuary as Muslims know it, would be under Palestinian sovereignty. An international force would guarantee access for visitors. Israelis would retain the Western Wall (the so-called Wailing Wall) below and the old Jewish quarter. Jerusalem would become the capital of two states.
The key compromises are over the right of return and the division of Jerusalem.
By giving up their cherished "right of return", Palestinians would abandon hopes of establishing a unitary state of Palestine.
By formally giving up the Temple Mount, Israelis would accept the division of Jerusalem which they have always opposed.

Q: How does the accord differ from the US-backed plan widely known as the roadmap?

The accord goes considerably further than the roadmap.
While the roadmap seeks to create secure conditions under which a settlement could take place, the Geneva accord reverses that, by agreeing on a settlement first. This should then lead to peace.
The roadmap provides for a ceasefire and a settlement freeze, then the creation of a Palestinian state with "provisional borders". After this is what appears to be a vague process for negotiation on final agreements.
The Geneva accord, however, settles outstanding issues and is much more specific in its detail.

Q: How have Israeli and Palestinian leaders reacted to it?

Neither the Israeli Government nor the Palestinian legislative Council have backed the accord.
In fact, the Israeli Government and hardline Palestinians have poured scorn on it. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon denounced Mr Beilin and his fellow Israeli negotiators as "traitors". He recently said the initiative "does Israel damage and is a mistake".
Radical Palestinian groups including Islamic Jihad and the Islamic Resistance Movement, have also denounced the Palestinian negotiators as traitors for giving up the right of return.

Q: What about popular support?

A few weeks ago, a copy of the agreement was sent to every home in Israel. It was also printed in Palestinian newspapers.
A poll published shortly after suggested that 55.6% of Palestinians and 53% of Israelis backed the principles of the Geneva accord.
A Washington think-tank, the Baker Institute, commissioned the survey, which asked 1,241 Israelis and Palestinians for their views on the peace plan's terms without mentioning it by name.
In Israeli, the plan's originators are hoping that public support will put pressure on Israel's prime minister to, in their words, demonstrate a greater willingness to compromise.
Analysts say that in Israel, the initiative has been bolstered by a drop in public confidence in Mr Sharon's ability to bring an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Q: How successful is it likely to be?

BBC News Online's world affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds says the Geneva accord is more idealistic than realistic. He says it is not irrelevant, although its impact is mixed.
He says that on the one hand it shows that the roadmap is not the only way forward as was claimed. The Palestinians and moderate Israelis argue that it demonstrates that an agreement is possible after the failure at Camp David in 2000. On the other hand Mr Beilin has no constituency in Israel, and the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has not clearly endorsed it.
Our correspondent says it remains a sideshow, though one which has caused Mr Sharon some problems, hence his talk recently of taking unilateral measures towards a settlement.



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Middle East press split over 'Geneva accord'




The Middle East press has given a mixed reaction to the alternative peace treaty to be signed in Geneva on 1 December. The treaty, known as the Geneva accord, was drafted in secret by a group of left-wing Israelis and unofficial Palestinian negotiators during the last two years and calls for a two-state solution.

While some Israeli newspapers hail the accord for taking a different approach from the official governments of the two sides, the Palestinian press gives a more pessimistic reaction.

The key element of the Israeli-Palestinian understandings, which are due to be formally presented on Monday at a ceremony in Geneva, is the effort to fundamentally change the state of the relationship between the two peoples. That is what distinguishes the draft document... from the approach of both peoples' current leaderships, who are dealing with the conflict from a crisis management perspective rather than from a genuine desire to resolve it...

Ha'aretz - Israel


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I know very well why I joined the Geneva initiative: because I feel that every day that passes without change, pushes Israel another centimetre toward the abyss. Because an irreversible political and human reality is being created here that scares me and no one in the current government is offering a solution for it... And mainly because we the Israelis... are only living parallel to a life that we could have lived. We see the land that was promised to us only from the opposite side...

Ma'ariv commentator David Grossman - Israel


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The Geneva document is not the first unofficial Palestinian-Israeli initiative to be declared to cause political and organisational argument... We do not want this argument to get to where it got yesterday when people [who supported it] were accused of treason... Why is this kind of position [needed] when opinion and counter opinion are still legitimate and unshackled?

Al-Hayat Al-Jadidah commentator Basim Abu-Samiah - Palestinian territories


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There is a Palestinian national interest in standing beside Israeli peace advocates and enhancing their power by addressing Israelis on the street with realistic peace statements...

The political role that the Geneva document has is superior to any other considerations...

Al-Ayyam commentator Samih Shbayb - Palestinian territories


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All of a sudden, there is life and vitality flowing through the veins of the peace process... There are contacts here in Palestine, negotiations in Madrid and London... and a celebration today in the Swiss capital [sic] [on the launching of] the document carrying its name [Geneva]...

We can barely find anything new on the surface regarding the stances and policies of the official powers.

Al-Ayyam commentator Talal Okal - Palestinian territories

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.