By Ryan Jones
Oct 10, 2005
A deluge of Palestinian Authority demands Monday appeared to have scuppered a summit scheduled for Tuesday, and which Washington had hoped would demonstrate growing momentum towards peace between Israel and the ?Palestinians.?
Despite having surrendered control over the entire Gaza Strip just last month, Israel must now also agree to several major preconditions before PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas meets with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, PA officials said.
They insisted Abbas must justify meeting his Israeli ?peace? partners to the Palestinian Arab street.
Jerusalem, meanwhile, said the Bush Administration was pushing hard to ensure the summit goes ahead as planned.
Sharon adviser Dov Weisglass and top PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat met three times in as many days to hammer out details prior to the meeting, but were ultimately unsuccessful, officials reported following Monday's get together.
?There was not enough preparation for this summit,? Nabil Abu Rdeneh told Ha'aretz. The meeting will now reportedly take place in November.
The lack of preparation primarily consisted of Israel's refusal to agree to sweeping preconditions and ?goodwill? gestures.
The ?Palestinians? requested that Israel set free hundreds of jailed terrorists, transfer weapons and ammunition to the PA and withdraw its security forces from a number of towns in Judea and Samaria.
PA officials stressed the importance of obtaining Israel's agreement on these issues prior to the top-level meeting to ensure Abbas walked away with a diplomatic victory.
A senior PA source told Ynet Sunday it was crucial Abbas be able ?to justify the existence of the summit to the Palestinians.? Otherwise, presumably, the PA's failure to make gains diplomatically would strengthen the terrorists' assertion that violence was the only path to attaining ?Palestinian? goals.
The ?Palestinians? have for more than a decade employed this form of terrorist coercion.
But for now at least, Israel says one-sided concessions to that degree are a non-starter.
?We want to begin the process, and they want to see something concrete,? an Israeli government source told Ha'aretz.
Israeli ministers have over the past several days rejected the idea of releasing prisoners with ?blood on their hands,? but have said a limited number of low-profile would-be terrorists could be freed.
Providing the PA with additional weaponry and withdrawing forces from more ?West Bank? town before seeing a change in the PA's compliance with signed agreements, however, is not going to happen.
?There are gestures that Israel can and will make, and there are gestures that it won't,? Sharon told Sunday's cabinet meeting.
Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz pointed out Israel had already earlier in the year transferred security control over Tulkarm and Jericho, only to have the PA renege on its commitment to disarm terrorists there.
Another official said if the PA needed more guns, it should start by taking those currently in the hands of Hamas.
Abbas insists his forces require more and better armaments to impose order, but has repeatedly rejected that he use his forces to disarm and dismantle the terrorist organizations operating out of territories under his control.
US State Department official David Welch, meanwhile, met with Abbas in Ramallah Monday in a last ditch effort to salvage Tuesday's summit. He will meet with Sharon Tuesday morning.
Washington is keen to have the meeting take place before Abbas visits the US later this month in order to show progress in the peace process.