It was, apparently, the first in a series of donor meetings planned for 2011.

The next planned donor conference is scheduled to be held in Paris in June 2011, to support “the Palestinian national development plan for 2011-2013″.

{The UN describes the AHLC here as “a 12-member committee that serves as the principal policy-level coordination mechanism for development assistance to the Palestinian people. The AHLC is chaired by Norway and cosponsored by the EU and US. In addition, the United Nations participates together with the World Bank (Secretariat) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The AHLC seeks to promote dialogue between donors, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Government of Israel (GoI)”. The Portland Trust, which seems to set the policies that Tony Blair follows, notes here that “The AHLC was established on 1 October 1993 (this is two weeks after the signing of the first of the Oslo Accords) . It serves as the principal policy-level coordination mechanism for development assistance to the Palestinian people. Norway is the chair of the committee, the World Bank acts as secretariat and the EU and US are co-sponsors. The members are: the Palestinian Authority (PA), Government of Israel (GoI), Canada, Egypt, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Japan, Jordan, United Nations (UN), Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia”. It is worth noting that the Portland Trust’s publication, Palestinian Economic Bulletin, is prepared by the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS) in Ramallah.}

The Norwegian Chairman reportedly said that “the international donor group in support of the Palestinians (AHLC) welcomed reports that the Palestinian Authority has crossed the threshold for a functioning state in terms of its successful institution building. This was the assessment of the Palestinian Authority’s performance in key sectors studied by the World Bank, the IMF, and the UN. Moreover, according to the IMF, the Palestinian reforms have come so far that not only is the public financial management system ready to support the functions of a state; it has even become a model for other developing countries”. These remarks are posted here.

This report also reported that Støre said: “many donors noted that the lack of political progress leaves the negotiating track out of sync with the far advanced state-building efforts of the Palestinian Authority. This is why all parties concerned must stand firm behind the stated goal of negotiating a framework agreement on permanent status and a subsequent comprehensive peace treaty by the agreed target date in September”.

The full text of the Chairman’s summary is not available on the Norwegian website — or, at least, the various web addresses given for it are not working.

[It has to be said that most all of those involved here are internet-impaired...]

After the meeting, the EU High Representative Ashton said in a public statement: “The Palestinian Authority has made significant progress on this state-building agenda. Today Palestinian institutions compare favorably with those in established states [!!!] … I’m proud to say that the EU has been instrumental in the institution building process. For 2011, we have already earmarked €300 million for it. Yet it’s clear that these achievements can only be sustainable in the event of a political breakthrough. The international community should not let these concerted efforts go to waste. This opportunity should not be missed. We reaffirm our readiness to contribute to a negotiated solution within the timeline set by the Quartet.”

Quartet Representative Tony Blair issued a report, “Action in Support of Palestinian Authority State-Building” [the pdf file on the Quartet Representative website is "damaged and cannot be downloaded"]. Blair said in a statement that “Palestinian state building under the Palestinian Authority and Prime Minister Fayyad is a bright light amongst a lot of diplomatic darkness. It shows what can be done, how the Palestinians are able to govern a state, and therefore the vital importance of re-energising the political process. Palestinian state building is also an important factor in addressing Israel’s real security concerns”…

The website is even more emphatic on another page, reporting here that “Quartet Representative Tony Blair said ‘credible political negotiations’ were needed on a ‘very urgent’ basis to ‘revive the political process’.”

[See the recent post on our sister blog, here, that Tony Blair is moving the Quartet Representative's Office in East Jerusalem -- which he visits about once a month -- from the American Colony Hotel up the hill to a new building still under construction on Nablus Road, just below the Ambassador Hotel... ]

On Gaza, Blair said “we still have a long, long way to go”…

Quite an understatement.

UPDATE: Haaretz later reported here that “earlier this week donor states to the Palestinian Authority, which held a conference last week in Brussels, condemned in its concluding statement uncoordinated aid flotillas to Gaza. The conference called on all parties to use land terminals to the Strip and avoid provocations. The statement is signed by the chairman of the conference, Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store. A major force behind the clause was intense lobbying from the Israeli delegation to the conference, comprised of the coordinator of government activities in the territories, Maj. Gen. Eitan Dangot, and Foreign Ministry diplomats”.

Salam Fayyad’s remarks at the joint press conference can be viewed on this page here, and his answer to a journalist’s question is posted here.

“We Palestinians have made a declaration of statehood going back to 1988 … We’re not looking for yet another declaration of a state, nor for a virtual state”, Fayyad said, “we’re looking for a genuine fully sovereign state of Palestine on territory occupied in 1967 in Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital … and an end to the Israeli occupation”…

[The Al-Jazeera Transparency Unit, which archives its leaked Palestinian Papers, has a couple of interesting related documents -- three, from 2008 discussions, are posted here, here, and here.]

Here are the links to the various reports submitted to this AHLC meeting in Brussels on 13 April 2011 — (they are not so easy to find…and the IMF report took days to locate):
The World Bank report is posted here.
The IMF report is supposed to be posted here — it is on the IMF country page here — but it doesn’t open, or maybe it doesn’t download…
UPDATE: The 35-page IMF report was finally located on the UN’s UNISPAL website here.
Salam Fayyad’s report for the Palestinian Authority is posted hereand a summary is posted here.
Israel’s report is posted here.
The report signed by Tony Blair for the Office of the Quartet Representative (www.quartetrep.org) does not download from the Quartet’s website — the error message reads “the file is damaged but could not be repaired” — but a link does work through Tony Blair’s Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/TonyBlair) which is “liked” by over 18,000 people, and which has a greater emphasis on his Faith Foundation than on his work for the Quartet. The link that does work is here.
The report of the UN Special Coordinator, Robert Serry, is posted here, and an accompanying press release is posted here.

Ishmael was the other son of the prophet Abraham, Patriarch of the Jews and founder of the monotheistic tradition is continued in Islam. Ishmael was fathered by Abraham with his wife’s servant, Hagar. Abraham’s wife, Sarah — who had been believed to be barren — then gave birth to Isaac. [It is believed that the Jewish tribes are descended from Isaac, while Arabs are descended from Ishmael...]

Fogelman wrote that “Ze’evi’s plan to create the state of Ishmael, in the form of a secret four-page document, has been gathering dust in the archives of the Israel Defense Forces since it was conceived. But anyone who examines the details closely will not likely describe it as a dovish project, reflecting a recognition of the Palestinians’ national rights. Submitted to then-chief of staff Yitzhak Rabin five days after the end of the Six-Day War, the plan was entitled ‘Political Arrangement for the West Bank − A Proposal’. Ze’evi begins by noting, ‘The following proposal follows conversations held recently and in light of the task assigned to me to put forward a proposal on the subject’. It does not, he notes, ‘refer to possible solutions for the Gaza Strip, which need to be considered separately’. Ze’evi’s proposal called for the establishment of ‘an independent Arab state in part of the West Bank, which would be tied to Israel by a contract that would ensure the rights of both sides. The new state will be called the state of Ishmael ‏(and not Palestine, in order not to increase its ‘appetite’ and representation‏)’ …

Fogelman continued: “Ze’evi wrote ‘The speed of the decision, and implementation of this proposal, even if done without administrative and organizational preparation, is important because of the willingness of the local Arab leadership − which is still reeling from the shock of defeat − before it can be turned around and incited by Damascus and Cairo. And before the great powers and the UN have spoken out clearly on the subject’. Ze’evi’s final argument in support of his case was the comment about the abyss of hatred that would develop under the occupation, which was quoted by Olmert and Peres”.

The Fogelman article noted that : “Immediately after the 1967 war, the political leadership said nothing about the future of the occupied territories. Similarly, in the period preceding the war, the country’s leaders had been silent about its goals and about a possible solution to the conflict. There is nothing explicitly mentioned about the future of the territories and their inhabitants in the minutes of the cabinet or of Defense Ministry meetings, which have been declassified. However, the army, in contrast to the political echelon, had contingency plans. In addition to the operational plans, the IDF had over the years compiled a systematic doctrine for the creation of a military government in occupied territory. Besides the experience gleaned from such a government that already ruled Israel’s Arab population from ‏(1948-1966), the army had learned much from its five-month occupation of the Gaza Strip following the Sinai War in 1956. In the early 1960s, the IDF, drawing on those lessons, produced a number of memoranda and orders relating to different aspects of its activity in occupied territory. The last such memo was issued two months before the Six-Day War and was based on previous doctrinal material, particularly a paper called ‘Summary of Military Government in Occupied Territories’, published in 1964 under the auspices of the Prime Minister’s Office. This document enshrines some of the principles that guided Israeli policy in the occupied territories for decades”…

The story continues:

“The most important means of control is ‘reward and punishment,’” the document states.Under the “reward” rubric the authors include: “Removal of restrictions that were imposed. Granting permits to open and run businesses. Giving work to the unemployed. Appointments to key posts. Priority to returning seized property or giving compensation.”

Recommendations for “punishment” were: “Administrative detention. Exile. Dismissal from job. Searching of homes.”

In this context the document added, “Reward and punishment should be exploited to find a leadership that will collaborate. The reward and punishment measures are intended ‘to persuade’ the leader that it is worthwhile to collaborate; but, more than this, using them vis-a-vis the people under his influence will determine the extent of that influence. Accordingly, benefits should be granted to people who support a cooperative leader.”

As for those who refuse to play ball: “When a decision is made to humiliate a leader who does not collaborate, it is not enough to deny benefits to him and his followers. A rival candidate for leadership should be sought within the clans he represents and cultivated by being made a conduit for the distribution of benefits. He should be shown open preference by means of visits to his home and so forth.”

The document’s authors also recommended “exploiting an offense committed by a particular leader as a means of pressure for collaboration. This refers to offenses which are not known to the public and are not security related. The threat to place him on trial if he does not collaborate is more effective than trying and punishing him.”

The framers of the document cautioned against arresting public leaders and thereby turning them into “martyrs”:
“They should be punished in other purposeful ways, which will hurt then without increasing their public prestige, such as by economic sanctions, undermining their social relations and so forth. It is a mistake to create a single, homogeneous leadership. Ensure that the local leadership is split and that competitive leaderships exist.”

In conclusion, the writers recommended “keeping things on a low burner − preventing extreme mass despair and bitterness.” Even though “in most cases the Arabs themselves are far from carrying out what they say, they appreciate others doing so, particularly if the fulfillment of promises is to their benefit. Accordingly, binding promises should not be made, especially if they are of the type that cannot be kept.”

Apparently, the final written guidelines for the army’s activity in the occupied territories before the war were issued by the then-military advocate general, Meir Shamgar, a future attorney general and Supreme Court president. On the first day of the war he issued a document that was sent to the GOCs and chief of the operations branch in the General Staff. Entitled “Modes of Legislation in Occupied Territory,” the document, which sets forth the operational principles permitted in occupied areas under the international laws and conventions, was drawn up by Shamgar several weeks or even months earlier…
…
About two weeks after the war, defense minister Moshe Dayan told a closed meeting of IDF commanders: “The geographic, military and political achievements of this war have first of all afforded the maximum borders that anyone ever wanted to dream of, the most ideal ones … If someone had taken the broadest brush to demarcate the biggest and widest borders, he could propose for Israel, he would not have gone one kilometer beyond what the IDF reached in this war.”

Dayan knew whereof he spoke: A perusal of minutes of the meetings held by the General Staff on the eve of the war shows that not even the most optimistic of the generals believed the IDF would emerge from just six days of fighting with an achievement on this scale. But the mechanism of rule in the newly conquered territories was quickly set in place.

At Shamgar’s directive, four orders and three proclamations concerning “proper administration, security and public order” were issued already on the second day of the war and disseminated among the inhabitants of the conquered areas. On the same day, three military commanders were appointed for the new regions: Sinai, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Also that day, at the conclusion of a meeting of heads of branches in the Defense Ministry, in the office of the deputy chief of staff, there was a call for discussion on when to implement the military government and arrange the army’s activity in the occupied territories.

For his part, on June 12, 1967, two days after the end of the fighting, the defense minister convened a “consultation on the areas of occupation.” Taking part were chief of staff Rabin, assistant to chief of operations Ze’evi, director of Military Intelligence Aharon Yariv, Maj. Gen. Haim Bar Lev and former chief of staff Zvi Tzur, who was Dayan’s aide.

In the meeting, a six-point blueprint for a political plan, drawn up a few days earlier by MI’s research department, was presented. It stated that Israel supported the creation of an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This state would be barred from maintaining a military force, and the Old City of Jerusalem ‏(within the walls‏) would become an open city.

After the meeting Rabin asked Ze’evi to examine the new conditions that would make a settlement possible. After working for two days, Ze’evi submitted his proposal for the State of Ishmael, under which East Jerusalem, the Mount Hebron area, the Jordan Rift Valley and the Latrun enclave ‏(halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv‏) would be annexed to Israel. The rest of the West Bank was to become part of the state of Ishmael. “The Arab refugees in the Mount Hebron area ‏(and in other annexed regions‏) will be transferred to the State of Ishmael and rehabilitated there,” Ze’evi explained. From the demographic viewpoint, he added, “Although the annexation of the Jerusalem region will bring with it a large Arab population, it is important for other reasons.”

According to Ze’evi’s plan, the state of Ishmael would include “the majority of the Arab population of the West Bank: permanent residents, refugees in Samaria and refugees to be transferred ‏(23,000‏) from Mount Hebron.” The planned state would have a population of 623,000 upon its establishment. The remaining 260,000 inhabitants of the West Bank − most of them in Jerusalem and Hebron − were to be annexed to Israel.

Ze’evi needed only two days to formulate his proposal. Because he had only limited data to work from and was unencumbered by policy dictates, his plan was preliminary only and was missing significant details about the international status and degree of independence of the envisioned political entity. In broad terms, Ze’evi determined that “responsibility for the State of Ishmael’s security and foreign affairs will be in Israel’s hands.

Israel will be permitted to maintain military forces in the abandoned camps of the Jordanian Arab army or in operational deployment as needed.” The state of Ishmael was to have free access to an Israeli port, and residents of both states would have free passage, with one exception: The Ishmaelites would be barred from taking up permanent residence in Israel.

Ze’evi even specified the borders of the new state and included a map. “In northern Jerusalem the border has been moved so that the Qalandiyah airport ‏(henceforth to be called Jerusalem North‏) will remain in Israel’s hands. The Jordan Rift Valley has been left outside the State of Ishmael, with the border to pass 500 meters west of the longitudinal road, with two exceptions: 1. Jericho and its adjoining refugee camps, so that no further population will be absorbed into Israel; 2. the entry to Wadi Fara, where there is also a concentration of refugees ‏(a bypass connecting road can be built in this section‏). The Latrun enclave will be annexed to Israel. There are only four Arab villages in that area.” ‏(The enclave has yet to be annexed, but the residents were expelled during the war and their villages leveled.‏)

In an alternative proposal for borders, which appeared on the attached map in the form of a broken line, Ze’evi recommended expanding the area under Israeli control at the expense of the state of Ishmael. However, he noted, there were two drawbacks to this option: “The addition of an Arab population to Israel” and “the further reduction in size of the Arab state, a fact that potential Arab leaders will find difficult to accept.”

Ze’evi used the occasion to consider the future of Israel’s Arab citizens as well. “A preliminary examination is being made of a proposal to annex most of the villages of the Israeli Triangle to the State of Ishmael,” he wrote, referring to the concentration of Arab towns and villages − notably Baka al-Garbiyeh, Tira and Umm al-Fahm − adjacent to the Green Line. “This proposal has the advantage of ‘sweetening the pill’ for the future leaders of the State of Ishmael, but also has the following limitations: reducing Israel’s size; the need to obtain the agreement of the Arabs in the relevant villages; complications regarding a number of Jewish communities located between and adjacent to the villages in question; a dangerous precedent of reducing the size of the ‘original’ Israel which is liable to stir similar longings with respect to the Arab Galilee. Accordingly, it is suggested not to deal with this matter at this stage.”
…
On June 9, while the war still raged, staff officer Moshe Tadmor issued an urgent order to the military government headquarters created the previous day in Gaza, Sinai and the West Bank, on behalf of the civil security unit of the General Staff Operations Branch: “Maj. Gen. Ben-Gal of the Israel Lands Administration has asked us to obtain and safeguard all land registration records” and transfer them to the agency. Two days later, military commanders in the field received a communique from ILA counsel Maj. Dov Shefi, instructing them to guard the documents until an ILA official arrived to take possession.

Ten days after the war, the deputy director of the Justice Ministry land registration department, Y. Link, met with Maj. Gen. Uzi Narkis, GOC Central Command and commander of the Israeli forces in the West Bank, and submitted a formal request to the same effect, signed by the justice minister. Narkis approved the request and sent a confirmation in writing to military advocate general Meir Shamgar.

The next day, Shamgar wrote to Link: “I would be grateful if in the course of conducting the survey that it has been agreed will be done by your unit, you would pay particular attention to the question of the ownership/leasing of the Jewish settlement known as Kfar Hashiloh. Information on this subject interests us, as we know there was a Jewish settlement in this village for decades. Of course, this is not the only Jewish settlement of this kind, but I request that you instruct your assistants to provide us with information about the above-mentioned settlement as soon as possible.”

The Palestinians know Kfar Hashiloh as Silwan [now a hotspot in East Jerusalem where Israeli settlers and the semi-private guards who protect them, and privatiized archeological activities are threatening Palestinian homes]“.

This is posted on the Haaretz website here.

This is a little bit confusing. Surely the reporter doesn’t mean all of Area C? This is where the Israeli settlements are located, and Israel will not turn them over to the PA, at least not now. Area C, a designation of Palestinian territory where Israel retains full security control according to terms of the Oslo Accords (which divided the West Bank into Areas A, B, and C in the mid-1990s), comprises over 60% of the West Bank.

Some of the West Bank’s prime agricultural land is also Area C — as are most major and many minor roads. Palestinians living in Area C have had great difficulty in getting permits to build (n.b. — except, as I have written many times before on this blog, in the “Seam Zone” of Dahiet al-Bariid on the Israeli side of The Wall, and their permits were obtained from the ar-Ram municipal council, on the Palestinian side of The Wall).

There have been rumors in the regional media for weeks about discussions of possible “upgrading” of at least parts of Area C into Area B (where there is supposed to be joint Israel-Palestinian security control), and of Area B into Area A (where there is supposed to be full Palestinian control, such as the city of Ramallah).

According to today’s YNet report, the Palestinian source said that “The Israelis have expressed their willingness to seriously implement a real ease of restrictions, and not a fictitious one, which would help the Palestinian Authority … We will see how Mitchell’s ideas are accepted by Arab states before we deliver response to the American side,’ he added. The source also said that according to Mitchell’s latest offers, the negotiations between Israel and the PA would resume in stages and on two different levels. According to the source, the parties would first clarify the basic guidelines of the talks on an indirect channel. If the first stage is believed to be a success, it would be followed by negotiations between high-ranking officials. ‘In any case, it must end with a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders’, the source stated. Nonetheless, the PA sources found it difficult to estimate whether Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas planned to return to the negotiation table, but said that Mitchell’s proposals guaranteed a real examination of the talks’ framework and each party’s need to meet its commitments. ‘The same question remains whether the Israelis are serious or not’, the source said. ‘We don’t want talks about willingness to make far-reaching moves, but actions on the ground – led by a stop to settlements’.” This article by Ali Waked is posted
here.

At the beginning of the month of January, Ali Waked reported in YNet that “The Palestinian sources said senior Egyptian and American officials are scheduled to hold discussions over the course of the next two weeks in hopes that they will give US special Mideast envoy George Mitchell the opportunity to present an agreement on the resumption of peace talks as early as the second half of January. The sources said the negotiations will be based on the ‘Clinton outline’, according to which Arab neighborhoods in east Jerusalem will be under the sovereignty of the Palestinian Authority, while the Jewish quarters will remain under Israeli rule. According to the sources, a team led by chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat had met with Israeli negotiators headed by Netanyahu advisor Attorney Yitzhak Molcho to determine the general guidelines for the peace talks. [n.b. - reports emerged elsewhere during the month that Erekat was meeting Israel's State President Shimon Peres, informally, on a weekly basis]
One of these guidelines states that the process will result in the establishment of an independent Palestinian state and that all of the core issues, including Jerusalem and the status of the Palestinian refugees, would be put on the table. The parties, said the sources, agreed that the 1967 borders would be the basis for any negotiation. The Palestinians said Israel refuses to put a time limit on the negotiations, which they said would be conducted during the temporary settlement construction freeze recently declared by Israel”…

This same article, published on 1 January, also reported that “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Mubarak in Cairo earlier this week. According to the Prime Minister’s Office, ‘The two leaders discussed ways to jumpstart the peace process with the Palestinians, as well as the efforts to release kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit’ … During his talks with Mubarak, Netanyahu stated that Israel’s conditions include Palestinian recognition of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and the demilitarization of a future Palestinian state. The PM stressed that while he does not oppose discussions on the core issues, the refugee issue would not be resolved by Israel and Jerusalem’s status as Israel’s united capital was indisputable. According to his past statements, Netanyahu would agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders without ceding territories that include large settlement blocs or settlements that are deemed vital to Israel’s security”. [n.b. - I am not so sure about how liberally the last sentence should be interpreted...]. This article can be viewed here.

Coming back to Area C, The Independent’s veteran correspondent in Lebanon, Robert Fisk, was apparently in Israel and the West Bank recently. He published two articles yesterday, fuming about restrictions and conditions for the Palestinians living in Area C — a designation he called a “sinister sobriquet”. [Fisk also argues that the real disaster is in the West Bank, not in Jerusalem -- a view which is the inverse of the positions of many Israeli activists...]

In the first, entitled “Why does the US turn a blind eye to Israeli bulldozers? Most of the West Bank is under rule which amounts to apartheid by paper”, Fisk wrote that “This majority of the West Bank – known under the defunct Oslo Agreement’s sinister sobriquet as ‘Area C” – has already fallen under an Israeli rule which amounts to apartheid by paper: a set of Israeli laws which prohibit almost all Palestinian building or village improvements, which shamelessly smash down Palestinian homes for which permits are impossible to obtain, ordering the destruction of even restored Palestinian sewage systems. Israeli colonists have no such problems; which is why 300,000 Israelis now live – in 220 settlements which are all internationally illegal – in the richest and most fertile of the Palestinian occupied lands. When Obama’s elderly envoy George Mitchell headed home in humiliation this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu celebrated his departure by planting trees in two of the three largest Israeli colonies around Jerusalem. With these trees at Gush Etzion and Ma’aleh Adumim, he said, he was sending ‘a clear message that we are here. We will stay here. We are planning and we are building’. These two huge settlements, along with that of Ariel to the north of Jerusalem, were an ‘indisputable part of Israel forever’. It was Netanyahu’s victory celebration over the upstart American President who had dared to challenge Israel’s power not only in the Middle East but in America itself. And while the world this week listened to Netanyahu in the Holocaust memorial commemoration for the genocide of six million Jews, abusing Iran as the new Nazi Germany – Iran’s loony president supposedly as evil as Hitler – the hopes of a future ‘Palestine’ continued to dribble away. President Ahmadinejad of Iran is no more Adolf Hitler than the Israelis are Nazis. But the ‘threat’ of Iran is distracting the world. So is Tony Blair yesterday, trying to wriggle out of his bloody responsibility for the Iraq disaster. The real catastrophe, however, continues just outside Jerusalem, amid the fields, stony hills and ancient caves of most of the West Bank”. This Robert Fisk article is published here.

In the second of his two articles published yesterday, whose title asserts that “Palestine is slowly dying”, Fisk writes that “A drive along the wild roads of Area C – from the outskirts of Jerusalem to the semi-humid basin of the Jordan valley – runs through dark hills and bare, stony valleys lined with deep, ancient caves, until, further east, lie the fields of the Palestinians and the Jewish settlers’ palm groves – electrified fences round the groves – and the mud or stone huts of Palestinian sheep farmers. This paradise is a double illusion. One group of inhabitants, the Israelis, may remember their history and live in paradise. The smaller group, the Palestinian Arabs, are able to look across these wonderful lands and remember their history – but they are already out of paradise and into limbo. Even the western NGOs working in Area C find their work for Palestinians blocked by the Israelis. This is not just a ‘hitch’ in the ‘peace process’ – whatever that is – but an international scandal. Oxfam, for example, asked the Israelis for a permit to build a 300m2 capacity below-ground reservoir along with 700m of underground 4in pipes for the thousands of Palestinians living around Jiftlik. It was refused. They then gave notice that they intended to construct an above-ground installation of two glass-fibre tanks, an above-ground pipe and booster pump. They were told they would need a permit even though the pipes were above ground – and they were refused a permit. As a last resort, Oxfam is now distributing rooftop water tanks. I came across an even more outrageous example of this apartheid-by-permit in the village of Zbeidat, where the European Union’s humanitarian aid division installed 18 waste water systems to prevent the hamlet’s vile-smelling sewage running through the gardens and across the main road into the fields. The £80,000 system – a series of 40ft shafts regularly flushed out by sewage trucks – was duly installed because the location lay inside Area B, where no planning permission was required. Yet now the aid workers have been told by the Israelis that work ‘must stop’ on six of the 18 shafts – a prelude to their demolition, although already they are already built beside the road – because part of the village stands in Area C. Needless to say, no one – neither Palestinians nor Israelis – knows the exact borderline between B and C. Thus around £20,000 of European money has been thrown away by the Israeli ‘Civil Administration’ [n.b. - despite its name, this is a part of the Israeli military]. But in one way, this storm of permission and non-permission papers is intended to obscure the terrible reality of Area C. Many Israeli activists as well as western NGOs suspect Israel intends to force the Palestinians here to leave their lands and homes and villages and depart into the wretchedness of Areas B and A. B is jointly controlled by Israeli military and civil authorities and Palestinian police, and A by the witless Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas. Thus would the Palestinians be left to argue over a mere 40 per cent of the occupied West Bank – in itself a tiny fraction of the 22 per cent of Mandated Palestine over which the equally useless Yasser Arafat once hoped to rule. Add to this the designation of 18 per cent of Area C as ‘closed military areas’ by the Israelis and add another 3 per cent preposterously designated as a ‘nature reserve’ – it would be interesting to know what kind of animals roam there – and the result is simple: even without demolition orders, Palestinians cannot build in 70 per cent of Area C. Along one road, I discovered a series of large concrete blocks erected by the Israeli army in front of Palestinian shacks. ‘Danger – Firing Area’ was printed on each in Hebrew, Arabic and English. ‘Entrance Forbidden’. What are the Palestinians living here supposed to do?”
This Robert Fisk article can be read in full here.

Now, it has been seized upon — largely for its lurid appeal (it’s sensational, runs against official positions, appears to be based on deep insights, and, it sells) to propagandists — by some of the Israeli and pro-Israeli media crowd.

Do Palestinians (at least those in the West Bank) really want a State?

Now, one writer in the Jerusalem Post (he’s Shmuel Rosner, based in Washington), has written — reviewing articles written in recent months — that the question of the moment is: “Do Palestinians really want a state”. And the answer, he wrote, is this: “In sum, two years ago, an open question, more recently, no, no and no“.

Rosner then went on to mock a comment by Ed Abington, former US Consul General in Jerusalem and former adviser to the Palestinian Authority, who, Rosner wrote: ” has commented yesterday on my link to these new articles with this sarcastic massage: “I’m sure Kaplan and Grygiel are right; most Palestinians would prefer to live under Israeli occupation forever than accept responsibility for running their own affairs. Duh“.

Yes, Duh. Because the Palestinians do want a state. The question for them is, what kind? And, of course, there is no real debate on the Palestinian political scene that might illuminate the issues on there side — they are too busy looking over their shoulders, worrying about what their enemies and rivals would say. So, instead of hashing out the issues amongst themselves, the Palestinians are just developing their critique of Israel.

There have been no real intellectual advances, of course.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian stasis is calling their wish to have a state into question.

Rosner summed up the arguments — most recent first, and which, as it can be seen, all involve some form of mocking and/or disparagement of the Palestinians — in his two postings here and here. Here are his references (with additional excerpts added by myself):

Robert Kaplan in the Atlantic:
The statelessness of Palestinian Arabs has been a principal feature of world politics for more than half a century. It is the signature issue of our time. The inability of Israelis and Palestinians to reach an accord of mutual recognition and land-for-peace has helped infect the globe with violence and radicalism—and has long been a bane of American foreign policy … Obviously, part of the problem has been Israeli intransigence. Despite seeming to submit to territorial concessions, one Israeli government after another has quietly continued to bolster illegal settlements in the occupied territories. The new Israeli government may be the worst yet … The prospects for peace under this government are fundamentally bleak. And yet this Israeli government faithfully represents the Israeli electorate, which is in utter despair over the impossibility of finding credible partners on the Palestinian side with which to negotiate … But there is a deeper structural and philosophical reason why the Palestinians remain stateless—a reason more profound than the political narrative would indicate … [Then, Kaplan builds on an argument developed in an essay by someone else, which was not specifically about the Palestinians, and goes on to postulate that]: “Instead of actively seeking statehood to address their weakness, as Zionist Jews did in an earlier phase of history, groups like the Palestinians now embrace their statelessness as a source of power … [A] state is a target that can be destroyed or damaged, and hence pressured politically. It was the very quasi-statehood achieved by Hamas in the Gaza Strip that made it easier for Israel to bomb it. A state entails responsibilities that limit a people’s freedom of action. A group like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the author notes, could probably take over the Lebanese state today, but why would it want to? Why would it want responsibility for providing safety and services to all Lebanese? Why would it want to provide the Israelis with so many tempting targets of reprisal? Statelessness offers a level of ‘impunity’ from retaliation”. This article can be read in full here.

Rosner, who (being in the US, might be more aware of this) wrote that the question is, “Do the Palestinians really want a state?”, summarized Bradley Burston in Haaretz as writing: “rather than just the flag they already have and the representative at the United Nations they already have, and the righteous indignation that they have in spades”? But, Burston also wrote this, significantly blaming the Palestinians alone for the Second Intifada, and therefore (his argument says) for turning the entire Israeli political scene so bitter and demanding): “Do Palestinians really want a State? At first blush, the question seems preposterous. The Palestinian people have voiced their acute desire for an independent state since the day, whatever it may have been, that they became the Palestinian people. In fact, until recently it seemed that nearly the whole world, Eastern and Western Europe, the entirety of Asia and Africa, many of the nations of the Americas – everyone, that is, except for the United States and Israel – wanted there to be an independent Palestine. In time, even Israel and Washington came around. In a surreal turn, Ariel Sharon, the mantra of whose ashram had long been “Jordan is [the real] Palestine,” announced his support in 2003 for the U.S.-sponsored road map peace plan, which provided for, though would fail to deliver, an independent Palestinian state by 2005. But even as Sharon rammed the road map through the cabinet, the cause of Palestinian statehood was being undermined – by the Palestinians themselves … As Arafat stood by, losing his place in history even as he sought to keep his place among the Palestinians, bomb after bomb after bomb distanced Palestinians from the state they nearly had, could already have had, should have had, by the end of the last decade. The Palestinians, still shrouded in the self-pitying, self-adoring arrogance of the truly humiliated – the same arrogance they so fiercely hate in the Jews – are still busy proving what a victory the Intifada was. Yet the real proof of the outcome of the Intifada lies in the change in Hamas declarations. For the first time, they have begun to speak of a demand for an Israeli return to the 1967 borders, as opposed to a Jewish withdrawal to the Mediterranean and beyond. If nothing else, the reference to the 1967 borders demonstrates the danger to the Palestinians that the world will come to accept the Sharon-Bush vision of West Bank settlement blocs as part of Israel. Thanks to the Intifada, Palestine is shrinking before the Palestinians’ very eyes … Today, the question of whether the Palestinians can take the steps necessary to maintain a state – that is to say, whether they really do want a state, rather than just the flag they already have and the representative at the United Nations they already have, and the righteous indignation that they have in spades – remains an open question. If they would rather demand the right of return until the end of time, rather than accepting some formula that amounts to a lesser gain, and with it, a Palestinian state, then the question is answered. If they would rather insist on the right to violent resistance against Israel – allying themselves in the minds of others, if not in their own, with terrorist movements that bedevil civilized countries worldwide – rather than a renunciation of armed struggle and entrance into the community of nations, then we have their answer. If they insist on a one-state solution, then it is a one-state solution that they will get, and that state will be Israel. Today the question of what the Palestinians really want, and whether what they really want at this point is a state, is being asked more and more … Do the Palestinians really want a state? What they have told us in deed and in word is ‘Yes, but on our own terms’. They either mean that or they don’t. If they do, I’ll wager that they’ll have themselves some form of a state by somewhere around 2028. Forty years bumbling and blustering and procrastinating their way through the wilderness. My guess is that they’re smarter than that, though. They’ll do as Lenny Bruce once bitterly quipped: ‘Be a man – sell out’. They’ll do what we do. Lie to themselves, swallow the compromises they can’t disguise with feints of word and gesture. I wish them luck. They’re going to need a lot more of it than they’ve had ’til now”. This can be read in full here.

Josef Joffe in The Wall Street Journal – this, not surprisingly, is a sophisticated and well-written argument based on the premises of the Israeli right-wing, particularly the Likud, but also including Kadima. Joffe says the problem is that Palestinians elected Hamas (the obvious flaw in this point is that voters in the West Bank also elected Hamas, but never mind) in the wake of Israel’s (in his view) entirely benevolent “disengagement” from Gaza, which (in his view) offered the Gazans, at least, a chance of having their own state (despite Israel’s continuing control over Gazan sovereignty). But, according to Jaffe’s argument, the real and main issue is Iran — and, like the Israeli political echelon, he exhibits no sense of perspective, he does not view Israeli intents to suppress any effort of Iran to assert regional leadership as part of the problem. No, Iran is completely to blame. Joffe writes: “It was Kassam time, with Hamas firing the missiles and Israel tightening the blockade. This is known, in the media vernacular, as a “spiral of violence.” But if the missiles were the answer to the blockade, why did Hamas target the border passages and the power plant next door that supplied Gaza with electricity? So much irrationality makes perfect sense if we posit a different strategic game. Hamas’s object is provoking Israel to prove that it doesn’t care about the consequences. Indeed, it wants bad things to happen to its own people. This will mobilize the ‘Arab street’ and the world’s media against Israel while demonstrating its absolute imperviousness to pain and threats of more. ‘Bring it on’, is great for Hamas’s credibility, pride and honor, but for the purpose of statehood, it would behave very differently. It would wheel and deal, cajole and dissimulate. It would play quid pro quo, not Kassams against F-16s … [But] double-statehood is not their No. 1 priority. They want it all, and if they can’t get it, they would rather nurse their honor, pride and sense of righteous victimhood than engage in the sordid business of compromise. At any rate, the simple two-state solution is now off the table. Most Israelis (minus the settlers and their supporters) have come around to two states. But never again will Israel vacate territory (as in Gaza) without making sure that it won’t turn into a strategic springboard against the heartland. Never again will Israel relinquish control over a border like the Philadelphi Corridor that served as entry point for Iranian missiles into Gaza. It will insist on a strategic presence in the Jordan Valley. Nor can Israel yield military control over the West Bank. What a twist of fate. Today, it is the Israeli Defense Force that guarantees the survival of Fatah and President Mahmoud Abbas against Hamas, Jihad and their Iranian sponsors. Here is the bitter irony. Fatah might want to make peace, but doesn’t have the power to deliver; Hamas has the power, but it doesn’t want peace, dreaming about a ‘final solution’ that wipes Israel off this part of the map … The upside is that today Palestine is less than ever the ‘core’ of the Middle East conflict. The real issue is Iran and its reach for regional hegemony. The conventional wisdom has it that peace for Palestine would weaken Tehran’s mischief potential, robbing it of a rallying point for the Arab masses. Actually, it is the other way round. Iran will use its power, through its proxies, to demolish whatever deal might be hashed out by Israel and the Palestinian Authority. For Iran’s game is not a two-state solution, let alone peace. Rather, its object is to intimidate America’s Arab supporters and to eliminate Israel as America’s strongest regional ally. So for the Obama administration, Israel/Palestine has become an intractable sideshow on a vastly enlarged stage that extends from Haifa to Herat”…This argument can be read in full here.

Now, apparently, the report — containing “recommendations for U.S. Middle East peacemaking” — has been released. Entitled “A Last Chance for a Two-State Israel-Palestine Agreement”, it can be read in full here].

It suggests the following:
“1. Present a Clear U.S. Vision to End the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict … The U.S. parameters should reflect the following fundamental compromises:
• Two states, based on the lines of June 4, 1967, with minor, reciprocal, and agreed-upon modifications as expressed in a 1:1 land swap, to take into account areas heavily populated by Israelis in the West Bank;
• A solution to the refugee problem consistent with the two-state solution, that does not entail a general right of return, addresses the Palestinian refugees’ sense of injustice, and provides them with meaningful financial compensation as well as resettlement assistance;
• Jerusalem as home to both capitals, with Jewish neighborhoods falling under Israeli sovereignty and Arab neighborhoods under Palestinian sovereignty, with special arrangements for the Old City providing each side control of its respective holy places and unimpeded access by each community to them;
• A non-militarized Palestinian state, together with security mechanisms that address Israeli concerns while respecting Palestinian sovereignty, and a U.S.-led multinational force to ensure a peaceful transitional security period. This coalition peacekeeping structure, under UN mandate, would feature American leadership of a NATO force supplemented by Jordanians, Egyptians and Israelis. We can envision a five-year, renewable mandate with the objective of achieving full Palestinian domination of security affairs on the Palestine side of the line within 15 years.
2. Encourage Israeli-Syrian Negotiations
3. A More Pragmatic Approach Toward Hamas and a Palestinian Unity Government”.

Kathleen and Bill Christison took the report apart, in an article published in Counterpunch on 15 April, in which they wrote: “The end of George W. Bush’s long tenure and the advent of Barack Obama have now given rise to other initiatives that are as naïve and myopic as the aid pledges [to reconstruct Gaza]– myopic because, wittingly or not, they come from a starting point that is totally centered on Israel and its demands and totally oblivious to Israel’s barbaric behavior”…

The Christison’s critique continued: “Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton speak earnestly of the ‘inevitability’ and the ‘inescapability’ of a solution based on two states, without regard to the growing impossibility of a real Palestinian state or to the fact that Israel is killing off any prospect for such a state and is in fact openly killing off the Palestinians. The early months of the administration, and the appointment of George Mitchell as special Middle East envoy, are bringing out others who, more enamored of the process than of any prospect of genuine peace, blindly pursue the ‘peace-process industry’ regardless of realities on the ground or the virtual guarantee of failure. Probably the most detailed plan purporting to lay out a path toward a two-state solution was actually written before Obama took office and is only now being publicized. This plan — entitled “A Last Chance for a Two-State Israel-Palestine Agreement” — was drawn up in December by a group of well meaning U.S. elder statesmen, including Brent Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Lee Hamilton, and Paul Volcker, the only one of the ten to enter the Obama administration. The elders were drawn together by Henry Seigman, a former head of the American Jewish Committee and scholar of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict who has distinguished himself in recent years by his frank, realistic criticism of the Israeli occupation. The proposal is a 17-page blueprint for achieving the impossible. It approaches the conflict from an Israel-centered perspective and indeed, by heavily emphasizing the need to meet Israel’s security needs, contains the prescription for its own failure. The report devotes a remarkable one-fifth of its entire length to an annex on “Addressing Israel’s Security Challenges”, in addition to considerable verbiage devoted to this subject in the body of the document. There is no mention whatsoever of any need to ensure Palestine’s security against threats from Israel”.

The Christisons write that “The impulse behind this plan is admirable: it recognizes the centrality of the Palestinian- Israeli conflict to other issues and U.S. interests in the Middle East; it urges that the new administration overturn the Bush administration’s eight years of disengagement from the conflict and do so quickly; it calls for engaging Hamas; and it urges that the peace effort be undertaken even at the cost of angering ‘certain domestic constituencies’. But the plan itself is naïve and oblivious to the brutal realities of the situation, which existed even before the Gaza assault. Because it takes no account of Israel’s lethal intentions toward the Palestinians or its responsibility for the current level of violence, the report actually encourages Israeli intransigence while blithely assuming that this rigidity can be overcome by issuing a plan on a few pieces of paper while the U.S. continues to send Israel the arms necessary to destroy Palestine. The report exists in a never-never land in which Israel has no responsibility for occupying Palestinian land and has concerns only for its own security but no obligations to the Palestinians. The report refers repeatedly to the ‘chicken and egg’ security situation in the occupied territories — as if it cannot be determined whether Israel’s occupation or Palestinian resistance to it came first, as if the occupation is not the reason for Palestinian resistance, as if the Palestinian suicide bombings that the report says cause Israel ‘understandable anxiety’ might have arisen out of nowhere rather than precisely out of Israel’s oppression. The plan addresses the requirements of peace between the two envisioned states almost solely in terms of Israel’s needs — not only its security needs, but its settlements needs and its concerns about Palestinian refugees’ right of return. For instance, while it calls for the border between the two states to be ‘based on’ the lines of June 1967 with only minor reciprocal modifications, it recommends that the United States ‘take into account areas heavily populated by Israelis in the West Bank’. Although the language minimizes the magnitude of this issue, this passage means that accommodation must be made for major Israeli settlement blocs, which include approximately ten percent of the small Delaware-sized West Bank, cover virtually the entirety of East Jerusalem, and include fully 85 percent of the 475,000 settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In April 2004, George Bush gave Ariel Sharon a letter that officially granted U.S. approval to Israel’s retention of what Bush called ‘major [Jewish] population centers’ in the West Bank, thus altering what had been almost 40 years of U.S. policy supporting a virtually full Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories. Bill Clinton’s ‘parameters’ outlined in 2000 had done the same on a somewhat smaller scale by proposing to allow Israel to retain its settlements — referred to by the anodyne term ‘neighborhoods’ — in East Jerusalem. The latest proposal by the elder statesmen repeats this Clinton dictum and in general endorses both Clinton’s and Bush’s declarations unilaterally ceding Palestinian land to Israel, without negotiation or consultation with Palestinians”.

Moreover, the Christisons argue, “This proposal also gives away the Palestinians’ right of return. Although it gives a nod to the refugees’ ‘sense of injustice’ and calls for ‘meaningful financial compensation’, it declares, again unilaterally and pre-emptively, that resolution of the refugee problem should ‘protect Israel from an influx of refugees’ — meaning that the right would not be available to all or even most refugees who might choose to return to the homes and land inside Israel from which they were expelled. This provision would ‘protect’ Israel from any requirement that it rectify the massive injustice it perpetrated in 1948 and would require that the victims be satisfied, after 60-plus years, with a little money and a home somewhere outside their own homeland”.

A main point, according to the Christisons, is that “The major element of the elders’ report proposes that the Palestinian state would be non- militarized and would be policed by a U.S.-led, UN-mandated multinational force that would function for five years but would have a renewable mandate, the intention being to permit Palestinians to control their own security affairs (and of course be able to guarantee Israel’s security) within 15 years. The force would be a NATO force supplemented by Jordanian, Egyptian and — amazingly enough — Israeli troops. The Alice-in-Wonderland aspect of this particular proposal is the elders’ assumption that Palestinian sovereignty would somehow be respected even as the Palestinians were being forced to turn their security over to a multinational force that included not merely elements of multiple outside armies, but troops from the very oppressor the Palestinians are presumed to have just shed by attaining statehood”.

And, they write, “This is the kind of ‘peace-process industry’ nonsense that renders proposals such as this utterly meaningless. The proposal gives away, before negotiations have begun, more than any state-to-be could ever possibly afford to give. It cedes territory in what would be the Palestinian state before Palestinians are even able to sit down at the negotiating table. It cedes, without cavil or apology, the Palestinians’ right to redress of a gross injustice that is, and has been from the beginning 60-plus years ago, the fundamental Palestinian grievance against Israel. It cedes Palestinian sovereignty and security by inviting in an international security force including troops of precisely the occupying force that the Palestinians seek to be rid off. And it cedes any viability in the new so-called state. The elders who composed this document should know better. Some of them have actually worked as specialists on the Arab-Israeli conflict in the past, and the proposal’s convener Henry Siegman has been working on this issue for decades. But the proposal exhibits so little understanding of the extent to which Israel has already absorbed the West Bank into itself that it would appear that none of these individuals has ever even visited the region” …

This critique of the recommendations recently made to Obama was published on Counterpunch here.

In the story, Sofer reported that “Prime Minister Ehud Olmert attempted to clarify Thursday alleged promises he had made in a so-called ‘final offer’ to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in September 2008, which included the eviction of tens of thousands of settlers and territorial concessions in Jerusalem. ‘There was one point when I put things on the table and offered Abbas something that had never been offered and dealt with the crux of the problem, with the most sensitive issues that touch the most exposed nerves and historical obstacles’, Olmert said during a Thursday conference in Herzliya. ‘I told him – “let’s sign”. It was half a year ago and I’m still waiting’, he said. Senior officials said that a meeting of the leaders in the Prime Minister’s resident in Jerusalem involved a ‘final offer to end the conflict’. The offer involved a future border between a possible Palestinian state to Israel, involving the eviction of the more than 60,000 settlers living beyond the security barrier in the West Bank – the proposed new border between the two entities. The offer involved a return of 93% of the West Bank, leaving in Israel the large population centers, such as Ariel and Elkanah in the north, Maaleh Adumim in the center, and Jerusalem and Gush Etzion in the south. Regarding Jerusalem itself, Olmert offered to cede over to the Palestinians the peripheral neighborhoods and the refugee camps surrounding the city, such as Kalandia. The holy sites, whose sovereignty is desired by all faiths, would be determined within an international framework, the prime minister said. The plan was also presented to the Americans who, according to the Prime Minister’s Office, supported the plan. They apparently also expressed optimism that the offer would be acceptable to the Palestinians”…

This account was published in full in YNet here.

Today, Gershon Baskin, the Israeli co-CEO (with Palestinian Hanna Siniora) of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information, wrote in the Jerusalem Post that the outlines of a package deal have taken shape. All that needs to be done is to grasp the opportunity.

Baskin writes: “The only way to prevent the next round of violence, which will signal the beginning of the end of the two-state solution, is to reach an agreement as soon as possible. It may not be possible before the end of the Bush administration, but the parties should already indicate their commitment to go beyond that deadline into the beginning of the next US administration. Both sides will have to make concessions on fundamentals, crossing lines that were painted “red” for them in the past. There is a package deal that can be reached and agreed upon.

“The Palestinian state will have to be established on about 96 percent-97% of the West Bank and all of Gaza (once the political regime there changes). Israel will have to give up most of the West Bank, including the ‘Ariel finger’, and should consider accepting a fair monetary price from the Palestinians for Ma’aleh Adumim – two areas that take up huge tracks of land in the West Bank . Most of the settlers will be able to remain in the areas where they live today.

“The parties have already accepted the principle of a 50-50 split of the ‘no-man’s’ land areas alongside of the Green Line. Finding 3%-4% of land inside of the Green Line for a swap is not so problematic. The Palestinians already understand and are willing to wait a period of at least five years for Israel to vacate all of the settlements that will be transferred to them. They are also ready to offer citizenship to settlers who may wish to remain within their state.

“PART OF the package includes recognizing that Jerusalem will be the capital of both countries. The Palestinian capital will be in the Palestinian parts of east Jerusalem and Israel ‘s capital will remain in west Jerusalem . The Palestinians understand that the Jewish neighborhoods within the municipal boundaries that were built after 1967 will remain under Israeli sovereignty. They account for about 1% of the West Bank .

“The Old City will be shared under a special regime, perhaps with international involvement, or through the division of sovereignty within its walls. The Palestinians will have sovereignty over the Muslim, Christian and Armenian Quarters and Israel will have sovereignty over the Jewish Quarter. The Jewish Quarter is already physically separated from the other quarters by internal checkpoints. The Palestinians will have sovereignty or guardianship over the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif and Israel will have sovereignty or guardianship over the Western Wall. Both sides will agree not to dig, excavate, renovate or construct anything on, around or underneath the “Holy Compound” without mutual agreement.

“All of the mainstream rabbinic authorities agree that no Jew should enter the area of the Temple Mount until the messiah comes. Until that time, the Temple Mount will be turned over the Palestinians de jure instead of just de facto as now. When the messiah comes, we can all agree to place the issue of sovereignty in his/her hands.

“Both sides will guarantee the right of access and prayer at holy places within their sovereign areas for members of the relevant faiths from the other state.

“PALESTINIAN REFUGEES will go home to the state of Palestine . Perhaps Israel will accept some humanitarian cases of family reunification. There will be financial compensation available for all Palestinian refugees for real property loss claims and for suffering. The State of Israel will participate in an international fund for that purpose.

“Palestinians and Israelis will recognize the Jewishness of Israel and the Palestinianess of Palestine. Both sides will agree to ensure the equal rights and opportunities for minorities within their state. Palestinian Israeli citizens will remain within the State of Israel, as part of their birthright and Jewish citizens of Palestine will be welcome to remain within the Palestinian state as long as they wish.
…
“It may take years to implement the agreement. Everything will depend on the security situation. Both sides will end up agreeing to an international force being stationed within the Palestinian state for an agreed designated period. That force will be composed of and led by European nations.

“It is quite clear that both sides will have to allow their people to vote for the agreement – for it to be ratified by the people…”

The article by Gershon Baskin in the JPost today can be read in full here.

The Jerusalem Post:

Haaretz:

But this is an old photo of Qalandia, because the new reality is of a concrete cattle house, and now these soldiers would be inside protective rooms, and the people would be channeled through confining turnstyles…

And the Jerusalem Post Press is reporting that Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad, speaking in Washington Monday night before meeting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said that “although is was impossible to remove all the roadblocks in one day, Israel should at least make a start”. This JPost story is here.

But he did say this: “In general terms, the president has displayed remarkable indifference bordering on callousness toward the Palestinian predicament. Being attuned to Israeli security concerns, as he should be, should not preclude the president from achieving a human understanding of the Palestinian reality. The president seemed to avoid any exposure to the harshness of Palestinian daily realities during his visit … President Bush went on to dismiss UN resolutions related to the conflict and he is apparently accepting a very limited definition of settlement freeze that does not include either the settlement blocs or East Jerusalem. These positions mark yet another negative contribution to dealing with the conflict from this administration”…

This excerpt is from a post on Daniel Levy’s blog here.