International mediators descended on Israel and the Palestinian territories on Tuesday in a bid to implement a “fragile” bilateral ceasefire.
Following trips to the region by Russian, German and Turkish diplomats, US President George W. Bush announced that CIA director George Tenet would personally broker security talks between the Israelis and Palestinians.
"We believe enough progress has been made on the ceasefire that it is time to send George Tenet to the Middle East to start serious discussions at the security level about how to make sure the ceasefire continues," Bush told journalists at the White House.
Special US envoy William Burns, the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, will also return to Israel and the Palestinian territories, in a bid to consolidate ceasefire arrangements and forestall “violence” so that the next steps in the implementation of the Mitchell plan can be implemented, Haaretz said.
In Jerusalem, Russia's special Middle East envoy, Andrei Vdovin, arrived Tuesday and held talks with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.
He warned that the Middle East remained "on the brink" and called for maximum restraint from Israel and the Palestinians, said AFP.
"We are still on the brink of a very serious situation, and Russia, as co-sponsor (of the peace process), will continue its efforts to ask all parties involved to exercise the maximum restraint so that we do not face terrible consequences of what is happening now," Vdovin told reporters in Jerusalem after meeting with Peres.
Later, Vdovin met in the West Bank town of Ramallah with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and his international cooperation minister, Nabil Shaath, said the Palestinian news agency, WAFA.
The envoy said “Russia is working for the creation of an independent Palestinian state and for Israel's security."
The Russian envoy, on his first official mission to the region, was speaking after Palestinian Arafat ordered an unconditional ceasefire Saturday following a deadly bomb attack in Tel Aviv.
Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire on May 22.
In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov called on Israel and the Palestinians "to strictly observe the resolutions on the ceasefire," said AFP.
"We support this decision by the Israeli and Palestinian administrations. It is very important now," Ivanov told reporters, quoted by Interfax.
Observing the ceasefire "should be followed by the realizing the proposals which, in particular, are contained in the report of the Mitchell Commission and are aimed at reducing the tension and resuming the negotiation process," Ivanov said.
Ivanov also cautioned the Palestinians and Israelis "to foil resolutely any provocation by those who would want to blast the situation apart" in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, WAFA said that Arafat spoke on the telephone late Tuesday with US Secretary of State Colin Powell, their fourth conversation in as many days, and also met with two Turkish diplomats.
In other moves, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer held separate talks in Jordan with King Abdullah and US envoy to the Middle East William Burns on ways of getting Israel and the Palestinians out of a "red zone" of violence and to fully embrace a ceasefire, said reports.
In the meantime, AFP said that a team of European Union military experts was in the West Bank on Tuesday to help the Palestinians put in place the ceasefire ordered over the weekend by Arafat.
The experts, travelling in two vehicles bearing EU flags, went to the Palestinian village of Beit Jala, frequently a site for clashes with the nearby Jewish settlement of Gilo, which Israel considers inside Jerusalem's municipal borders.
A similar EU mission will soon be dispatched to Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, another flashpoint, where 25 Palestinians and three Israeli soldiers were injured in fighting Monday.
An EU diplomat, on condition of anonymity, told AFP that the security teams were providing technical assistance as part of the cooperation between the EU and the Palestinian Authority.
The security advisers had been offered to Arafat by EU envoy to the Middle East Miguel Angel Moratinos during a meeting on Saturday after Arafat declared his ceasefire.
"It is technical support. Its political significance should not be exaggerated," he said. "It is not an observer force or a supervisory body."
"It is something modest," he said, adding the EU wanted to keep a low profile.
He said the EU experts were helping the Palestinian security forces "everywhere they can in order to prevent incidents."
An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman told AFP that Israel was aware of the EU's role, but did not comment further, according to AFP.
On the ground, a Fateh militant wanted by Israel was seriously injured when his car came under fire in the West Bank, a Fatah official said, describing the attack as an Israeli assassination attempt.
Ashraf Bardaweil, 27, was hit when he was driving near the village of Dhanabeh near Tulkarem in the northern West Bank.
"The fight against those terrorists will continue because they continue to fight us," Gissin said, without specifically commenting on the incident, but the army denied involvement, said AFP.
The army has killed a number of Palestinian militants since the Palestinian Intifada.
Later in the day, a six-month-old baby was seriously injured when the car her Jewish settler parents were driving was pelted by stones in the West Bank, Israeli army sources said.
Since the outbreak of the latest Israeli-Palestinian conflict last September, Reuters reports that Palestinians have killed approximately 88 Israelis with weapons ranging from stones and knives to machineguns and car bombs. The latest suicide bombing raises that toll by at least 20. Israeli military sources have reported well over 600 injuries to Israelis of Jewish descent.
In the same time period, according to CNN, Israeli soldiers and armed Jewish settlers have killed 13 Arab Israelis and 450 Palestinians with weapons ranging from machineguns and tanks to US-made Apache helicopter gunships and F-16s. According to Amnesty international, Israeli troops have killed nearly 100 Palestinian children.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society has reported over 14,000 Palestinians wounded.
Jewish author Noam Chomsky, who according to a New York Times Book Review article is “arguably the most important intellectual alive,” has been quoted as saying: “State terrorism is an extreme form of terrorism, generally much worse than individual terrorism because it has the resources of a state behind it.”
ISRAELI MINISTER SAYS ISRAEL WILL AGREE TO CEASEFIRE SUMMIT WITH PA
As international pressure mounted on Israel and the Palestinians to convene a summit to formally sign a ceasefire accord, Israeli Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit said Wednesday the “Sharon government would agree to such a gathering,” reported Haaretz.
"If Arafat displays the responsibility that is being asked of him, and stops the firing absolutely, there is no reason why there should not be a summit," Sheetrit told Army Radio.
Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer has announced that Israel will ease certain restrictions on the Palestinian population, due to the “reduction in violent incidents in the past few days,” said the paper.
Ben-Eliezer said as of Wednesday the Israeli army would allow foodstuffs, agricultural goods, petrol and gas into Palestinian controlled territories.
He also announced Tuesday that Palestinian workers will be allowed into the Erez industrial area on the Gaza Strip border and that Palestinians who were stranded in Egypt and Jordan by the closures would be allowed to enter the territories.
The strict closure was put in place after Friday's suicide bombing in Tel Aviv in which 20 Israelis were killed.
HAARETZ: SHARON, US WORK OUT SETTLEMENT FREEZE DEAL
According to Haaretz, US representatives have managed to work out a settlement freeze formula with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that “they would never have dared dream of under previous Israeli governments.”
"Construction beyond current built-up areas will be frozen" under the formula, said the paper.
According to the terms of the understanding, “no new settlements will be constructed, in accordance with the basic guidelines of the government.”
Other points include:
1- No additional land will be expropriated for the purpose of construction.
2- A freeze on settlement construction beyond existing built-up areas.
3- The above provisions are contingent upon implementation of all other terms of the initiative.
4- The issue of settlements is being reserved for final status negotiations as per existing agreements.
The understanding, said Haaretz, contains the assertion that Israel went a long way in accepting the report of the Mitchell Commission, as evidenced in the comment delivered by Peres to Powell.
SHARON BLASTS ARAFAT AS ‘MURDERER, PATHOLOGICAL LIAR’
In an interview broadcast on the Russian NTV television channel, Sharon on Tuesday lashed out at Arafat, calling him a “murderer and a liar,” said the Associated Press.
"Arafat is a murderer. He's a pathological liar," Sharon told NTV.
It was Sharon's strongest attack against Arafat since he took office March 7, and came as Israel weighed the effectiveness of the ceasefire Arafat called on Saturday.
Though his security cabinet approved military strikes in retaliation for the Tel Aviv bombing, Sharon held fire, to determine whether Arafat's ceasefire call would be implemented, according to the AP.
In the interview, however, Sharon made it clear how he feels about the Palestinian leader. Complaining that Arafat is received "all around the world with a red carpet...like a head of state," Sharon said that instead, he “behaves as the head of terrorists and murderers.” – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
