The Geneva Peace Initiative
(Updated December 2003)
Whenever Israelis and Palestinians discuss coexistence,
it is a positive development. The Geneva
Initiative has helped focus attention on the prospects for peace
and created a mood of optimism.
No agreement can be made with the Palestinians without
the full support of Yasser
Arafat. The Palestinian Authority President could proclaim the Geneva Initiative to be his own policy,
but he has not done so; therefore its possibility of implementation
is close to zero.
No agreement with the Palestinians will have any authority
without the backing of the democratically elected government of Israel. The current
government does not support the Geneva plan and was elected by an
overwhelming margin largely on the basis of the electorate’s rejection
of much of the substance of the plan.
Since Israel is a democracy, it is possible that Israeli
public opinion could shift if Israelis were convinced that the Palestinians
would finally end their conflict with Israel on the basis of the Geneva
Initiative. In that case, the existing government, or a new government
(which is one of the goals of the plan’s sponsors) could adopt
the plan. As a dictator, however, Yasser Arafat has no such pressure
to respond to Palestinian public opinion even if most Palestinians favored
the Geneva Initiative.
Shortly after the plan was announced, a James A. Baker
Institute for Public Policy poll showed a narrow majority of Palestinians
and Israelis supported it; however, two other polls of Israelis conducted
by Maariv and Israel Radio found pluralities opposed the agreement.
Other polls show conflicting attitudes. For example, an October 2003
poll by the Palestinian Center for Public Policy found that 59% of Palestinians
support continued attacks inside Israel even if Israel were to withdraw
to the 1967 border and grant
the Palestinians a state in the whole of the West
Bank, including East Jerusalem.
The Substance of the Initiative
Pros
The plan calls for mutual recognition of Israel and
Palestine and the right to secure and defensible borders. It further
proclaims the agreement the end of the conflict.
Israel and Palestine will cooperate in a wide variety
of endeavors for mutual benefit.
The plan provides detailed guidelines for implementing
many of its provisions.
The corridor connecting the Gaza
Strip and the West Bank will remain under Israeli sovereignty and this will provide Israel an
easy means of cutting the Palestinian state in two in the event of a
breach of the security arrangements in the plan.
Palestine will be a “non-militarized” state,
which should minimize the threat to Israel.
Laws are to be promulgated to prevent incitement.
The Palestinians acknowledge the significance of Jerusalem to Judaism and Israel remains in
control of Jewish holy sites in the city.
A menu of options is offered to solve the problem of Palestinian refugees,
and Israel is given discretion as to how many it will allow to enter
its borders.
A method of resolving disputes is specified.
Cons
A peace agreement is meaningless if there is no peace.
The Geneva Initiative does not require an end to terror in advance of the implementation of its terms, so Israel is being asked
to make territorial compromises and accept the creation of a Palestinian
state without the Palestinians first having to satisfy the road
map requirement that it dismantle the terrorist infrastructure.
The Palestinian terrorist factions rejected the Geneva
Initiative and recent cease-fire talks, making clear their determination
to continue their war against Israel. Hamas and Islamic Jihad are committed
by their covenants and philosophies to the destruction of the Jewish
state and cannot accept any compromise. The Palestinian
Authority itself does not recognize Israel, and continues to publish
maps that replace Israel with Palestine.
The initiative does away with the key elements of the road map calling for reform
of the Palestinian Authority.
The plan relies on the quartet to monitor the agreement.
This means that Israel would have to trust that its concerns would be
fairly considered by three parties, the UN, EU, and Russia, that have
been consistently hostile to its interests. Only the United States could
be expected to be sympathetic to Israeli claims.
Jews are to be evacuated from settlements,
but their property is to be transferred to the Palestinians without
any compensation.
Only Arabs would be allowed as residents of Palestine,
but Arabs are permitted to be citizens of Israel.
Though the agreement says that Palestine will be “non-militarized,”
it is difficult to believe that the Palestinians would accept such a
limitation on their sovereignty over the long run, or that Israel would
be able to enforce it without the use of force.
A Palestinian Security Force is responsible for enforcing
the rule of law, and its members are the only individuals allowed to
carry weapons; however, this is precisely the arrangement agreed to
at Oslo that failed miserably.
The Palestinians created a force larger than allowed under the agreement
and the force never fully enforced the law. Furthermore, illegal weapons
are now in the hands of hundreds, if not thousands of Palestinians.
Both the Oslo accords and the road map called for the confiscation of
these weapons. This has not been done and the Geneva Initiative makes
no mention of confiscating illegal arms.
Only one sentence is devoted to the critical issue
of incitement. The agreement calls for laws to prevent incitement, but
these already exist on the Israeli side; it is the Palestinians who
have made no effort to stem irredentism, racism, terrorism, and violence
despite committing to do so in past agreements. The plan also makes
no mention of Palestinian textbooks,
which are teaching future generations a distorted version of history
(e.g., by teaching geography with maps that don’t show Israel)
that discourages coexistence.
A multinational force is to provide security guarantees
to the parties, but the history of such forces in the region has proven
that they offer little security for Israel. The UN
force in Lebanon, for example,
has primarily shielded terrorists operating there while providing no
safety for Israeli residents living along the northern border. Such
a force would make it difficult for Israel to protect itself from potential
threats from Palestine. Moreover, if the Palestinians are committed
to peace, they have no need for protection, except perhaps from Arab
neighbors who may covet their land.
While the Palestinians pledge to protect the Jewish
shrines in Jerusalem, history has shown that they cannot be trusted.
The Palestinians have shown no regard for protecting the archaeological
remains on the Temple
Mount and have destroyed shrines such as Joseph’s
Tomb. The agreement relies again on an international group to guarantee
arrangements.
Israel will lose sovereignty over a large chunk of
its historic capital. In the Old
City, only the Jewish
Quarter remains under its complete control. Two quarters, the Armenian
and Christian, are handed over to the Palestinians without their consent.
Beyond the Old City, Israel is given access to the Mount
of Olives, but, in return, the Palestinians are provided access
to a cemetery in the German Colony, which is at the heart of the city's
nightlife. Ironically, the Templar Cemetery doesn't have any Arabs buried
in it and initiators of the plan have been unable to explain why the
agreement contained this provision.
Numerous Palestinian officials have repeated that they
will never give up the “right of return,” that is, the belief
that refugees should be allowed to go to live in Israel, a position
that is universally rejected in Israel as a formula for the destruction
of Israel.
While the agreement calls for Israel and an international
fund to compensate Palestinian
refugees, it provides no relief for the Jewish refugees who were
forced to leave Arab countries.
The most detailed aspect of the plan calls for compensation
for both the refugees and the states that hosted them. It is particularly
outrageous that the Arab states should be compensated given the years
they have mistreated the refugees, denying them citizenship and restricting
their movement and employment.
The initiative leaves for the future several key matters
for negotiation, especially water.
Israel is required to release all Palestinian prisoners
without regard to whether they are terrorists, murderers, or common
criminals.
Many of the key points, including those related to
security, are supposed to be detailed in an annex that was mentioned
dozens of times in the agreement, but never written.
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