Those of you here following the P and I negotiations or whatever you choose to call them, will remember that at the time of the last UN meeting, one of the things which was announced as happening was that the Quartet announced that it wished to receive proposals within ninety days from I and PA on the difficult subject of borders and security. The first round of responses is now in. As reported by Ha'aretz here, tonight, (this is being posted Wednesday late PM Pacific Standard time, for early morning display on Thursday).
A summary of what PA submitted and on what premises, as reported by Ha'aretz, is here
The European diplomat said President Abbas submitted his proposal early as a demonstration of flexibility and to garner the support of the international community. Abbas also committed to suspending any unilateral steps at the UN until January 26.
The Palestinian document proposing the borders of a Palestinian state is based on the 1967 lines, but also indicates a willingness to swap 1.9 percent of West Bank territory with that of Israel. The second document deals with security arrangements and includes the Palestinians' consent to an international peacekeeping force on the Israeli border and in the Jordan Valley. It also commits the Palestinians to refrain from forging military alliances with countries hostile to Israel, and also to the demilitarization of the West Bank. The proposal, however, would permit the Palestinians to have limited weaponry.
The Israeli reponse is reported as follows:
A day after meeting with Erekat, the Quartet delegation met with Netanyahu's representative, Isaac Molho, and told the Israeli that they wished to receive a counterproposal from Israel on both issues by the end of January. Molho replied that Israel would not cooperate with this approach, saying the Quartet should instead get the Palestinians to return to direct talks with Netanyahu rather than conducting negotiations on Israel's behalf. Molho said talks should be direct and confidential.
The parties have until January 26 to get their responses in, so that there is yet time for the Israeli government to submit one if it elects to do so.
The article notes that PA's cooperative posture with the Quartet done in public may well get it international points, but given that these are in fact THE talks, this response may merely be a choice of tactics. Insufficient information is available, as there is no parallel JP or other report which I have found.
A material part of the PA proposal is PA's suspension of unilateral international steps such as those at the UN until the same January 26.
The information in the report was supposedly provided by 'a senior Israeli official' and 'a senior European diplomat." There is no reference to anyone at PA making this proposal public or authorizing it. Thus, it is not clear that the public release of the information in the article was official or intended by PA. However, the response that the Israeli government insisted that their response be confidential, is curious, given the sources of this report.
Israel's reported response if true, is also curious, as the writer of the article also noted that initially the Israeli government had welcomed the act of the Quartet in getting matters going. Its response as reported is in contrast to that, now saying that it wants a proposal made directly to Israel, without Quartert participation, and that proposal to be confidential. A bit of a slap in the face to the Quartet.
The 1.9 percent land swap mentioned, may be a material number. If any commenter is aware of a prior proposal with map, using that percentage, the diarist would be appreciative of its being posted as additional information here. No map is supplied with the article and no description of land within the swaps supplied, although one supposes that a swap of such scope would have had identification of the territories proposed, given the precision of the number quoted.
There is no mention of Gaza in the reporting, another curious matter, unless the actual intention of the parties is on both sides to do a WB deal only.
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In the view of the diarist, the release of this specific information, if true, may have various political purposes in addition to reporting that the PA had in fact submitted a proposal within the Quartet time frame, as well as a description of proposed security provisions. This has the look of a leak and not necessarily for informational purposes only.
One of such possible purposes may have been to achieve any available disruption of the ongoing PA Hamas unity discussions in the hope that the security proposals would blow up that conversation, given the proposed Israeli Jordan valley presence, and demilitarization of the Palestinian side in light of events such as the tanks in Gaza reported today in Ma'an here. Assuming Gaza is intended to be included in this deal at all. It will be especially difficult to determine now how demilitarization of Gaza will be achieved given the apparently somewhat limited control Hamas has over some of the entities firing rockets from there according to Israeli newspaper reports, and the want of control the Hamas government had over those controlling Sgt. Shalit. There is also no mention of the fate of the continuing blockade, whose Ma'an reporting today included confiscation of fishing boats, bans on the export of potatoes and garbage trucks, restrictions on supply of electricity, the threats to water, and other civilian economic matters cumulatively difficult.
Another may have been that the elections for the Likud Central committee, and the related issue of over or under representaiton of settlers and resulting influence of that group on Likud is also scheduled for the end of January. The decision on representation of settlers on the Central Committee, and the resulting ability to amend the Charter of Likud by a simple majority during the first three months of the adjustment in membership, which has been reported as one of the issues roiling the Israeli membership of Likud, might also be affected.
A third event affecting the proceedings may be a series of UNGA resolutions apparently passed this week which were denounced by the Israeli UN ambassador and were described by JPost as follows, edited for copyright length described here.
One resolution “reiterates [the General Assembly’s] determination that any actions taken by Israel, the occupying power, to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the Holy City of Jerusalem are illegal and therefore null and void and have no validity whatsoever, and calls upon Israel to immediately cease all such illegal and unilateral measures.”
....
Another resolution “declares that the Israeli decision of 14 December 1981 to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the occupied Syrian Golan is null and void and has no validity whatsoever... and calls upon Israel to rescind it.”
Another resolution called on Israel to withdraw from territory occupied since 1967, including east Jerusalem, and for the cessation of all Israeli settlement activities.
The three additional resolutions passed were praising the work of various bodies involved in the Palestinian issues but not even generally described as to text. They resolutions and the acts of GA were denounced in strong terms by the Israeli UN ambassador in terms included in the article as part of a pattern of bias by the GA, and ignoring realities of Israeli history not given proper consideration by the GA.
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Comments are invited on the above under the usual rules, no OT, no personal insults or abuse, all commenters relying on facts should provide links to their sources for them, and no threadjacking. NO VIOLATIONS OF THE GODWIN RULE, no matter how minor. References to j-rein are violations in this light. If you have personal issues about another poster or the sources of that poster, take them somewhere else, because the blazing yowling about this person or that interrupts consideration of the substance of the diary and comments thereon. In my last diary, there were unusually more than a hundred comments, but most of them were attacks on other commenters, so this time if it happens, I will report the lot to administration and leave it in their hands.
Fri Dec 02, 2011 at 2:00 PM PT: Many thanks to Heathlander for posting a 1.9 percent map previously posed, linked in his comment below.