"Defining Progress and Challenges Halfway Through the Annapolis Process"
Edited Transcript of Remarks by Mr. Maen Areikat, Mr. Khaled Elgindy and Mr. Rami Dajani "For the Record" No. 295 (9 June 2008)

Six months into the Annapolis process, Palestinians and Israelis have made minuscule progress on the core issues. While Palestinian negotiators are warning that time is running out for an agreement toward lasting peace, Israel is in a race against time to create more facts on the ground, adding more obstacles to peace.

The Palestine Center
Washington, DC
3 June 2008

Mr. Maen Areikat:

Thank you, Samar. It's a pleasure to be back at the Palestine Center. Last time we were here [was] three weeks before the Annapolis conference was to take place. We discussed the requirements for a successful meeting at Annapolis. We laid the ground for the steps that need to be taken in order to advance the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. The meeting itself did not produce all the desired results that we wanted in terms of identifying the steps that need to be taken. The Palestinians participated to show that they are genuinely interested in seeing this process restarted after it stopped in January 2001 during the Taba talks that followed the Palestinian intifada.

In Annapolis, there was an agreement that two tracks will be taken in order to further the peace process in the Middle East, particularly between Palestinians and Israelis. One would be a track that will talk about resolving the permanent status issues, which you all should be familiar with by now-Jerusalem, settlements, water, security, refugees, economic issues. And the other track was to take care of implementation of the Roadmap of 2003 that was accepted by the two sides, namely Phase One of the Roadmap which has certain obligations for Israelis and for Palestinians. The most important for Israel is the cessation of all settlement activities including natural growth, the reopening of [Palestinian institutions in] Jerusalem that were closed by Israel, the release of prisoners and other issues. The Palestinians were asked to continue with the reform of their institutions and of their security apparatuses and to assert control and the rule of law in the areas under their control and stop violence against Israel.

Ever since that conference in November-six months later- unfortunately, the situation on the ground has not changed significantly. On the contrary, we are seeing continuous Israeli efforts to change the facts on the ground. Just two days ago, the Israelis announced plans to tender more than 780 new housing units in Har Homa-before that [in] Pisgat Ze'ev in Jerusalem-in clear violation of their Phase One obligations under the Roadmap. Annapolis produced a judge, which was the U.S. administration, to try to hold both sides liable and accountable to their obligations. Unfortunately, other than the statements of "unhelpful," "not constructive," "of great concern," we haven't seen any effort either by the U.S. administration or by the international community to tell the Israelis directly and clearly that You are violating your obligations. What you are doing by imposing facts on the ground, you are prejudicing and preempting the outcome of the final status negotiations.

This is undermining the credibility of the Palestinian leadership, making its task very difficult because what the ordinary Palestinians see everyday is the continued settlement activity and the building of the Wall and the difficulties of moving around. Israel has so far failed to remove any significant roadblocks from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. And the Palestinians are still hampered both in their daily lives and in the face of economic progress and prosperity by these roadblocks and checkpoints. Unfortunately, the obligations under Phase One that Israel was supposed to meet have not been met. On the contrary, the Palestinians have introduced and deployed security forces in Nablus, in Jenin, in Tulkarem despite Israeli efforts to undermine the Palestinian deployment. The government of [Palestinian] Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has continued with its efforts to reform the security apparatuses and to bring trained security forces in Jordan under the supervision of the Quartet and [U.S. Security Coordinator Lieutenant] General Keith Dayton and pursued this goal in order to assert its rule of law and control of the Palestinian areas. This has not been reciprocated by Israelis meeting their obligations under Phase One and eventually affected the talks between the two sides.

The meeting that took place yesterday between [Palestinian] President [Mahmoud] Abbas and Prime Minister [Ehud] Olmert focused primarily on the issue of the settlements. They hardly had time to discuss other issues, which shows you that these actions and these activities, unilateral activities that the Israelis are taking, do distract the two sides from focusing on the main issues despite what the Israelis are claiming-that these settlement activities are being conducted in areas that will remain under Israeli control. We keep telling them that this is subject to negotiations. Even the U.S. administration's position is that no changes in the borders in the [Occupied Palestinian] Territory would be accepted unless the two parties agreed to these changes. But it is really creating a very difficult situation for both sides to pursue the permanent status negotiations.

The positive element about the current discussions is that the two sides are still meeting. We have committees that were established in February to cover all the issues without any exclusions. Despite all what you hear from the Israeli side, these committees are touching on all the issues without exception. This is a very significant development. It's a very positive development because for the first time in seven years, we see the Palestinians and the Israelis engaged, once again, discussing in details and in depth some of the more sensitive issues that will affect their lives in years to come. We haven't reached any agreement yet. We haven't even drafted any papers yet. But these meetings are continuing. We still believe that the target, the end of this year, to reach an agreement is possible if there is strong will and determination on both sides to reach an agreement. But in order to do that, Israel must understand that their effort to continue to impose these facts on the ground will only undermine this process rather than help it. At least, there has to be a moratorium on Israeli settlement activities during the period of negotiations. You cannot continue talking [and] at the same time imposing facts and taking land from the Palestinians. There has to be an international effort to make sure that such a moratorium on settlement activities and changing facts on the ground is in place in order to allow for the two parties to continue their negotiations.

We remain hopeful that the continuation of these meetings will lead to an agreement that would be based on the two-state vision of [U.S.] President [George W.] Bush and the international community-a Palestinian state that will be based on the line of 1967 with minor and reciprocal modifications and a just and agreed upon solution to the Palestinian refugee problem that would put an end to this conflict. I don't want to talk too much because the presentation that you will see will shed more details on all the issues and my colleagues here have been directly involved in the negotiations with the Israelis-both of them, Rami with the security committee and Khaled with the territory committee. As recent as last week, they took part in two separate meetings. They will be able to share a few things with you here, and then we will open the floor for questions.

Thank you very much.

Khaled Elgindy:

Thank you, Maen, and thank you to the Palestine Center for having us here. I just want to recap quickly the points that Maen talked about, and that is that Palestinians are, in fact, taking this process very seriously and making positive contributions both at the negotiating table and with regard to the Roadmap obligations. On the other hand, it is Israeli actions-and by extension this is also reflected at the negotiating table-that are undermining both the current Palestinian leadership in the process as well as prospects for a two-state solution. And lastly as everybody knows, time is running out. We're now six months into this process with another six months to go. Also as Maen pointed out, the current process that was launched at Annapolis was aimed at making progress in parallel both to improve the situation on the ground and to make progress at the negotiating table. The two are inextricably linked, as Maen has already illustrated. The fact that President Abbas has had to focus on issues related to the settlement freeze as opposed to the fate of refugees and the future of Jerusalem is clearly a distraction and more than unhelpful to the process.

Let me just outline some of the main requirements, as we see them, for a permanent status agreement by the end of this year. The first, as everybody knows, is statehood. And by statehood we mean a fully sovereign state based on the 1967 line, which should come as no surprise to anyone. And by that we mean, as Maen also pointed out, the flexibility on the Palestinian part is to allow minor modifications to the 1967 line in order to accommodate some Israeli interests in the West Bank; certainly not all and certainly not in the way that would affect adversely Palestinian contiguity, their viability, the prospect of having Jerusalem as a capital. But it is important to know that this is a key Palestinian concession. The idea of the one-to-one swap-that is whatever territory in the West Bank is taken that would be annexed by Israel Palestinians would be given land that is equal in size and value from Israel. And we have criteria for that which is highly technical; we don't need to get into. This is obviously also related to the other main core issue, which is Jerusalem. Jerusalem as defined by Palestinians is the six square kilometers [of] the old municipality of Jerusalem as it existed in June of 1967. It is the six square kilometers around the Old City, Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan-that area-as opposed to the line that was arbitrarily and unilaterally expanded by Israel and illegally annexed.

Refugees-the Palestinian formula and one that is also reasonable is to have a just and agreed upon resolution. This is the language of the Arab Peace Initiative. Water is another major core issue that is related both to end of conflict and the end of the occupation. And what Palestinians are pushing for is an equitable and reasonable allocation of shared water resources. And we'll talk a little more about each of these in some detail. This is just to give you an overall sense of what each of these issues is.

With regard to security, and my colleague Rami will talk about this in much more detail, security is something that all nations aspire to. But it's important that whatever arrangements are agreed not impinge on Palestinian sovereignty; this is essential. Clearly all these issues, as you can tell, are interconnected and related, and this brings us to the issues of the situation on the ground. As Maen already pointed out, Israeli obligations under the Roadmap are mainly with regard to settlements, internal closures and returning to the September 28 lines of 2001 and so forth. Palestinian obligations are in the area of security and reform. The important point here is the interconnectedness between the situation on the ground and the permanent status of all of these issues. Because, clearly, whatever measures are taken on the ground or not taken are with the aim of impacting the final status.

So in terms of statehood and sovereignty, again, 1967 line and that includes East Jerusalem as it is defined, as it existed in June of 1967; fully sovereign. (Referring to PowerPoint presentation) Here you see the map of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip based on the 1967 line. Another key component is to have a territorial link between the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestinians envision a link that is under the sovereignty of Palestine at a minimum full control without Israeli interference in the operation of that link. What we envision is it's not just a link for the movement of people and goods but also infrastructure, water, transportation and so forth to ensure that that vital link between Gaza because as everybody knows, Gaza and even the West Bank for that matter are not viable on their own. Gaza is a potential seaport and access to the world. That way the West Bank has access to Jordan and the rest of the Arab world. The two parts of Palestine are essential for a viable state. So, that link is critical. The notion of viable and contiguous-we have kind of set out objective criteria in these negotiations for what constitutes contiguity and viability based on a whole host of factors, which I won't bore you with, but it is something that can be measured objectively, even numerically. The obstacles as we've seen-there's ongoing settlement activity has not ceased. In fact if anything, it has intensified in direct violation of Israel's Roadmap obligations; the internal closure regime, which has resulted in this sort of Swiss cheese map as President Bush likes to refer to it, where Palestinians are isolated in enclaves. And I know you're all familiar with the situation on the ground and with this map.

Another important thing that we're seeing in the negotiations themselves is Israel's insistence on maintaining control over air, land and sea borders. This was evident after the Gaza disengagement, despite Israel's attempt to cast its withdrawal as an end to the occupation. Clearly, the occupation of Gaza continues because of the fact that Israel insisted [on] unilaterally controlling the air, land and sea borders. And we see now the consequences of that both from a humanitarian perspective on the ground as the siege on Gaza [continues] as well as politically. We all know what took place last summer.

So just to highlight-a lot of people [are] wondering on the net, has there been a slow down, has there been a decrease in settlement activity? I think it's safe to say that there is no settlement freeze of any kind being implemented in the West Bank, particularly in and around Jerusalem. And just to illustrate the point, the number of housing units that were tendered both before Annapolis and after Annapolis-these are just actual tenders not the existing plans of which there are many thousands more. In the twelve months before Annapolis from November to November, 138 housing units were tendered in the entire West Bank, including East Jerusalem. In the six months since Annapolis, 847 units were tendered, the vast majority of these in the Jerusalem area; about 90 percent or so in and around East Jerusalem. A significant portion of them are in Har Homa alone. The same pattern we see over and over if you take any indicator with regard to settlement activity-whether it's the number of tenders, the number of construction starts, the number of building permits, the number of sites on which there is current construction going on, building completions-any indicator, each and every one of them has increased substantially. Building permits in the first three months before Annapolis-114 building permits were issued in private construction not including East Jerusalem. Those figures are not available. And in the following three months, almost three times more, again just private construction, in the West Bank not including the fourteen/fifteen settlements in and around East Jerusalem.

Now turning to the requirements with regard to Jerusalem, the Palestinian vision is that East Jerusalem has to be the capital of Palestine. The formula is straightforward-East Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine; West Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Clearly, the issue of borders is related to Jerusalem, and we're also looking at the possibility of modifications to the 1967 line just as we do elsewhere in the West Bank in order to accommodate certain Israeli interests. But again, in a way that doesn't adversely impact our vital interests. In Jerusalem, those interests become much more acute. A key principle is to ensure access to all groups regardless of the situation with regard to sovereignty to their holy sites. So, Jewish holy sites, their religious freedom rights, their right to access those sites would be preserved even if and when those areas come under Palestinian sovereignty. And we would expect the same on the other side. Having said that, let me just point out that certain holy sites are more than just holy sites and are not subject to the swap. I think it's no revelation that we point out the area of the Haram [al-Sharif] in Jerusalem is not an area really that could be subject to a swap. But there may be some arrangements either with regard to security or access that might be agreed to. And lastly, there will need to be some sort of administrative arrangements between the two municipalities of Jerusalem, and the exact details of that would need to be negotiated-how closely interlinked are they administratively or even politically or delinked? That's issues that are subject to negotiation but something that has to be addressed.

The many obstacles, ongoing settlement activity. Here you see a recent photo of construction in the Har Homa settlement south of East Jerusalem between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. And just to give you a sense of the fanatic pace of construction in Har Homa in particular, all of you I'm sure remember in 2000 when they were negotiating, Har Homa did not exist except as a plan. There were no settlers there at that point. There were announcements and there were approvals and there were tenders and there was construction, but there were no actual settlers. Since then, there have been 5,000 or 6,000 Israeli settlers [who] now live in this particular settlement. Just to give you a sense of the proportion of the focus that Israel is putting on Har Homa-of the approximately more than 4,800 or so current construction sites identified by the Israeli government by the Administrative Housing in Construction in all areas of the West Bank, 41 percent of them are in the settlement of Har Homa alone. Forty-one percent of the housing units that are currently under construction or being marketed are in the settlement of Har Homa alone. There's massive, obviously, emphasis on this particular settlement, and it's for a very clear purpose in order to complete that ring of settlements around East Jerusalem. And the closer the more Palestinians negotiate with the Israeli counterparts the more fanatic, ironically, the settlement construction pace goes.

But to make matters worse, it's not only the settlement activity. There are related infrastructure activities in the most sensitive areas of Jerusalem, including new tunnels that are being built around the Haram. (Referring to PowerPoint presentation) I'm sure all of you remember the 1996 tunnel that was opened right along here near the Western Wall. In addition to the fact that that one is now being expanded, there are two new tunnels being built-a tunnel to connect the planned settlement area in Silwan in which there are already about 50 or so settler families living and there's a master plan, detailed plan for building a full blown settlement which would ultimately displace those Palestinians who live there to connect this new settlement with the Haram itself. So, we're looking at not just the demographic issue and changing the reality on the ground but a serious threat to the very heart of Jerusalem for Palestinians and the Arab and Muslim world much more broadly. Then, as Maen pointed out, we have the ongoing closure of Jerusalem institutions. First and foremost being the Orient House, which as everyone knows is the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization] headquarters in Jerusalem. Whereas Israel could have taken the simple act of letting the previous closure order for these institutions lapse, they decided to actually, actively renew that closure order in February of this year, and all ten institutions remained closed. Again, another sign of really a lack of good faith as well as a clue into what Israeli intentions are in Jerusalem.

Parallel with the settlement activity, you have the demographic measures that are being taken against Palestinians to de-Palestinianize Jerusalem, mainly in the form of revoking residency rights for Palestinians in Jerusalem and the demolition of homes. We don't have exact numbers for pre and post Annapolis; those figures haven't been published yet. But just to give you a sense, the number of home demolitions that took place just in East Jerusalem in all of 2007 was 208 homes. And in the six months since Annapolis, 130 homes have been demolished, again just in East Jerusalem. We don't have numbers for ID revocations. But if the trend is anything like what we saw from between 2005 in which there were 222 Palestinians that had their IDs revoked and 2006 in which more than seven times that number had their residency rights revoked, about more than 1,300 almost 1,400 Palestinians, if that's any sign of what we can expect to see when the numbers are published in 2007 then this is just yet more proof of these continuing trends to de-Palestinianize the city of Jerusalem and to artificially Judaize the city through settlement activity.

With that, I will turn over to my colleague, Rami, who will talk about the other three core issues.

Rami Dajani:

Thanks Khaled. I'll just move on quickly. I think the main thread that you've heard so far is that what the Palestinians have done in the Annapolis process is try to be as reasonable as possible and as serious as possible in the negotiations-as you heard from Khaled, for example, on the issues of the land swaps and putting forward serious, technical, detailed proposals on ways of resolving the conflict while meeting the interests and concerns of both sides. I think another aspect of what you heard is how there really hasn't been that much engagement on the Israeli side in return.

On the issue of refugees, the facts you have before you don't need my comment. I think that it is also obvious that there can't be a resolution of the conflict and peace in the region without a just lasting comprehensive resolution of the refugee issue. The Palestinian position in negotiations has been that there is a need to affirm the right of refugees on an individual basis, mainly the Right of Return as well as the need to agree on a framework for the implementation of this right. So, this is consistent with the Arab Peace Initiative of a just and agreed upon solution. On the one hand, it is important to establish the rights of the refugees, but the flexibility the Palestinian side is showing in the negotiations is in the implementation. Practically, this can be seen in the requirements for a resolution, which are first of all the recognition by Israel of its responsibility under international law for the displacement, dispossession of the refugees and the prevention of the return to their homes and also a formal apology by Israel to the refugees in a manner consistent with international law and the recognition of the Right of Return in principle. Then, we move onto the modalities of implementation that can be negotiated and agreed upon on and finally, the issue of remedies-reparations being the principle one-restitution. And then if not possible, then compensation and an international mechanism to deal with the implementation. The obstacles are, I think, fairly obvious on the Israeli side; so far, no interest in dealing with the issue of responsibility and blatant refusal of the Right of Return and refusal to admit any liability for restitution, perhaps some form of compensation but also in an indirect manner. So, that's the situation with regard to refugees.

I'll move on quickly to water issues. The requirements in water are for an equitable and reasonable allocation of shared water resources under international law which will allow both sides and, also on a regional scale, all the peoples of the region to benefit from the limited water resources and to expand these water resources. As it is right now, Israel consumes four times per capita the water that Palestinians do. Obviously, we are nowhere near the equitable and reasonable allocation. When it comes to negotiations rather than dealing with the issue of water from the basis of international law and allocation based on international law, the Israelis wish to perpetuate the present paradigm, which is having the inequality in place but then finding other ways of supplying the Palestinians with water such as desalination plants that would fall under Israeli control and be subject to higher expenses and would not be in accordance with international law. (Referring to PowerPoint presentation) Again, this is the chart showing the current per capita per day consumption of water. I think it speaks for itself.

I'll move onto an area that I am more familiar with-the security negotiations. Now particularly in security, it is relevant to point out that there are two distinctly different paradigms or regimes that apply. One is the one we are under right now, which is the occupation. So, the Oslo agreements did not change the fact that there is an Israeli military occupation, which means whatever we're doing in terms of security reform under the Roadmap is still subject to the rules and the existence of an overriding Israeli military presence in the West Bank and Gaza. What we are trying to negotiate in permanent status rather is a situation where you have two sovereign states and they have mutual security obligations toward one another. What we learn from my presentation now is the Israeli failure to make the distinction; the Israeli thinking is always one of maintaining control even in a post agreement situation with two sovereign states. The outcome would be something more like a protectorate or a mandate and not a sovereign state given the way the Israelis see the negotiations on security.

Now, the Palestinian requirements on the security front from Israel are first and foremost a full military withdrawal to the 1967 border with the agreed minor modifications. The military withdrawal includes the air space and control over the frequencies of the electromagnetic sphere. A Palestinian state would require an effective security force that is able to maintain law and order to defend the borders against infiltration in order to maintain also the basic defenses of the state. We seek peaceful relations based on regional cooperation mechanisms. We also have been seeking an international presence including an international force in part to meet our own needs for capacity building and training at least in the transitional period but also to allay Israeli concerns that there will be a vacuum in the ability to maintain control and to enforce law and order after the withdrawal.

The obstacles are the fact that, again as I pointed out earlier, the Israelis don't quite see a distinction between the existing situation of their occupation and their relation with a sovereign nation living in peace and security next to them. So, the Israelis demand an overwriting military presence and control, such as having control over the eastern border with Jordan, control over the air space including civil aviation, control over parts of the electromagnetic sphere, placement of early warning stations, the right to deploy their forces under certain circumstances on Palestinian territory, which in total amounts to a de facto conciliation by consent of their military control over Palestinian territory and the lives of Palestinians. To further add to the problem we have, these obstacles, is their insistence on Palestine being a demilitarized state; so, restrictions on the ability of Palestine to have anything more than a police force. This is highly problematic in the sense that these days from what we see in the instability of the region, there is a need to maintain law and order and to prevent certain groups from carrying on certain activities, and that's an essential component of sovereignty and the ability to have a monopoly on the use of force. So, those are the two elements that basically prevent Palestine from having full sovereignty and being able to exercise control over its territory. We see this reflected, this attitude, in the negotiations on the situation, on the ground where the attempt of the Palestinian Authority security forces to perform the Roadmap obligations of disarming militant groups and reforming the security services and agencies and deploying in certain parts of the West Bank-we see the Israelis interfering with the ability of the Palestinian security forces to do their job by having incursions and basically not engaging in meaningful cooperation on the security front.

I will move onto a quick summary since I think we went on a bit too long. As my colleagues said earlier, we have embraced the process from Annapolis and we've made serious and extensive efforts in the negotiations as well as on internal reform-these two things go together. On the positive side, we can note that for the first time, as Maen pointed out, Israel is at the negotiation table and is engaged in at least all the issues even though we are still to see any serious engagement; yet, they are on the table. Also, the international community is now more involved through international missions like [U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Security] General [James] Jones, General Dayton, [Lieutenant] General [William] Fraser and [Quartet Middle East Envoy] Tony Blair. So, there is a deep engagement of the international community. I would note also that we have, as you saw from all parts of the presentation, attempted to put on the table meaningful propositions that take into account the Israeli concerns, for example the land swaps, the implementation of the refugees' Right of Return and security arrangements with international presence, etc.

As we said, the Israeli position has been undermining the situation on the ground and really not coming forward to the table with constructive responses to our proposals. Not to sound too negative, but time is running out on the chance for this historic agreement by the end of 2008. Regardless, the Palestinians are committed to peace through negotiations and to carrying out reforms regardless because it is in our interest. This is something we'll have to deal with in case the process leads to a dead end; at least we will continue to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict and to conduct the reforms that are needed to build a future Palestinian state.
Mr. Maen Areikat is Deputy General of the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department. Mr. Khaled Elgindy is legal advisor for security with the Negotiations Support Unit. Mr. Rami Dajani is policy advisor for settlements with the Negotiations Support Unit.

This "For the Record" transcript may be used without permission but with proper attribution to The Palestine Center. The speakers' views do not necessarily reflect the views of The Jerusalem Fund.

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