Ramon biedt Palestijnen terugtrekking uit de Westoever en gebiedsruil aan

Er wordt wel gezegd, dat beide partijen eigenlijk wel weten hoe een uiteindelijke oplossing eruit moet zien: een Palestijnse staat gebaseerd op de pre-1967 grenzen (eigenlijk bestandslijnen, die toendertijd niet door de Arabische staten werden erkend), met een landruil van een paar procent zodat Israël een paar grote nederzettingenblokken kan houden, Oost-Jeruzalem als hoofdstad van Palestina met Palestijnse soevereiniteit over de islamitische heilige plaatsen, en Israëlische soevereiniteit over de Joodse heilige plaatsen en West-Jeruzalem, en terugkeer van de vluchtelingen naar Palestina, niet Israël, en compensatie.

Het venijn zit hem uiteraard in de details, zoals soevereiniteit over de Tempelberg (boven en onder de grond), hoe trek je een grens tussen al die Joodse en Arabische wijken, hoeveel nederzettingenblokken mag Israël houden? Palestina zal bovendien knap vol worden als alle Palestijnen die nu in andere landen wonen zouden terugkeren. En hoe kom je tegemoet aan Israëls legitieme veiligheidswensen en biedt het de garantie dat zich geen terreurnetwerken kunnen ontwikkelen die wapens van over de grens importeren, zoals Hezbollah in Libanon en Hamas in de Gazastrook, zonder dat dit de Palestijnse soevereiniteit tezeer inperkt? Is dit überhaupt mogelijk? Hoe maak je van de Gazastrook een gebied met een toekomst? Een corridor naar de Westelijke Jordaanoever is daarvoor niet genoeg. Hoe de enorme bevolkingsgroei van de Palestijnen af te remmen? En, hoe is een en ander te realiseren terwijl Hamas aan de macht is in de Gazastrook, en Abbas zwak is?

Ik daag een ieder die meent dat de oplossing voor het conflict eigenlijk heel simpel is (zoals Farah Karimi een paar jaar geleden tegen me zei) om op deze vragen een antwoord te geven.

Ratna
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Report: Ramon offers PA West Bank pullout, territory exchange
By The Associated Press Last update - 12:12 07/09/2007
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/902018.html

A confidant of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has offered a broad West Bank pullout in talks with Palestinian leaders on a final-status peace deal, an Israeli newspaper reported Friday.

Vice Premier Haim Ramon met with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayad and other officials in an effort to put together a joint Israeli-Palestinian declaration of principles that will be presented in November at a Mideast peace conference slated to be held in the U.S., Israel's Yediot Ahronot newspaper reported.

Ramon is offering the Palestinians an Israeli withdrawal from nearly the entire West Bank, including the Arab neighborhoods of east Jerusalem, as part of a final peace deal, according to the report by two respected correspondents for the mass circulation daily.

Tzahi Moshe, a spokesman for Ramon, would not comment on the report. Palestinian Information Minister Riad Malki denied that Ramon had met with Fayad or with any other Palestinian government officials.

According to the report's account of Ramon's offer, the border between Israel and the future Palestinian state will roughly follow the route of Israel's West Bank security barrier, leaving major Israeli settlement blocs and between 3 and 8 percent of the West Bank in Israel's hands.

In return, Israel will cede to the same amount of land inside Israel to the Palestinians to make up for the annexed territory, the report said - possibly including a land corridor between the West Bank and Gaza, a central ongoing Palestinian demand.

Palestinians who became refugees when Israel was founded in 1948 will not be allowed into Israel, but only into the Palestinian state, and an international fund will be set up to pay for their rehabilitation. Holy sites in Jerusalem's Old City will be under the control of the various religions and no national flags will be flown, the report said.

Ramon's plan closely resembles an Israeli offer to the Palestinians at a failed peace summit in 2000. U.S. President Bill Clinton, who hosted the summit, later blamed Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for rejecting the Israeli proposal, saying he missed the opportunity to create a Palestinian state. A new round of Israeli-Palestinian violence erupted not long afterward, lasting for most of the past seven years and claiming thousands of lives.

According to the Yediot report, Olmert approves of Ramon's negotiating activities. If the efforts succeed, the report said, Olmert will publicly adopt the results, and if they fail, he will portray them as a personal effort by Ramon.

Peace moves between Israel and the Palestinians have been intensifying since June, when the Islamic militants of Hamas seized power in the Gaza Strip. Following the takeover, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas of the rival Fatah movement formed a government of Western-aligned moderates in the West Bank, winning broad backing from an international community eager to prevent new gains for the Islamic hard-liners.
Hamas has remained largely isolated in Gaza.

Olmert and Abbas have met several times in recent months. Israel refused at first to discuss the three topics known as the core issues of the conflict - final borders, Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees and their millions of descendants. But the two leaders tackled those issues at their last meeting on August 28.

Damping hopes for a speedy Israeli pullout, however, are concerns that near-daily Palestinian rocket fire from Gaza, where Israeli forces pulled out two years ago, could be repeated in the West Bank if the army leaves security in the hands of Abbas' weak forces.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has warned that no West Bank pullout would be possible until Israel has developed a missile shield to counter rocket fire from the West Bank, which could threaten the country's population centers and paralyze its only international airport. Barak said this will take at least two and a half years.