Meeting tests truce between Sharon, Abbas

Special to The Globe and Mail

 

JERUSALEM -- A second historic summit between Israeli and Palestinian leaders ended in a stalemate yesterday, leaving a shaky truce barely intact after a week of violence that tested patience on both sides.

Although Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said both sides agreed on co-ordinating his military's withdrawal from Gaza this summer, Palestinian leaders left the meeting in Mr. Sharon's flag-draped residence in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City grim-faced, appearing only briefly before reporters in Ramallah to announce their disappointment.

"Our expectations were much bigger than our achievements," Palestinian prime minister Ahmed Qureia said. "Nothing offered to us was satisfactory enough for us to call it an agreement."

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas went into the meeting with a long list of topics, among them the Gaza withdrawal; the route of Israel's security wall; the release of Palestinian prisoners; the return of exiled Palestinians; settlement activity in the West Bank; the demolition of homes in East Jerusalem; and Palestinian control of security in their cities.

Israeli officials said Mr. Sharon offered to turn over the West Bank towns of Bethlehem and Qalqilya -- a town governed in absentia by a Hamas-backed mayor in an Israeli prison -- to Palestinian control within two weeks. He also suggested more prisoner releases were possible and invited preparations to reopen Gaza's airport and harbour after the withdrawal of Israeli settlers and troops.

But all offers were contingent upon Mr. Abbas taking further steps to crack down on militants, a task at which he has had limited success.

"When we were in Sharm el-Sheikh, you said that you would exert all efforts to stop the terror and begin to remove the infrastructure of terror. But the action never happened," Mr. Sharon said on a videotape released after the meeting.

Unlike the leaders' first official meeting, which was on relatively neutral territory in the Egyptian Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh in February, this meeting of just under three hours was held on disputed home turf.

Mr. Sharon's purchase of the stately Old City stone home in 1987, and the subsequent removal of its Arab tenants, created great controversy at the time. The building is now rarely used, but it is still under heavy guard and remains a stinging symbol for Palestinians struggling to hold onto Arab neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem.

The meeting was kept low-key, with media access largely curtailed, and came just hours after Israeli security forces rounded up 52 suspected Islamic Jihad militants from across the West Bank. The move was the first such campaign of mass arrests since the February summit and signalled a further decline in relations between the two sides.

Israel TV also reported that the military fired at least one missile in northern Gaza late yesterday afternoon in an apparent attempt to assassinate an Islamic Jihad militant, but missed.

"There is no other way except resolute activity against terror and this activity will continue, as I have said, everywhere and at all times," Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said.

Despite the deteriorating security situation, Palestinian leaders were clearly hoping to achieve more after the hope created at Sharm el-Sheikh. Mr. Abbas, who had been scheduled to speak after the meeting, did not appear. His deputies said he was on the telephone with Arab leaders. Even chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, known for his media availability and willingness to deliver a sound byte, refused to talk to reporters.

"I consider a meeting like today a public-relations exercise between the two sides, because there is no third party," said Hani el-Masri, a columnist for the Palestinian Al-Ayyam newspaper. "However, it will not have a great impact on the state of calm. The state of calm will not get worse -- but it will definitely not get any better."

Still, long-time watchers of the two-steps-forward, two-steps-back peace process said the meeting should not be dismissed entirely.

"First of all, the mere fact that they met is a very good sign. You have to remember it follows a couple of meetings at lower levels, which were also good," said Uri Dromi, who was the official spokesman for the Yitzhak Rabin government a decade ago.

(Thursday, June 23, 2005, on Page A2)

CORRECTION

The meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas took place in the official prime minister's residence in the Rehavia neighbourhood of west-central Jerusalem. Mr. Sharon's East Jerusalem home, which was incorrectly reported as the meeting site, was purchased from its Arab occupants in 1987.