Tuesday, December 9, 2003

The Geneva Accord FEATURED ARTICLES - Alternative Mideast Peace Plan Launched in Geneva, Agence France Presse - Powell Hears Shadow Plan for Peace in Middle East, NY Times - The Geneva Accord, (Haaretz.'s summary) - The Geneva Accord, (The actual text) - A Comparison Of Three Drafts For An Israeli-Palestinian Peace Agreement, Gush Shalom QUOTE OF THE DAY "A superpower does not have moral imperatives. It has strategic imperatives. Its purpose is not to sustain the lives of other people, but to sustain itself. Concern for the rights and feelings of others is an impediment to the pursuit of its objectives. It can make the moral case, but that doesn't mean that it is motivated by the moral case." - - Chalmers Johnson (Excerpted from his new book, "The Sorrows of Empire") KNOW YOUR HISTORY - DECEMBER 9th 1949 -- UN took trusteeship over Jerusalem 1961 -- SS Col. Adolf Eichmann was found guilty of war crimes in Israel. 1987 -- Beginning of the of the Palestinian Intifada 2001 -- A Palestinian suicide/homicide bomber injured 9 Israelis in Haifa. Israeli troops killed 4 Palestinian police officers in their cars. Israeli soldiers also killed a Palestinian taxi driver trying to enter Jenin, which was sealed off. 30 suspected militants were arrested in Israeli raids RHINO HERE: You may have heard about the recent announcement of an alternative Middle East peace plan by representatives of Israeli opposition peace activists & Palestinian officials, none of whom are officially recognized by their respective governments. Apparently the parties involved believe that since the official governing entities haven't been able to get an effective peace plan in gear, that they better take matters into their own hands. The Rhino, & millions throughout the world who yearn for peace, say "Bravo to these courageous souls!"   As a certain Congressman from Ohio running for President likes to say, "Peace is not just possible, Peace is inevitable." Today's blog offers some news coverage of the peace plan launch, & of Colin Powell's meeting with the parties involved (against the advice & warnings of the official governments). There's a link to the Israeli newspaper,'Haaretz's coverage of the 2 & a half year Swiss sponsored effort, & another link to the actual document entitled, "The Geneva Accord."  Lastly, RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE offers a comparison of 3 different proposals. The comparison was written by Adam Keller of the Israeli Peace Activist organization, Gush Shalom.  How much ya wanna know?  How deep ya wanna go?   Alternative Mideast Peace Plan Launched in Geneva Agence France Presse, 12/1/03 Israeli opposition politicians and prominent Palestinians launched an alternative Middle East peace plan that was hailed as the most "promising" basis for ending decades of violence in the region. About 700 people attended the glitzy ceremony marking the formal launch of the Geneva Initiative, presided over by Hollywood movie star Richard Dreyfuss and attended by other celebrities and former leaders. "It's unlikely that we shall ever see a more promising foundation for peace," former US president Jimmy Carter said as the public ceremony got under way at a conference center near UN headquarters. "The only alternative to this initiative is sustained and permanent violence," he added. MORE: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1201-11.htm Powell Hears Shadow Plan for Peace in Middle East By STEVEN R. WEISMAN, NY Times, 12/6/03 WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 - Rebuffing appeals from Israel, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell met Friday with two self-appointed peace negotiators who are promoting a shadow agreement on a Palestinian state, and afterward both the State Department and Mr. Powell's guests maintained that their goals were the same.  The meeting at the State Department between Mr. Powell and the negotiators, Yossi Beilin of Israel and Yasir Abed Rabbo, who led the Palestinian delegation, was closed to reporters and was discussed later by administration spokesmen with extreme delicacy, mainly because of Israel's hostility to the plan.... MORE: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/06/international/middleeast/06DIPL.html?th The Geneva Accord (Haaretz.'s summary of the plan currently posted on their web site) Mid-October saw the unveiling of a peace proposal that members of the Israeli leftist opposition and Palestinian officials have been working on for the past two-and-a-half years.  The initiative was spearheaded by Oslo architect Yossi Beilin on the Israeli side and former minister Yasser Abed Rabbo for the Palestinians.  The plan, dubbed the Geneva Accord in tribute to the funding and support supplied by the Swiss Foreign Ministry, offers itself as a decisive solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, based on the plan drawn up by former U.S. president Bill Clinton after the breakdown in the July 2000 talks between former prime minister Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat.  At the heart of the proposal is a Palestinian concession on the right of return to lands within the State of Israel, in exchange for sovereignty over the Temple Mount. The plan also calls for an Israeli withdrawal from most of the West Bank and the entire Gaza Strip.  The proposal was met with furious disapproval by the Sharon government, which accused Israelis involved in the initiative of trying to act in place of a democratically-elected government. Haaretz.'s summary The Geneva Accord The following is the text of the Geneva Accord, obtained exclusively by Haaretz. [Preamble] [Relations, implementation and territory][Security] [Jerusalem] [Refugees] [Roads, religious sites and prisoners] Draft Permanent Status Agreement Preamble The State of Israel (hereinafter "Israel") and the Palestine Liberation Organization (hereinafter "PLO"), the representative of the Palestinian people (hereinafter the "Parties"): Reaffirming their determination to put an end to decades of confrontation and conflict, and to live in peaceful coexistence, mutual dignity and security based on a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace and achieving historic reconciliation; Recognizing that peace requires the transition from the logic of war and confrontation to the logic of peace and cooperation, and that acts and words characteristic of the state of war are neither appropriate nor acceptable in the era of peace; Affirming their deep belief that the logic of peace requires compromise, and that the only viable solution is a two-state solution based on UNSC Resolution 242 and 338;... READ IT ALL AT: The Actual Text   7:45:52 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - Three Drafts For A Mideast Peace Agreement A Comparison Of Three Drafts For An Israeli-Palestinian Peace Agreement 1) The Gush Shalom Peace Proposal (2001) 2) The Ayalon-Nusseibeh Statement of Principles (2002) 3) The Geneva Initiative (2003) By Adam Keller, Gush Shalom Note: the three documents here compared are of very different length, the one of Gush Shalom covering three pages,  that of Ayalon-Nusseibeh a single page (being more a statement of general principles then a draft peace agreement) and the Geneva document the far longest, covering 47 pages and going into the fine technical details of implementation. This should be taken into account in reading the following comparison, and in particular the lack of reference in the Ayalon-Nusseibeh document to many points mentioned in the others should not be necessarily taken to mean a lack of concern to these points by its drafters. Basic principles All three documents start with affirming the principle of "Two states for Two nations". The Ayalon-Nusseibeh document and the Geneva document include in this context a Palestinian obligation to recognize the Jewish character of Israel (Ayalon-Nusseibeh document: "both sides will declare that Palestine is the only state of the Palestinian people, and Israel is the only state of the Jewish people"; Geneva document: "the State of Israel and Palestine Liberation organization (...) affirm that this agreement marks the recognition of the right of Jewish people to statehood and the recognition of the right of the Palestinian people to statehood, without prejudice to the equal rights of the Parties' respective citizens"). The Gush Shalom document does not include such a reference. The Gush Shalom document mentions as a basis for the agreement UN resolutions 242, 338 and 194. The Geneva document mentions resolutions 242, 338 and 1397 (which did not yet exist when Gush Shalom drafted its proposal) as a basis for the whole agreement. 194 is not mentioned in the preamble of the Geneva document, but it is mentioned in the specific article about the refugee problem. In the Ayalon-Nusseibeh document there is no mention of UN resolutions. All three documents include the statement that their implementation constitutes the end of the conflict (the Gush Shalom document has the specific stipulation that the two parties will jointly report to the UN about completing the implementation of the agreement). MORE AT: http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/compare_eng.html "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. Tell a friend about Rhino's Blog 6:34:43 AM    comment

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