By
Khaled Mamdouh, IOL Cairo Bureau
CAIRO,
June 3 (IslamOnline) - Ibrahim Nafie, as the chief of state-run
Al-Ahram daily newspaper and a public figure close enough to Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak to be able to reflect on what the Egyptian
leader thinks, believed there was little chance of success awaiting
Mubarak’s U.S. visit.
In
his editorial Monday, June 3, he wrote that Israel has not changed its
extremist policies. Also the U.S. administration did not do enough to
pressure them to do so, if the peace plan carried by Mubarak’s visit
to the U.S. were to succeed.
This
was surprising as in his editorial Friday, May 31, Nafie was much more
optimistic as he introduced Mubarak’s peace plan.
No
official Egyptian source commented on the plan, but the scenario was
confirmed by a senior Arab official Sunday, according to Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
Nafie
believed the U.S. envoys, currently engaged in a heated diplomatic and
security offensive, were primarily trying to formulate a U.S. vision
on how best to arrange a proposed peace conference, to be held later
this summer, to try to forge a way out for the Palestinian cause.
The
U.S. has embarked on a “three-track” strategy to revive
Palestinian peace talks with Israel. For that purpose, U.S. envoys
have been sent to the region, and are still touring it.
The
first U.S. track, according to U.S. Middle East envoy William Burns,
is to renew a serious political process at the two-states solution.
Second, to support Palestinian efforts to build strong institutions in
preparation for statehood. The third track is to ensure effective
Palestinian performance on security.
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Mubarak,
center, Syria’s Assad, right, and Saudi Crown Prince agreed on
peace option. |
Central
Intelligence Agency chief George Tenet is currently touring the region
to oversee the third track, while Burns’s task is related to the
political side.
Tenet
and Burns will return to Washington before Mubarak travels to meet
Bush on the crisis.
Implicitly
accusing the U.S. of singing the tunes of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon without even digesting them, Nafie said that the proposed
conference was originally “Sharon’s idea. The Americans adopted
the idea, without having, so far, clear thoughts or visions about the
agenda of such a conference, the desired results, or even the parties
to attend it,” charged Nafie.
Citing
Israel’s continuous incursions into Palestinian-controlled
territories, almost daily abductions of civilians and destruction of
homes, Nafie accused the Israeli leadership of “pushing Palestinian
resistance groups to carry out bomb attacks against Israeli targets.
Then, Israel uses such attacks to associate Palestinians with
terrorists.”
Nafie
also cited, as another sign of Israel not being serious about peace,
Sharon’s “rude” interference in the matter of Palestinian
Authority’s reform.
“Sharon
declared that reform, to him, meant no [Palestinian President Yasser]
Arafat. He went even further to demand donor countries not to give
Palestinians any help unless Arafat was changed. This is, in no way, a
suitable ground for peace,” the veteran writer said.
Israeli
daily newspaper Ha’aretz reported Monday that Sharon was to tell
Tenet that reforms in the PA must take place without Arafat.
An
Israeli government source in Jerusalem said that Sharon would tell the
CIA director, expected to meet with Sharon later Monday, that
“cosmetic” reforms in the Palestinian Authority would not be
sufficient, and there is no chance for any successful reform as long
as the financial and security control in the PA is held by Arafat,
according to the Israeli paper.
The
Israeli position to be presented to Tenet is that organizational
changes in the PA will not be sufficient, and that the mission of
Palestinian security forces must be changed, so that they fight
“terror” (resistance operations by Palestinian activists) and head
off new attacks on Israelis.
The
Egyptian plan, reportedly formulated with the help of the Palestinians
and other Arab officials, includes practical steps to see an end to
the Israeli-Palestinian decades-long bloody issue, based on realities
on the ground.
The
major outlines of the plan envision the declaration of a Palestinian
state in early 2003. That state will extend provisionally over the
Palestinian autonomous zones of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, some 42
percent of Palestinian territories occupied in 1967.
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Israel
maintains the option of occupation and aggression.
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Once
that happens, Israel and the Palestinians are to embark on final
status talks to end their conflict. The goal of those negotiations is
to be a full Israeli withdrawal from all of the West Bank and Gaza
Strip. In other words, an attempt to implement UN Security Council
Resolutions 242 and 338, through such negotiations, to be run between
two member states of the UN.
The
Egyptian plan was the result of weeks of intense diplomatic activity,
and Mubarak will discuss it with Bush and U.S. Secretary of State
Colin Powell in the United States.
The
declaration of a Palestinian state is to come after Palestinian
political and security reforms are implemented and elections are held
in late 2002.
The
plan takes into account promises made by Arafat on May 15 for
far-reaching reforms followed by full elections.
This
way, the Egyptian plan addresses Israeli demands of security, not just
Palestinian demands of withdrawal.
