Premiers meet as Middle East peace hopes rise

The Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers were meeting today in a new climate of hope after a Palestinian terror truce, removal of Israeli tanks and roadblocks in Gaza and a deal to give the Palestinians security control over the West Bank town of Bethlehem.

The meeting is the third between Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas and Israel’s Ariel Sharon, a sign that after 33 months of bloodletting, the two sides might be moving seriously to end their conflict.

Israeli and Palestinian bulldozers tore down Israeli checkpoints along the main road through Gaza yesterday after Israeli forces left Beit Hanoun, a town in northern Gaza, following a two-month stay to try to stop militants from launching rockets at a nearby Israeli town.

Contributing to the cautious atmosphere of hope was a temporary halt to attacks against Israelis, declared by three main Palestinian groups, and agreement over Bethlehem.

A key catalyst is the “road map” peace plan, moving through three stages toward a Palestinian state in 2005. US president George Bush launched the internationally-backed plan at a summit meeting with Abbas and Sharon on June 4 in Jordan, following up by sending a senior envoy, John Wolf, to work out handing back West Bank and Gaza areas to Palestinian control.

Bush’s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, also visited over the weekend as Bush’s personal representative, urging the two sides to move forward.

Egypt joined in, pressing its long-standing initiative for a Palestinian ceasefire, halting attacks against Israelis. The three groups – the mainstream Fatah and the Islamic terror groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad – announced the truce on Sunday.

But there were still pockets of trouble.

Palestinian gunmen shot dead a Bulgarian construction worker on an Israeli road project near the West Bank town of Yabed. Renegade members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, loosely linked to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, claimed responsibility.

Palestinian information minister Nabil Amr called the killing “an individual attack that should not affect the truce declaration” and said “the Palestinian government will do its best to prevent such attacks” in the future.

Sharon muted his criticism, noting that security responsibility was handed over to the Palestinian Authority in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun only yesterday morning.

“Even if the Palestinians were the fastest in the world, and the most determined, you can’t expect them to destroy terrorism in a moment,” he told members of his Likud parliamentary caucus.

In the past, Sharon has made strident demands on the Palestinians to crack down immediately on militants. However, Israel is still in control of the main population centres of the West Bank. The two sides agreed that Bethlehem would be the first to be turned back to the Palestinians, possibly tomorrow. Israeli troops have been in control of the town since the beginning of the year.

At today’s Sharon-Abbas meeting, officials said the agenda would include security measures, along with Palestinian demands for the release of prisoners and further Israeli withdrawals from territory reoccupied since the start of fighting in September 2000, items in the road map plan.

Abbas said the success of the peace plan “depends on carrying out the commitments of both sides”.

The Palestinian groups attached demands to their truce – ending Israeli military strikes, lifting roadblocks and releasing prisoners.

Israeli officials were publicly cool to the demands, but indicated that they might be flexible.

“The ceasefire agreement (with the militants) was not reached with Israel,” Israeli foreign minister Silvan Shalom said. “Since we are not party to it, its conditions are none of our business.”

Israel pledged to halt targeted attacks of wanted Palestinians in areas controlled by Palestinian police but threatened to resume its campaign if Palestinians failed to thwart attacks.

Sharon said he instructed the Shin Bet security service to prepare a list of Palestinians who could be freed from prison without harming Israel’s security.

Human rights organisations say Israel is holding about 5,000 Palestinians on security-related charges, of whom around 1,000 are held in “administrative detention” – imprisonment without trial.

Shalom repeated Israeli demands that “the Palestinian Authority dismantle the terror organisations.” A senior security source told The Associated Press that this meant confiscating weapons, destroying bomb factories and arresting anyone trying to carry out an attack.

However, in an important nuance, he added that Israel would no longer demand arrest of leaders or militants who carried out attacks in the past.

Abbas has refused to take such steps, fearing a civil war, preferring to negotiate an end to the violence.

Siding with Israel, US Secretary of State Colin Powell urged Abbas to recognise that “he cannot be the prime minister of a Palestinian state based on democratic principles” if terrorist groups continued to thwart the peace process.

“We want the terrorists disarmed,” he said.