Toronto Star
September 27, 2001
By Sandro Contenta, Middle East Bureau

JERUSALEM -- Israel and the Palestinians have agreed to take the first steps to ending a year of violence, boosting U.S. chances of Arab support for its fight against terrorism.

But violence continued yesterday even as Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres met to strike the deal, indicating this latest bid at a ceasefire risks the fate of previous ones that failed to stop a year of bloodshed and hate.

And early this morning, Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian and wounded at least five people during a fierce gunbattle near Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Reuters reports.

Yesterday's deal commits Israelis and Palestinians to take steps over the next several weeks that would stop the violence, and see Israeli troops withdraw to positions they held before the Palestinian uprising broke out last Sept. 28.

It also commits Israel to freezing the expansion of Jewish settlements on occupied land. Only then would land-for-peace talks resume.

It's a road both sides have committed themselves to before -- but failed to travel, with each accusing the other of not holding up their end of the bargain.

The difference this time around is the intense American pressure placed on both sides to make the ceasefire hold.

U.S. President George W. Bush wants calm in the region as he prepares to strike at exiled Saudi-born multimillionaire Osama bin Laden, prime suspect in the attack on New York and the Pentagon two weeks ago, and his network Al Qaeda, based in Afghanistan.

Arab states are reluctant to join the U.S. coalition as long as they see the U.S. as siding with Israel in the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher said truce talks will contribute to "solidifying the coalition and to making the point that the United States is not against Muslims, that this fight against terrorism is not a fight against the Muslim world."

In recent days, U.S. pressure was especially great on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who was forced to shelve his demand for 48 hours of complete quiet before the Arafat-Peres meeting could be held.

"We're going the extra mile because we're trying to ease things to help establish the American coalition" against terror, said Sharon's spokesperson, Raanan Gissin.

"But what we get in return is a hail of bullets. It doesn't bode well for things to come. I'm very pessimistic about how this ceasefire will go."

Sharon has compared Arafat to bin Laden and twice barred Peres from meeting him in the past week. Yet he allowed the meeting to go ahead yesterday even after a bomb exploded at an Israeli military outpost in occupied Gaza Strip, wounding three Israeli soldiers.

Arafat met Peres at the Palestinian airport in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. The meeting was tense, and they cancelled a joint news conference that had been scheduled.

While they met, a Palestinian youth was shot dead by Israeli soldiers. Another nine were wounded when the soldiers responded to rock throwing with live ammunition and rubber bullets. The clash occurred some six kilometres from the site of the meeting, near the Egyptian border.

After the meeting, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat read a joint statement where both sides agreed to implement past ceasefire deals that failed to hold.

"The two sides will resume full security co-operation and exert maximum efforts to sustain the declared ceasefire," Erekat said, adding Peres and Arafat are to meet again "within a week or so."

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he hoped the meeting would lead to "sustainable dialogue," and France, Russia and the European Union haled what they regarded as welcome and important steps toward peace.

Ahmed Qureia, the Palestinian parliamentary Speaker also known as Abu Alla, told The Star that Palestinian and Israeli security chiefs will meet tomorrow morning, after the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

As it does every year on Yom Kippur, Israel shut down the West Bank and Gaza Strip, deploying thousands of police to beef up security inside Israel.

Qureia said both sides agreed Israel will begin lifting its siege of Palestinian-controlled enclaves in the West Bank and Gaza at noon tomorrow, and start redeploying tanks and troops.

Arafat and Peres, who jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994, agreed to implement two previous deals: the Tenet plan, named after CIA chief George Tenet, and the Mitchell report, named after former U.S. Senator George Mitchell.

The Tenet deal calls on Israel to refrain from initiating military operations inside Palestinian-controlled areas, release Palestinian prisoners who aren't connected with "terrorist" acts, act against Israeli civilians who use violence against Palestinians, and use more "non-lethal" methods to disperse Palestinian protesters.

The Palestinians commit themselves to "immediately apprehend, question, and incarcerate terrorists," collect illegal weapons, shut down bomb factories, and work against weapon smuggling.