AMMAN, 10 February 2005 — World leaders hailed the cease-fire deal that emerged from the Israel-Palestinian summit, but analysts warned it was only a small step on the long road to a durable peace.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice led the chorus of cheers, saying: “Success is not assured, but America is resolute. This is the best chance for peace we are likely to see for years to come.”
“We are acting to help Israelis and Palestinians seize this chance,” said Rice in Paris shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas made their de facto cease-fire pledges Tuesday.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the pledges from the Sharm El-Sheikh summit “provide an opportunity for the peace process to resume,” Annan’s spokesman said.
In Brussels, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso urged the two sides to pursue “with determination” the goal of a Palestinian state existing side by side with Israel in peace.
Jordan’s King Abdallah called on Palestinian and Israeli leaders yesterday to implement the road map, as it was the only guarantee of an end to decades of conflict.
“Full commitment to implement the road map is the only guarantee to end the Palestinian-Israeli struggle and to establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel,” he said, quoted by the Petra news agency.
“The Sharm El-Sheikh summit represents a new beginning to push forward toward a just, comprehensive and lasting peace and a secure future for all the peoples of the region,” King Abdallah said in separate calls to Abbas and Sharon.
But Jordan’s Islamist opposition said the summit only served the interests of the Jewish state. “We in the Islamic Action Front party see in this summit only an opportunity seized by Israel to achieve all of its objectives without giving anything in return,” the IAF said in a statement.
“We reject the results of this summit and we salute the Egyptian people who expressed, through student demonstrations, their rejection of this summit,” it said. “The only one who came out victorious from this summit was Sharon.”
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose government hosts a meeting in London in March on Palestinian security, said the summit was “of historic importance” and that it was vital to build upon its outcome.
Middle East analysts warned against over-optimism, however. “It’s a great achievement, there’s no doubt about it,” Nadim Shehadi of Chatham House, the London-based global affairs think tank, said yesterday.
But he added: “We’re nowhere near the road map (toward the creation of a Palestinian state) and we’re not back to square one in the negotiations.”
He pointed to a “disconnect” between Sharon, who is focused on an Israeli pullout from Gaza, and Abbas, whose final goal is an end to Israeli occupation of all Palestinian lands.
What is more, the backing that Abbas enjoys from Hamas and Islamic Jihad “is not unconditional” and hinges on his ability to nail down a complete Israeli withdrawal, Shehadi said.
Newspapers across the Middle East largely welcomed Tuesday’s cease-fire declarations as a positive step, but warned the road to peace remained littered with obstacles.
In Israeli the top-selling Yediot Aharonot ran a front-page headline declaring “The Intifada Is Over”, while its main tabloid rival Maariv struck a more skeptical note with the words: “Maybe This Time.”
“Probably, a window of light has started to appear on Sharm El-Sheikh’s horizon, and at the end of the dark tunnel of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” the Al-Siyassah newspaper in Kuwait said in a front-page editorial.
But Qatar’s Ash-Sharq daily said the summit “did not achieve much of what was expected by the Palestinian and Arab public opinion ... as it did not include guarantees for the implementation and commitment” of a cease-fire.
In Lebanon, Daily Star commentator Rami Khouri said: “The bottom line to date is that everything we are witnessing — heartening and welcomed as it is — has been tried before, by these same people, without success.”
European newspapers preferred to be upbeat.
“The situation has never been so hopeful,” said Germany’s Die Welt, adding Europeans now had to “develop their own contribution” and work with, not against the United States in the quest for Middle East peace.
“It will be a lengthy and difficult process, but it will have begun in the right sort of spirit,” The Times of London said. “The two leaders offered more than mere words in their statements.”
In France, where Rice’s visit rivaled the Sharm El-Sheikh summit for attention, Le Figaro saw “a first gesture for peace,” but noted how Hamas within a matter of hours said it was not bound by Abbas’s pledge.
Palestinians in the West Bank, who have borne the brunt of the violence during the Intifada, said the summit has done little to revive their hopes for peace.
“The summit is no more than a shot of morphine until violence flares again,” said 42-year-old mother of six Fatima Mansur in the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
“Sharon is the father of all massacres and he cannot change into a dove overnight”, added Mansur, who lost one of her sons during the Intifada.
She said Shadi was barely 16 when he was shot outside the family house two years ago while playing with a plastic rifle.
Of all West Bank cities which Israel re-occupied during the spring of 2002, Nablus has been subjected the longest periods of curfews and closures which, at times, go on for weeks on end.
“Sharon will not honor any of his agreements with us because he doesn’t have to: He’s the strong party and enjoys full and unconditional US backing,” said Mansur, who teaches sign language at a specialized school. “Look at the way we live,” she said, pointing at her sparsely furnished house, hardly resistant to the harsh and damp winters of Nablus.
The cracks in the walls, through which the rain incessantly leaks, were caused by recurrent explosions during Israeli army incursions and house-to-house searches, she said.
“The sacrifices we’ve made over the past four years are incredibly heavy. Israel killed and wounded our sons, arrested thousands of them, destroyed hundreds of houses, not to mention our economy,” she said.
Her 17-year-old son Dia was equally pessimistic. “The Israeli army was here just three days ago and arrested our neighbors’ son despite the current calm,” he said.
“We are sick and tired of politics. There’s been a lot of summits, whether Sharm El-Sheikh or others, and we’ve heard the same things before but nothing ever changes,” he sighed.
Intisssar al-Ajuri said she felt “frustrated” when she watched the summit live on television Tuesday.
“There were no talks on the (Jewish) settlements, Israel’s wall on the West Bank, or on the prisoners who are serving long-term sentences in Israeli jails,” she complained.
“Some 8,000 prisoners are behind bars and there cannot be peace until they’re all released,” said the 36-year-old woman who was herself arrested in 2003 and later released for lack of evidence.
She and her sister were accused of having helped their brother Ali — shot by Israeli troops in 2003 — carry out attacks and deported to the Gaza Strip.
