GAZA CITY, 11 May 2006 — Israel set a peace deadline for the Palestinians yesterday to become negotiating partners by the end of the year or else the government will move ahead with a plan to fix the borders on its own terms.
Also, Israel accepted a decision by major Middle East peace brokers to resume some aid payments to the Palestinians — a move that could ease intense economic pressure on the Hamas-led government.
The Quartet of international mediators — the United States, Russia, European Union and the United Nations — agreed on Tuesday to create the new mechanism for funnelling funds to the Palestinians and will run it for a three-month trial period. The Hamas-led government said it appreciated the Quartet’s efforts to ease the burden on the Palestinian people but said they could have gone further, and in a statement criticized the fact that its own authority was likely to be bypassed.
“We were hoping that their decision could be more positive in dealing with the Palestinian government since it is an elected government that represents the Palestinian people.”
The move follows fears expressed by some Quartet members that more pressure on the Hamas-led administration could cause the Palestinian government to collapse, unleashing a deeper humanitarian and security crisis in the West Bank and Gaza.
It was not clear how the mechanism — yet to be worked out but which the EU is expected to take the lead on — would function, but it was expected to effectively bypass the Hamas-dominated government and channel funds through the office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas instead.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and senior members of his Cabinet, which was sworn into office last week, said the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority must renounce the use of violence, respect Israel’s right to exist and respect previous mutual accords in order for talks to become a possibility.
“We will wait for a month, two months, three months, six months, and if we see no change, then we will probably move forward even without an agreement,” Olmert told a group of visiting foreign mayors on Tuesday night.
“If the Palestinians do not accept these conditions, Israel will have to determine its borders by itself.” Olmert has made fixing the borders the prime task of his administration, with or without agreement from the Palestinians. Under the terms of the convergence plan, Olmert is set to pull some 70,000 settlers out of the occupied West Bank.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni made clear that Olmert’s comments did not mean that settlers would begin to be pulled out of the West Bank in six months time. “This does not signify that Israel is going to leave (parts of the West Bank) in six months, but I understand that Olmert is laying out the path which he intends to follow,” Livni told Israeli Army radio.
Meanwhile, Israeli aircraft fired two missiles at a training base in the southern Gaza Strip late yesterday, Palestinian security sources said. There were no casualties in the attack.
Palestinian security officials said the base, in the evacuated Jewish settlement of Neve Dekalim, is run by the Abu Rish Brigades, loosely affiliated with Fatah. The Israelis had no immediate comment.
— With input from agencies
