jerusalem | Prime Minister Ariel Sharon conceived the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank as a unilateral step, but it’s increasingly being coordinated by Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, despite a tense summit between Sharon and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
The two sides are working on joint military plans to stop Palestinian terrorists from firing on Israeli soldiers and civilians during the pullback, slated to begin in mid-August. They also are putting together a string of ambitious economic projects to provide incentives for the Palestinians to keep the peace long after the withdrawal is complete.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s lightning-quick visit to Ramallah and Jerusalem last weekend was part of a concerted American effort to encourage coordination, and Sharon’s meeting this week with Abbas was an attempt at fostering cooperation.
But this cooperation may be in jeopardy after a meeting that Palestinian leaders called “difficult.” A day after the summit, Israel said that it would launch airstrikes against Palestinian population centers if Palestinian violence interfered with the disengagement from Gaza.
Sharon’s main message to Abbas was that Israeli-Palestinian military and civilian coordination will have little credibility unless the authority starts making good on its pledges to crack down on terrorism.
Israel claims there has been an increase in attacks by groups like Islamic Jihad over the past few days, and that the authority is doing very little to stop it.
Israeli forces arrested more than 50 Islamic Jihad activists earlier this week after the group claimed responsibility for killing two Israelis in recent days. The message was clear: If the Palestinian Authority doesn’t take action, Israel will.
Sharon and Abbas discussed a number of key coordination issues, including deployment of authority police during the evacuation, arrangements for control of the “Philadelphia route” on the border between Gaza and Egypt, administration of border-crossing points between Gaza and Israel, and demolition of evacuated settler homes.
Sharon also agreed to transfer the West Bank cities of Kalkilya and Bethlehem to authority control within the next two weeks.
Rice met separately with Palestinian and Israeli leaders. She left no doubt that the Americans see a coordinated, relatively peaceful pullback as the key to creating a favorable climate for renewed peace talks.
And to strengthen the authority’s prestige and policing capacity, Israeli negotiators, headed by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinski, the army’s deputy chief of staff, are proposing:
• Handing over more West Bank cities, such as Jenin and Ramallah, to Palestinians before the withdrawal from Gaza. The Israeli side, though, insists that the authority first fulfill promises to disarm terrorists on Israel’s wanted list.
• Transferring authority police from the West Bank to Gaza to beef up their presence in key areas.
• Setting up joint Israeli-Palestinian operations rooms to coordinate movement of forces on the ground before, during and after the withdrawal.
The Israeli side has provided maps of the settlements and asked the Palestinians to come back with a detailed security plan that would dovetail with Israel’s overall blueprint for protecting the withdrawal.
But some Israeli leaders are skeptical. Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argues that because Israel is not demanding anything from the Palestinians in return for the withdrawal, terrorist groups have no motivation to keep the peace.
On the contrary, he says, apart from any agreement Israel reaches with the Palestinian Authority, terrorists almost certainly will fire on the departing troops because they want to create the impression that Israel is being forced to leave.