|
|
October 31, 2003/Cheshvan 5 5764, Vol. 56, No. 6
Is Europe funding 'Geneva accord'?
PHILIP CARMEL
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
PARIS - The line between tacit support and direct financial assistance for an unofficial Middle East peace plan is a fine one - but a number of European states may be about to cross it, according to Israeli officials.
The two leading advocates of the "Geneva accord" - Israel's former justice minister, Yossi Beilin, and a former Palestinian Authority information minister, Yasser Abed Rabbo - met last week with the French and Belgian foreign ministers in Paris.
The meetings ostensibly were meant to garner European diplomatic support for the peace initiative, but Israeli officials said they also were a chance to gather funds to publicize the deal back home.
The accord envisages Israeli withdrawal from virtually all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the division of Jerusalem and the transfer of Temple Mount sovereignty to the Palestinians.
The plan was devised in a number of secret meetings between Israeli and Palestinian representatives in Geneva, London, Vienna, Pisa and Tokyo, held over more than two years.
The plan's principal proponents - members of Israel's Labor and Meretz parties as well as former ministers in the Palestinian Authority - say European states have given substantial logistical and organizational assistance.
Moreover, recent meetings between the project's Israeli and Palestinian supporters and leaders of major E.U. political groupings - along with European Parliament President Pat Cox - have implied a certain E.U. interest in the project.
The Israeli government has been incensed by European backing of a peace plan that was negotiated by people who were voted out of office, which is contrary to government policy and, in Israeli officials' eyes, which rewards terrorism by offering the Palestinians greater concessions than were contemplated before the intifada.
Now, if Beilin and Abed Rabbo indeed asked for monetary help at the recent Paris meetings, a line may have been crossed into direct financial assistance.
The reports immediately raised the ire of Israeli officials.
Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told a Cabinet meeting Oct. 26 that France and Belgium had agreed to provide $7 million to build support for the accord.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Oct. 26 that Israel should "fight to stop the adoption of the Geneva initiative and against the aid given it by European states."
Israel's Foreign Ministry summoned the acting head of Switzerland's mission in Israel to express "misgivings" about Swiss patronage of the plan.
The Swiss say a formal signing ceremony will go ahead next month in Geneva, though the original date - Nov. 4, the anniversary of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination - seems likely to be changed.
France denied that it intends to offer financial backing for the plan, though Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin's said the accord was "welcome" and "complements" the U.S.-sponsored "road map" peace plan.
A senior source at Israel's embassy in Paris said Israel accepted the French reassurances.
He pointed out, however, that foreign support for the plan could be construed as "interference in the affairs of a foreign state and, worse, could have damaging effects when we really come together to talk peace."
|
