TEL AVIV, Aug 6: Israel on Monday presented the Palestinians with a security plan to wind down the violence in the first high-level meeting since the latest explosion of Middle East unrest.
Even as Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer met newly appointed Palestinian interior minister Abdelrazak al-Yahya, Israeli attack helicopters fired at least two missiles on a metal-workshop in Gaza City.
The Israeli defence ministry said Ben Eliezer “presented his idea of “Gaza First”, which would mean the Palestinian forces would carck down on anti-Israeli guerillas and this would be followed by Israeli measures”.
Israeli state radio said Ben Eliezer’s plan stipulated that Israel would withdraw its forces in those places where the Palestinian Authority took control and prevented attacks on Israeli targets. The Israeli defence minister first put forward his new plan for a return to normal in the Gaza Strip in talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on July 15.
The new security plan, under which the Palestinian Authority would crack down on militant groups as Israeli troops withdraw from re-occupied land, put Yasser Arafat’s security forces on a collision course with the powerful Islamist group Hamas again Tuesday.
Hardline groups in the Gaza Strip, where the plan would receive its trial run, were swift to denounce the proposal as an attack on Palestinian unity and containing the seeds of Palestinian civil war.
“The Palestinians reject this plan. Our mission is to resist the occupation and such a sedative plan aims to calm criticism by the international community and gain time,” said a Gaza Hamas leader, Ismail Abu Shanab.
“These meetings have no sense. They run counter to the resistance and sharpen divisions between the various Palestinian strategies,” he said.
“The Palestinian people should pool their efforts by adopting a single policy. These divergences do not serve the interests of the Palestinian people, but on the contrary prolong the occupation, which is proven by the fact that during their meeting there was a bombing in Gaza,” he added.
The other major hardline religious group in Gaza, Islamic Jihad, echoed Hamas’ sentiment.
“This plan aims at stopping the Palestinian people’s intifada and its resistance against the occupation,” senior member Khaled al-Batsh said.
Batsh also said that “the plan aims at sowing the seeds of chaos, internal divisions and civil war” among Palestinians.
Although the leadership of Hamas and Islamic Jihad are based in the Gaza Strip, Israel has opted to dismantle Palestinian armed groups in the West Bank, where they can cross more readily into Israeli cities.
Owing to the military closure of the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the intifada, in late September 2000, almost all the militants who carried out bombings inside Israel did so from the West Bank.
“I don’t think Palestinian security will be in a position to crack down on militants while Israel is doing the same thing in the West Bank,” said Gaza MP Ziad Abu Amr.
“This would push the security forces into the position of being collaborators and quislings,” he added.
As long as Israel failed to offer any viable roadmap to peace, he warned: “Public opinion would turn against Palestinian security if they tried to round up Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists.
Recent Palestinian polls show that Hamas and the Islamic Jihad enjoy the most trust of the Palestinian public after Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement.
Both radical religious groups have seen their popularity skyrocket since the intifada, with Hamas’ ratings coming close to Fatah’s.
PERES MEETS MUBARAK: Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres also met Mubarak for the first time in a year on Monday, shortly before the Ben Eliezer-Yahya meeting, agreeing on the need for a political solution but differing on whether Arafat should stay at the top, which Israel opposes.
Ben Eliezer told the Israeli daily Haaretz that his proposals would involve a phased Israeli pullback from Palestinian areas it has reoccupied since the eruption of the intifada, in return for the Palestinians’ taking charge of security.
The defence minister said he had secured Mubarak’s support for the plan, which he intended to start in the Gaza Strip, and which could eventually lead to Gazan labourers being allowed to return to jobs in Israel.—AFP