Key Palestinians Won't
Back Peace Accords
By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH - Associated Press
- Nov. 30, 2003 - RAMALLAH, West Bank: Four prominent Palestinians who
negotiated a symbolic Mideast peace agreement decided not to attend a
launching ceremony in Switzerland this week after Yasser Arafat refused
to give written support and shots were fired at a negotiator's home,
Palestinian officials said Sunday.
In a meeting overnight, the Palestinian leader
turned down a request by two of the officials - Qadoura Fares, a
Cabinet minister, and lawmaker Mohammed Horani - to give them a letter
supporting the accords, the officials said on condition of anonymity.
The other two officials who refused to go to the
Monday ceremony were Minister of Prisoner Affairs Hisham Abdel Razek
and lawmaker Khatem Abdel Khader.
The officials' decision, along with a violent
protest in the Gaza Strip, raised serious doubts about Palestinian
support for the so-called "Geneva Accord."
An Israeli architect of the accords, former
Minister Yossi Beilin, said the pullout by the Palestinian negotiators
undermined the agreement, but that he remained hopeful.
"I could not have believed a month and a half ago
that our work ... became one of the most important things in the recent
period," Beilin told Israel Radio. "I hope that it will lead toward a
real agreement."
The deal, reached by former Israeli and
Palestinian negotiators, would establish a Palestinian state and
includes unprecedented concessions by both sides. Israel gives up
control of important holy sites, and the Palestinians agree to a
formula that would likely preclude a significant return of refugees to
Israel.
A recent poll by two U.S. groups showed a narrow
majority of Israelis and Palestinians would support such an agreement.
It also has been welcomed by much of the international community as
fighting between the sides continued. U.S. Secretary of State Colin
Powell is reportedly going to meet with the architects of the agreement
next month.
But Palestinian opponents to the deal have been
increasingly vocal - in some cases violent - because of the refugee
issue.
Fares confirmed that he would not be attending the
ceremony.
Palestinian officials involved in the
negotiations, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Fares and
Horani continue to support the accord but do not want to participate in
the signing ceremony because of strong opposition in their Fatah Party,
which is headed by Arafat.
The Palestinian leader has given some tacit
approval to the accords, but has not officially accepted them. Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has harshly criticized the deal, which
would hand over almost all of the West Bank and Gaza, and some of east
Jerusalem, to the Palestinian state.
Palestinian officials involved in the negotiations
of the document have been threatened by militant elements.
Masked gunmen fired shots last week at the home of
former Palestinian Cabinet minister Yasser Abed Rabbo, a key architect
of the agreement. Palestinian security officials said they thought the
shots were fired by Fatah militants.
Fares, one of the initiators of the deal, enjoys
wide support in the Fatah Party and among the Palestinian public, after
having spent 14 years in Israeli jails, and has negotiated the release
of prisoners.
In a further sign of opposition, about 200
Palestinians attacked Palestinian negotiators traveling to Geneva on
Sunday for the signing ceremony.
Screaming "traitors," the angry Palestinians
blocked the road near a crossing into Egypt and beat and kicked the
Palestinian negotiators and dignitaries as they emerged from their
cars. Unarmed Palestinian police had to restrain the demonstrators to
allow the officials to get through.
The officials were traveling to Cairo, and from
there were to fly to Switzerland.
The Al Aqsa Brigades - which are loosely
affiliated with Fatah - also issue a leaflet condemning the Palestinian
negotiators as "collaborators."
On Saturday, about 150 Palestinians protested the
treaty in the Balata refugee in the West Bank.