Geneva Plan Has No 'Safety Net' for Israel, Military Expert Says
By: Administrative Account | Source: CNSNews.com
December 5, 2003 11:07AM EST

By Julie Stahl
CNSNews.com Jerusalem Bureau Chief
December 05, 2003

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - The Geneva Initiative signed this week between Israeli left-wingers and Palestinians offers no "safety net" to Israel should the Palestinians renege on their obligations, a military expert here said.

Secretary of State Colin Powell is set to meet with authors of the Geneva Initiative Yossi Beilin and Yasser Abed Rabbo in Washington on Friday, despite Israel's urging not to do so.

The plan purports to be a model agreement to end the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict, solving the thorniest disputes between the two sides.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat has given casual backing to the deal, but officials said he backed it just to divide Israel. Thousands of Palestinians have taken to the streets to protest any such agreement.

Israeli Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said earlier that he believed Powell was making a "mistake" to meet with the planners of the accord and that such a meeting would be unhelpful to the peace process.

But President Bush said on Thursday that while he still backed the road map peace plan accepted by both sides, he thought the Geneva Accord was "productive" as long as terror is fought, there is security, and a free and democratic Palestinian state emerges.

Israeli experts and analysts have been harsh on the accord, which was mailed in advance of its signing to virtually every Israeli household and published in Palestinian newspapers.

Reserve Maj.-Gen Yaakov Amidror of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs in Jerusalem charged that the proposal "conceded almost all the security arrangements for the West Bank and Gaza Strip sought by past Israeli governments" and would leave Israel without a "safety net" if the Palestinians violated the agreement.

\expndtw6"[Geneva] entails an almost total abandonment of the high ground dominating the metropolitan Tel Aviv region, leaving the central stretch of Israel's coastal strip, where most of its population and industrial capacity are located, completely exposed, without any real strategic depth.
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\expndtw6"The transfer of the Jordan Rift Valley to the Palestinians leaves Israel with no ability to defend itself from threats from the east, should they emerge once again in the future," Amidror said in a written assessment. "Geneva provides Israel with two isolated, and hence worthless, early-warning stations there]."

"In essence, almost all of Israel's security requirements were exchanged for the idea of deploying a foreign military presence that will be supervised by an international committee created to oversee the agreement's implementation," he said. According to the agreement international monitors would include the U.S., United Nations, European Union and Arab states.

Prof. Shlomo Avineri, described as a moderate-left activist and a professor of history and political science at Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote earlier this week in the Hebrew daily Yediot Aharonot that while the initiators of Geneva are entitled to their express their opinions, they didn't have a right to "brazenly lie to the public.""\expndtw0

Avineri charges among other things while initiators said the document contains Palestinian recognition of Israel as "the state of the Jewish people," it in fact does not.

"The 'Jewish people' is not mentioned in the document. What is does say is that 'the two sides recognize Palestine and Israel as the national homes of their nations.' Whoever wishes can certainly say that Israel as 'the state of all its citizens' is the national home of 'the Israeli nation,' which includes Jews and Arabs. It is no coincidence that the word 'Jew' doesn't appear in the document, he said.

The accord initiators also claim that the Palestinians have given up the "right of return" but Avineri said this is not the case.

"The document says United Nations Resolution 194 and other resolutions shall be the basis for the solution of the refugee problem. To be sure, resolution 194 doesn't speak of the 'right' of return - it only determines that the refugees shall return to their former places.

"As the Arabs see it, Resolution 194 is the basis of the international legitimacy of the right of return," he said.

In another twist, the U.S.-based private intelligence firm Stratfor said that Europe's support for the Geneva Initiative -- Switzerland backed and paid for it -- is aimed at competing with the U.S.

"The unofficial proposal has become part of a European effort to seize the initiative in shaping regional dynamics in the Middle East. Europe is moving to build alliances with Middle Eastern partners, like Iran and the Palestinians, with which the United States cannot directly align," Stratfor wrote in a recent bulletin.

"The European strategy is intended to curb the nearly boundless U.S. influence in the Middle East without triggering a direct confrontation with Washington. The maneuvers will work to expand European involvement in the region in the short- to medium term and strengthen the positions of states in the area that are out of U.S. favor...

"Europe's efforts to curb U.S. influence do not stem from a dislike of Washington's agenda on moral or humanitarian grounds. Rather, the U.S. agenda for the direction of the Middle East - along with other issues - competes directly with the European vision and reduces the impact of European states like France, Germany and Britain on global affairs in everything from economics and energy to the military and politics," the report said.

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