A step forward for Palestinian state
A step forward for Palestinian state
Countries pledge $1.2b, get promise of antiterror effort
By Charles M. Sennott, Globe Staff | March 2, 2005
LONDON -- The Palestinians and the international community agreed yesterday to an array of financial and political steps that would put into place what Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain called ''the foundation stones" of a viable Palestinian state.
As part of the plan, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, one of the delegates to the international conference, reaffirmed Washington's commitment to send a monitoring team to help restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
The conference concluded with a report that participating nations have pledged $1.2 billion this year to help establish the new government of Mahmoud Abbas, with additional aid expected from Arab states.
The funds -- from the United States, Britain, and several other European nations -- would help shore up the Palestinian Authority, which has been left battered and financially drained during four years of conflict with Israel. The money would help pay for tens of thousands of Palestinian security officers who are considered crucial to imposing control over militant groups.
The Palestinian Authority, in return, pledged to hold legislative elections, clean up corruption, and restore security by dismantling terrorism networks.
''Everybody is agreed that we want a two-state solution and of course there will be a weariness on the part of many Palestinians. The only alternative is to get off the ground and go forward," Blair said at a news conference at the close of the one-day, 23-nation meeting, which he hosted.
Abbas, who attended the session, said, ''The peace that has now become the dire need of Palestinians and Israelis is possible -- as long as we work in earnest."
He said the Palestinians were committed to the peace process, and were doing everything they could to preserve a truce with Israel.
Abbas praised what he called ''international, widespread, and active support in our favor" for the goal of the meeting as stated in a 17-page communiqué: creating ''a sovereign, democratic, and territorially contiguous Palestinian state -- existing side by side with Israel."
Rice told reporters, ''The prospects for peace are the best they've been in many years."
And she added that the conference reflects the Bush administration's ''commitment" to push for both sides of the conflict to live up to their obligation -- the Palestinian officials to pursue terrorist groups operating in Gaza and the West Bank, and Israel to end its expansion of settlements in the occupied territories. Those obligations were spelled out at the meeting and in the US-backed ''road map" for peace, an agreement detailed at a joint Israeli-Palestinian peace conference in 2002.
But yesterday's conference occurred just days after a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv that has threatened to break an unofficial truce between Palestinians and Israelis, and, as Blair pointed out, peace efforts remain a ''fragile enterprise."
Rice pressed the Palestinians, saying that Friday's bombing, which killed five people, underscored the need for the Palestinian Authority to do more to ''dismantle the networks of terror."
Abbas ''unequivocally" condemned the bombing and said that movement forward should not be derailed by ''extremist elements determined to sabotage the peace process."
The next key phase of the road map will be for Israel to withdraw its military from the Palestinian territory of Gaza, which the Israeli government has said will take place in July.
Israel did not attend the meeting yesterday, nor did Syria, which Israel and the United States have accused of playing a role in the Friday bombing in Tel Aviv. Israel was not invited, organizers said, because the focus of the meeting was to bring the United States and Arab and European countries together to work on how best to bring the Palestinians closer to statehood.
Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayyad said donors pledged $1.2 billion to finance the infrastructure and security initiatives connected with Palestinian statehood, including almost $400 million from the United States.
The United States also has committed to dispatching Lieutenant General William Ward to the West Bank and Gaza to serve a ''monitoring function," as Rice put it. The presence of Ward is designed to provide a third-party analysis of events and of the Palestinian commitment to rooting out terrorism.
Rice did not make clear whether Ward's team would also monitor the construction of Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza.
The meeting, which brought together UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and representatives of the World Bank and the oil-producing Gulf states, was set against a dramatic backdrop of change.
''These are momentous times in the Middle East," said Rice, citing elections in Iraq and the Palestinian territories within the last two months as well as more recent developments such as the announcement of the opening of democratic reforms in Egypt and Saudi Arabia and a ''dramatic, popular outpouring for freedom" in Lebanon in recent days.
The gathering in London seemed to also be part of a wider warming of trans-Atlantic relations after a chill cast by the war in Iraq. European and American diplomats on the sidelines noted a marked difference in tone during the meeting.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has always been a sharp dividing line between the United States and Europe. European countries have long asserted that instability in the Arab world could only be answered after the Israeli-Palestinian equation was solved.
The Bush administration has asserted that terrorism will never be rewarded, and that a movement toward democracy in the region would be contagious.
Blair has sought to be the bridge between the two positions, and in many ways hosted the meeting as part of that expressed intent and because of domestic political considerations stemming from the huge unpopularity of his decision to support the war in Iraq.
Rosemary Hollis, head of the Middle East program at the London-based Royal Institute of International Affairs, said: ''This conference represented the median point between the US and European views. But that does not mean that Blair is the bridge between them. He is still heard and seen in Europe as the lackey of the Americans."
Other assessments were less bleak. Solana, who has been a strident opponent of the Iraq war and who has long stated that the Israeli-Palestinian question was the core of anger in the Arab world, said, ''A lot of good things are happening."
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/03/02/a_step_forward_for_palestinian_state/
Countries pledge $1.2b, get promise of antiterror effort
By Charles M. Sennott, Globe Staff | March 2, 2005
LONDON -- The Palestinians and the international community agreed yesterday to an array of financial and political steps that would put into place what Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain called ''the foundation stones" of a viable Palestinian state.
As part of the plan, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, one of the delegates to the international conference, reaffirmed Washington's commitment to send a monitoring team to help restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
The conference concluded with a report that participating nations have pledged $1.2 billion this year to help establish the new government of Mahmoud Abbas, with additional aid expected from Arab states.
The funds -- from the United States, Britain, and several other European nations -- would help shore up the Palestinian Authority, which has been left battered and financially drained during four years of conflict with Israel. The money would help pay for tens of thousands of Palestinian security officers who are considered crucial to imposing control over militant groups.
The Palestinian Authority, in return, pledged to hold legislative elections, clean up corruption, and restore security by dismantling terrorism networks.
''Everybody is agreed that we want a two-state solution and of course there will be a weariness on the part of many Palestinians. The only alternative is to get off the ground and go forward," Blair said at a news conference at the close of the one-day, 23-nation meeting, which he hosted.
Abbas, who attended the session, said, ''The peace that has now become the dire need of Palestinians and Israelis is possible -- as long as we work in earnest."
He said the Palestinians were committed to the peace process, and were doing everything they could to preserve a truce with Israel.
Abbas praised what he called ''international, widespread, and active support in our favor" for the goal of the meeting as stated in a 17-page communiqué: creating ''a sovereign, democratic, and territorially contiguous Palestinian state -- existing side by side with Israel."
Rice told reporters, ''The prospects for peace are the best they've been in many years."
And she added that the conference reflects the Bush administration's ''commitment" to push for both sides of the conflict to live up to their obligation -- the Palestinian officials to pursue terrorist groups operating in Gaza and the West Bank, and Israel to end its expansion of settlements in the occupied territories. Those obligations were spelled out at the meeting and in the US-backed ''road map" for peace, an agreement detailed at a joint Israeli-Palestinian peace conference in 2002.
But yesterday's conference occurred just days after a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv that has threatened to break an unofficial truce between Palestinians and Israelis, and, as Blair pointed out, peace efforts remain a ''fragile enterprise."
Rice pressed the Palestinians, saying that Friday's bombing, which killed five people, underscored the need for the Palestinian Authority to do more to ''dismantle the networks of terror."
Abbas ''unequivocally" condemned the bombing and said that movement forward should not be derailed by ''extremist elements determined to sabotage the peace process."
The next key phase of the road map will be for Israel to withdraw its military from the Palestinian territory of Gaza, which the Israeli government has said will take place in July.
Israel did not attend the meeting yesterday, nor did Syria, which Israel and the United States have accused of playing a role in the Friday bombing in Tel Aviv. Israel was not invited, organizers said, because the focus of the meeting was to bring the United States and Arab and European countries together to work on how best to bring the Palestinians closer to statehood.
Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayyad said donors pledged $1.2 billion to finance the infrastructure and security initiatives connected with Palestinian statehood, including almost $400 million from the United States.
The United States also has committed to dispatching Lieutenant General William Ward to the West Bank and Gaza to serve a ''monitoring function," as Rice put it. The presence of Ward is designed to provide a third-party analysis of events and of the Palestinian commitment to rooting out terrorism.
Rice did not make clear whether Ward's team would also monitor the construction of Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza.
The meeting, which brought together UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana and representatives of the World Bank and the oil-producing Gulf states, was set against a dramatic backdrop of change.
''These are momentous times in the Middle East," said Rice, citing elections in Iraq and the Palestinian territories within the last two months as well as more recent developments such as the announcement of the opening of democratic reforms in Egypt and Saudi Arabia and a ''dramatic, popular outpouring for freedom" in Lebanon in recent days.
The gathering in London seemed to also be part of a wider warming of trans-Atlantic relations after a chill cast by the war in Iraq. European and American diplomats on the sidelines noted a marked difference in tone during the meeting.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has always been a sharp dividing line between the United States and Europe. European countries have long asserted that instability in the Arab world could only be answered after the Israeli-Palestinian equation was solved.
The Bush administration has asserted that terrorism will never be rewarded, and that a movement toward democracy in the region would be contagious.
Blair has sought to be the bridge between the two positions, and in many ways hosted the meeting as part of that expressed intent and because of domestic political considerations stemming from the huge unpopularity of his decision to support the war in Iraq.
Rosemary Hollis, head of the Middle East program at the London-based Royal Institute of International Affairs, said: ''This conference represented the median point between the US and European views. But that does not mean that Blair is the bridge between them. He is still heard and seen in Europe as the lackey of the Americans."
Other assessments were less bleak. Solana, who has been a strident opponent of the Iraq war and who has long stated that the Israeli-Palestinian question was the core of anger in the Arab world, said, ''A lot of good things are happening."
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/03/02/a_step_forward_for_palestinian_state/
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