Departing Israeli Pm Offers Palestinians 'shelf' Deal

The Age

Wednesday August 13, 2008

Jason Koutsoukis, Jerusalem

ISRAEL'S lame-duck Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has reportedly offered Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas a deal that might give Palestinians control over 93% of the occupied West Bank but would be conditional on the end of Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip.

With Israeli politicians focused on who will succeed Mr Olmert, the Prime Minister has pressed ahead with attempts to strike a deal with Mr Abbas, who rules the West Bank under a state of emergency.

According to leading Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Mr Olmert offered a plan that includes proposals for in-principle agreement on borders, Palestinians made refugees by the wars of 1948 and 1967, and security arrangements between Israel and a future Palestinian state.

The offer came as the PA's chief negotiator, former prime minister Ahmed Qurie, warned that Israel's policies risked making a two-state solution impossible, forcing Palestinians to press for a single binational state in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel.

Under the plan, Israel would withdraw from most of the West Bank territory it occupies, keeping 7%. Palestinians would be compensated with land equivalent to 5.5% of the West Bank located in the Negev Desert, adjacent to the Gaza Strip. An agreed passage between the West Bank and Gaza Strip would remain officially under Israeli control but allow Palestinians to travel between the two territories without security checks.

Mr Olmert's proposal does not include a time frame and is being referred to as a "shelf" agreement to be implemented over a period of years. It does not include any proposals over the future of East Jerusalem, which Palestinians demand as the capital of a Palestinian state.

The 7% of the West Bank kept by Israel would include the major settlement blocs around Jerusalem and some settlements in the northern West Bank.

Mr Olmert's latest proposal for peace is conditional on Mr Abbas' Fatah party taking control of Gaza, which is governed by Hamas, the Islamist party that won the democratic elections across both Palestinian territories in January 2006.

Mr Olmert's proposal would allow some refugees from the 1948 war to return to Israel, but would settle most of the 4.5 million refugees in the new Palestinian state, which the agreement insists would be demilitarised.

The negotiations, which have shown little progress since they were relaunched at Annapolis in November 2007, were dealt a further blow last month when Mr Olmert announced he would resign as soon as his party chose a new leader.

Israel's Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, and Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz are locked in a tight race for the Kadima Party leadership that will be decided in a party ballot due mid-September.