The June 4-5 meeting in Aqaba, Jordan, was organized at Washington’s initiative. At the meeting, Bush got confirmation of the concessions Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon had promised the previous week to evacuate some Jewish settlements from Palestinian land, and assurances from Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud Abbas that he would put an end to “the militarization of the intifada.”

This summit was organized to announce an agreement on a U.S.-crafted Israeli-Palestinian accord. The so-called road map calls for the formation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip within three years, on condition that the Palestinian Authority crack down on groups called “terrorist” by Washington and choose a leadership acceptable to the White House.

At a June 3 meeting in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, Bush won backing for the plan from Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah of Jordan, King Hamad of Bahrain, and the Palestinian prime minister.

Addressing the issue of Israeli settlements, Sharon promised to “immediately begin to remove unauthorized outposts.” Tel Aviv has established hundreds of Jewish settlements throughout the occupied territories and has moved in more than 200,000 settlers—largely right-wing Zionists. Some 3.5 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and Gaza.

At Aqaba Palestinian prime minister Abbas stated, “Our goal is two states, Israel and Palestine.” He pledged to bring to an end the nearly three-year-old uprising of the Palestinian people. In remarks aimed at Hamas and other Palestinian groups opposed to the latest U.S.-inspired plan, Abbas stated that “our national future is at stake and no one will be allowed to jeopardize it.” During the meeting, Abbas did not refer to key Palestinian demands: the right of the 700,000 Palestinians expelled from their land by the Zionist armies in 1948, and their 4 million descendants, to return to their land in what is today Israel; Jerusalem being the capital of a Palestinian state; and what the borders of a future Palestine will be. His failure to do so drew criticism from many Palestinian forces. On June 6 Hamas withdrew from negotiations with Abbas over a cease-fire.

Two days later Palestinian fighters attacked an Israeli army outpost at the Erez crossing from Gaza into Israel, killing four Israeli soldiers. Leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade said they carried out the unusual joint operation to demonstrate their rejection of the Aqaba agreement.

Israeli troops carried out a retaliatory strike next day. They were unsuccessful in their attempt to assassinate a central Hamas leader with a helicopter gunship attack but killed two Palestinians and wounded 20 others. Washington criticized Tel Aviv for the action. At a June 9 press conference, Abbas defended the Aqaba accord and renewed his call for an end to armed Palestinian actions. He stated, however, that his government “was not going to outlaw anyone” or use force against other Palestinian groups.

The Israeli government made initial concessions in the negotiations in order to block with Washington in achieving larger objectives in the region. A major goal shared by the U.S. and Israeli rulers is to deal blows to the Iranian regime, including the destruction of Tehran’s capacity to develop nuclear weapons. As part of this goal they seek to neutralize or qualitatively weaken Hezbollah—a Lebanon-based group made up largely of Shiite Muslims that has taken responsibility for guerrilla attacks against Zionist targets.

Sharon stipulated that any concessions on the part of Tel Aviv are conditioned on the termination of the Palestinian struggle, stating Israel “will continue fighting terrorism until its final defeat.”

In his “road map” Bush calls for the removal of all Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza built in the last two years. Israeli officials have indicated that Tel Aviv plans to take down only about a dozen outposts, consisting largely of “a few mobile homes placed on isolated West Bank hilltops,” the New York Times reported June 4. Since the Oslo accord in 1993—the first Israeli-Palestinian political agreement—the population of the settlements has doubled. The largest outposts, like Ariel and Aumim, with some 20,000 settlers, are left untouched by the White House’s current plan.  
 
Tel Aviv tears down empty ‘outposts’
On June 9, Israeli troops tore down a watchtower adjacent to a Jewish settlement in Ofra, West Bank, and two trailers in nearby Neve Erez South. These are among the 14 “unauthorized outposts” Sharon has pledged his army will take down. Settlers have erected these on land that not even Tel Aviv has claimed as Israeli territory. These outposts are largely uninhabited.

“It’s a phony show that has no value,” said Nabil Abu Rudaneh, an aide to Palestinian Authority president Yasir Arafat, referring to these removals. The same day the Israeli army demolished 13 homes of Palestinians in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun.

At Sharm El Sheikh Bush stated, “Israel must make sure there’s a continuous territory that the Palestinians can call home.” A day later a White House spokesperson assured that he meant “contiguous.” In this context, stated the Jordan Times, contiguous means “a self-contained state, not crisscrossed by roads open only to Israelis or separated by Jewish settlements.” Hoping to reassure the Palestinian people, who have witnessed how accords have been used to continue denying them self-determination, U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell said that the new plan will lead to a Palestinian state that “can’t be chopped up in so many ways in some form of Bantustan”—a reference to the isolated and arid areas of apartheid South Africa to which the disenfranchised African majority was confined.

A June 4 Zionist protest against concessions to the Palestinian people drew tens of thousands to the center of Jerusalem. The huge banner across the stage said, “No to a Palestinian state.” Shaul Goldstein, the deputy head of the Settlers Council, which organized the rally, said, “The land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people and not to anyone else.”

Palestinian prisoners released by Tel Aviv June 3 were met by cheering crowds as they walked free. Some were behind bars for decades, like Ahmed Jubarah, 68, who had been imprisoned for 28 years. The nearly 100 Palestinians released were among the 2,000 Israel has arrested since September 2000, most held without charges. In the last three years nearly 800 Israelis and more than 2,300 Palestinians have been killed.

At Aqaba President Bush repeated his support for a “vibrant Jewish state” and stated Palestinians must abandon “terrorist crimes” in order to receive his support for statehood. He also announced Washington will take a direct hand in enforcing its demands, noting that “my government will provide training and support for a new, restructured Palestinian security service.”

While the current accord was drawn up by the so-called quartet of Washington, the European Union (EU), Moscow, and the United Nations, it was Bush who unveiled the plan on May Day. Washington alone took charge of the Sharm El Sheikh and Aqaba summit proceedings, leaving the rest of the Group of 8 to finish their business in Évian-les-Bains without him. No representatives from any EU governments or Moscow attended the Middle East meetings.  
 
 
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