12 December 2003
Grassroots Initiative Defines Endgame to Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Former Israeli security chief, Palestinian educator present "People's Voice"
By David Shelby
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- Former chief of Israel's Shin Beth security forces Ami Ayalon spoke of the need for a "Destination Map" for peace as he and Al-Quds University President Sari Nusseibeh presented their "People's Voice" initiative to a Washington audience December 12.
The "People's Voice" is one of several recent initiatives proposed as complements to the officially sanctioned Roadmap set forth by the U.S. administration and its partners in the Quartet -- Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.
Ayalon and Nusseibeh came to Washington to present their plan shortly after Yossi Beilen and Yasser Abed Rabbo presented their "Geneva Accord."
"The two pillars of our initiative," said Ayalon, "are ‘back to the future' and ‘back to the people.'"
By "back to the future, [we mean] to start from the future and then to go backward," Ayalon explained.
"The time for constructive ambiguity is gone," he said. "We need a very clear vision. Clear vision means, we have to know exactly what we'll attain, what will be the final agreement -- with Jerusalem, borders, refugees, security, settlements."
"Unless we touch these five sensitive nerves of the conflict, we shall not be able to pay the painful concessions that both sides have to pay," Ayalon maintained.
Nusseibeh reaffirmed Ayalon's assessment.
Responding to a journalist's question about the December 11 meeting the two men had with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Nusseibeh said, "We expressed our opinion that one of the conditions for the success of the Roadmap is the resolution of the endgame to be attached to this Roadmap ... an endgame which has, after all, already been defined, however loosely, by U.S. administration officials."
Ayalon defined "back to the people" as meaning "we the people have to do it, because the two leaderships do not have the power to do it. The two leaderships are waiting for us to tell them what we are ready to pay."
Nusseibeh underscored the importance of this grassroots approach to the problem. In the past, he said, "ideas, however well-intentioned the people behind them, have been articulated behind the clouds and have been parachuted down on the respective populations."
"Our initiative ... is one in which we go around soliciting the support of people after we ask their opinions about what is written in the document," he said.
He acknowledged that the document generated some criticism among Palestinians, particularly its position excluding the right of refugees to return to homes in Israel.
Nevertheless, he said, "the further down we went [into the structures of our community] the more able we were to find the support we needed. By support, I mean the willingness of a person to stand up and express a commitment, not simply by expressing a sentiment, but also by putting their signature on a document that spells out more or less the principles for a final settlement."
Nusseibeh noted that more than 65,000 Palestinians have already signed the document.
"At no time in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have as many people come forward and signed a shared document as we have managed to get people to sign in the past few months," he said.
"Sixty-five thousand people means that you have in fact a solid foundation within the Palestinian community for achieving peace on the basis of those principles," he added. He went on to assert his belief that they would be able to obtain several hundred thousand signatures.
"I believe we have now a very strong movement on the ground, an unstoppable movement ... a movement that is built on the principle that the people are the source of power and the people are the source of legitimacy. And it is the people who can make a difference by standing up ... and simply saying to their leaders, ‘This is the path. This is the path we want you to take,'" he said.
The People's Voice document states six principles upon which a peace settlement would be based. In brief, these principles are:
-- A two-state solution,
-- A return to June 1967 borders with any territorial adjustments made on a one-to-one basis, and the removal of all settlements not falling within the Israeli borders,
-- An open Jerusalem, capital of two states, with each state exercising sovereignty over its citizens and guardianship over its respective religious sites,
-- A right of return for Palestinians to the Palestinian state and the creation of an international reparations fund to compensate Palestinian refugees,
-- The demilitarization of the Palestinian state, and
-- An end to conflict.
Nusseibeh expressed the hope that by presenting the list of principles to the leaders with the explicit support of the people, "there will be a reason for them to take courage and to lead where the people are already going ahead of them."
Ayalon acknowledged that the document does not address the problem of raw emotions and mutual feelings of resentment.
"If we touch emotions, we shall be stuck with the present, and we shall not be able to overcome the present and the past," he said.
"We have to be pragmatic. We have to separate our dreams, our emotions from a very pragmatic future," he said. "[T]he moment the Palestinian people lost hope [in the peace process], the result was terror against us. So the missing part of the puzzle is hope."
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
This page printed from: http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2003&m=December&x=20031212173551ndyblehs0.3559687&t=usinfo/wf-latest.html
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