scoone
02-09-2004, 08:54 AM
Mon February 9, 2004 07:43 AM ET
By Wafa Amr
RAMALLAH, West Bank (*******) - Palestinian leaders are considering whether to unilaterally declare a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a response to Israeli threats of go-alone partition measures, a senior official said Monday.
The United States has discouraged previous Palestinian threats to declare a state, saying that it supports Palestinian statehood only through negotiations with Israel. Most European countries have taken a similar stance.
Israel said the announcement would do nothing to help negotiations on a U.S.-backed peace "road map."
The Palestinian official, Yasser Abed Rabbo, told reporters that declaring a state was being considered as an option in reaction to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's pledge to enact a unilateral "Disengagement Plan" if peace talks fail.
Sharon has made clear his strategy would leave Palestinians less land than they want for a state.
Abed Rabbo said the Palestinians could declare a state on land occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war -- the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Arab East Jerusalem -- and then request international legal recognition of their authority.
"This is one of the options that are being studied in response to Sharon's unilateral plan and to try to foil it," said Abed Rabbo, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Abed Rabbo said he had put forward the suggestion at a meeting of the committee, the top Palestinian policy-making body, at the weekend. He said Palestinian President Yasser Arafat was there, but made no comment on the idea.
Abed Rabbo did not say what other options were proposed.
Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Ala has suggested that one could be to demand a single state with Israel and expect the Israelis to take full responsibility for the Palestinians.
The Palestinians were granted self-rule in much of the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank in the mid-1990s under the Oslo peace accords. But Palestinian autonomy has been severely eroded during a more than three-year-old uprising marked by Palestinian suicide bombings and Israeli army raids.
Israel's Foreign Ministry said that rather than talking about declaring a state, the Palestinians should be cracking down on militant groups bent on attacking Israelis.
"What we are seeing is every other day there is another statement coming out of the Palestinian Authority," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Jonathan Peled.
"Declarations of this kind definitely are not productive and will not bring the two sides any closer to negotiations."
http://www.*******.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=B1AT2NSYDUXYCCRBAELCFEY?type=worldNews&storyID=4314065
By Wafa Amr
RAMALLAH, West Bank (*******) - Palestinian leaders are considering whether to unilaterally declare a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a response to Israeli threats of go-alone partition measures, a senior official said Monday.
The United States has discouraged previous Palestinian threats to declare a state, saying that it supports Palestinian statehood only through negotiations with Israel. Most European countries have taken a similar stance.
Israel said the announcement would do nothing to help negotiations on a U.S.-backed peace "road map."
The Palestinian official, Yasser Abed Rabbo, told reporters that declaring a state was being considered as an option in reaction to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's pledge to enact a unilateral "Disengagement Plan" if peace talks fail.
Sharon has made clear his strategy would leave Palestinians less land than they want for a state.
Abed Rabbo said the Palestinians could declare a state on land occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war -- the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Arab East Jerusalem -- and then request international legal recognition of their authority.
"This is one of the options that are being studied in response to Sharon's unilateral plan and to try to foil it," said Abed Rabbo, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Abed Rabbo said he had put forward the suggestion at a meeting of the committee, the top Palestinian policy-making body, at the weekend. He said Palestinian President Yasser Arafat was there, but made no comment on the idea.
Abed Rabbo did not say what other options were proposed.
Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Ala has suggested that one could be to demand a single state with Israel and expect the Israelis to take full responsibility for the Palestinians.
The Palestinians were granted self-rule in much of the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank in the mid-1990s under the Oslo peace accords. But Palestinian autonomy has been severely eroded during a more than three-year-old uprising marked by Palestinian suicide bombings and Israeli army raids.
Israel's Foreign Ministry said that rather than talking about declaring a state, the Palestinians should be cracking down on militant groups bent on attacking Israelis.
"What we are seeing is every other day there is another statement coming out of the Palestinian Authority," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Jonathan Peled.
"Declarations of this kind definitely are not productive and will not bring the two sides any closer to negotiations."
http://www.*******.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=B1AT2NSYDUXYCCRBAELCFEY?type=worldNews&storyID=4314065