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| By Ellis Shuman July 22, 2001 |
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Israel has officially rejected the G-8 summit's declaration that third party monitoring would best serve the implementation of the Mitchell Report. The Prime Minister's office dismissed the possibility of such a force, noting that G-8 statements require agreement from both sides for any intervention by a third party. Even so, there were initial signs from ranking ministers that Israel would eventually agree to some form of international presence in the territories.
"The situation in the Middle East presents a grave danger," the G-8 leaders said in a resolution adopted in Genoa, Italy, at the conclusion of their summit of major industrialized nations. "Too many lives have already been lost. We cannot stand by while the situation deteriorates."
The leaders said that third party monitoring would serve
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"Israel will not take a step it does not want to take."
- Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
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the interests of both parties in implementing the Mitchell report, which calls for a cease-fire followed by a cooling-off period, confidence-building measures, and a return to negotiations. "The cooling-off period must begin as soon as possible," the G-8 leaders concluded.
Speaking to a Likud forum in Tel Aviv on Friday, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the G-8 statement necessitates the agreement of both sides. "Nothing here is being done by coercion? There will not be a decision that will force Israel to take a step it does not want to take," Sharon said.
Is Israel preparing to accept outside observers?
Israel's traditional objection to the idea of foreign monitors was moderated a bit by Foreign Affairs Minister Shimon Peres. Peres said this morning that Israel had not yet received a clear proposal suggesting that observers be sent to the territories. Peres told Israel Radio that Israel has not completely dismissed the possibility of a group of exclusively American monitors.
Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer seemed to modify Israel's traditional position in an interview with Israel Radio on Friday. While stating that "the whole matter of observers is unacceptable to us," Ben-Eliezer also said, "But if this will be forced upon us, I will live with the presence of the monitors of the Americans."
Yarden Vatikai, spokesman for Ben-Eliezer, said the defense minister was referring only to an extreme situation. Then, Vatikai said, "something that could be considered would be an enlargement of the CIA presence here," but not "some kind of active force."
Yet officials in the Prime Minister's Bureau were quick to minimize the significance of Ben-Eliezer's statement. An official statement noted that "the Israeli position has not changed." According to the statement, there was "no danger of a force being imposed because both the [G-8] foreign ministers' statement and the Mitchell Report require the agreement of both sides for any intervention by a third party, and that conforms to Israel's position."
Political sources quoted in the media believed the Defense Minister was referring to bolstering a team of monitors from the Central Intelligence Agency, already in the area to keep tabs on the cease-fire that was brokered in mid-June by its director, George J. Tenet.
An article in Maariv suggested that the Israeli government may be resigned to some kind of outside force. The article reported that officials close to the prime minister said there was "a logic" to a monitoring group, as long as it was dominated by Americans and came after a true cease-fire.
Yediot Aharonot this morning quoted unnamed political sources who indicated that Israel would agree to the stationing of monitors from the CIA. Maariv added that the Prime Minister's son Omri Sharon told Arafat in their meeting last week that Israel had already agreed to the presence of 10 CIA observers.
Palestinians demand a protective force, not just observers
The Palestinian leadership, meeting Saturday in Gaza City, called on the international community to implement as quickly as possible the G8 decision supporting the deployment of observers. "Send them immediately in order to spare the blood of the Palestinian people,'' read an official statement.
Though Palestinian officials praised the recommendations of the G-8 countries to send observers to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, some said they did not go far enough. Palestinian Information and Culture Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo told Al-Iyyam that the deployment of observers couldn't be a substitute for deploying an international force to protect the occupied Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He said the need for foreign protection has only increased since the drive-by shooting carried out by "terrorist settlers" near the village of Idna on Thursday.
Israeli opposition supports observers
Opposition leader Yossi Sarid (Meretz) expressed support for the idea of foreign monitors. Sarid said he was concerned that "without this international presence it will not be possible to preserve agreements that were achieved and will be achieved in the future."
Former Justice Minister Yossi Beilin (Labor), who has been promoting the idea of international monitors for some time, said that it was in Israel's interest for there to be an outside judge of the cease-fire. "If Israel is convinced of the justice of its cause, it is obligated to demand that judge," Beilin said.
The changing American position
The Americans, who in the past had refrained from calling for international observers, and had vetoed a similar proposal at the United Nations, now have aligned themselves with other nations on the matter. In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said that while nothing had been decided, "it might be very useful to have monitors" in connection with the cooling-off period. "The United States would at that point consider how best we could participate in that, if at all," Powell said. Powell had indicated a U.S. receptiveness to the idea of third-party involvement during his previous visit to the region.
U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Satterfield told Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher on Saturday that Washington is prepared to send observers to monitor the violence. An Egyptian diplomat said that Satterfield mentioned that members of the force "should be American and that they should be stationed as soon as the cooling-off period begins."
According to Israeli press reports, the Bush administration is now in intense efforts to "convince" Israel to agree to the stationing of observers in the territories.
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