Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres has unveiled a peace plan calling for the centralisation of Palestinian security forces immediately followed by the establishment of a Palestinian state in areas under its control.
Peres, a leading dove, said in a radio interview on Sunday that he is trying to get Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the international community to support the plan. Sharon has said that a Palestinian state could only be established after a long interim process and Sharon’s Likud party has said it will oppose the creation of such an entity.
The ruling coalition includes Peres’ left-centre Labour Party and Sharon’s right-wing Likud party.
Peres’ peace plan is partially based on understandings reached in talks he held in the past year with Palestinian parliament speaker Ahmed Qureia. The plan was released on Saturday night, Israeli media reported on Sunday.
Also on Sunday, Jordan’s Prime Minister Ali Abul-Ragheb and Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher were to arrive in the West Bank city of Ramallah to meet Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and outline a Jordanian vision for restarting long-stalled Middle East peacemaking, including a specific timetable for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Jordanian Information Minister Mohammad Affash Adwan said Abul-Ragheb and Muasher would also brief Arafat on the outcome of last week’s talks in Washington between King Abdullah and President George Bush.
Peacemaking efforts have gained momentum recently in the wake of an Israeli offensive in the West Bank meant to uproot militants responsible for a wave of suicide bombings in the Jewish state.
Israel and the Palestinians have been locked in a cycle of violence that broke out 19 months ago after peace talks stalled.
In the latest violence, Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a civilian convoy in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army said. During an ensuing gun battle, four soldiers were lightly wounded. The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for the attack.
Peres said he and Qureia, who has been mentioned as a possible successor to Arafat, agreed during their talks that the thorniest issues of the conflict – borders, Jerusalem, Jewish settlements and Palestinian refugees – could be negotiated after a Palestinian state was established.
Under the plan, the Palestinian Authorities’ eight security forces would be centralised into one unified command, meeting a long-standing Israeli demand.
A Palestinian state would then be established, a process that according to the plan could occur within weeks.
The plan then calls for a year of negotiations to tackle the other issues and a second year to implement then.
”I prefer negotiations to shooting,” Peres told Israel Radio. ”I realize that these issues cannot be resolved overnight. I also know that the prime minister doesn’t think two years is long enough. But in my eyes it is preferable to immediately begin negotiations rather than to put them off to an unknown date.”
The plan is unlikely to garner support in Sharon’s Likud Party, which recently ruled out the creation of a Palestinian state.
”The last thing we need here, as Peres’ plan outlines, is a terror state under Arafat’s leadership that would be established in a short period of time,” Cabinet minister Danny Naveh, a Likud member told Israel Radio. – Sapa-AP