The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, October 28,1993-Page 7
World
TEL AVIV — One of Israel's most respectwi Middle East experts has said that in order to end the century-old conflict with the Palestinians, Israel must withdraw from most of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and grant Palestinians "a foothold" in Jerusalem.
Shimon Shamir, the former ambassador to Egypt and current head of Tel Aviv University's (TAU) Tami Steinmetz Centerfor Peace Research, was speaking at a colloquium with former military intelligence chief Maj. Gen: (res.) Shlomo Gazit.
Gazit said he doubted the agreement between Israel and the PLO has "more than a 50 per cent chance" of success.
Shamir told participants the agreement reflected basic changes in Palestinian and Israeli thinking.
The Palestinians no longer see Israel as an "inabsorbable" element in the Middle East, he said. "No serious Palestinian believes the Israelis will leave the region."
Moreover, he said Palestinians realize they cannot rely on the Arab world, and that they were wrong in looking to the Onited Nations, the former Soviet Union and the Third World for help against Israel.
Timing was also a factor, Shamir said. Many Palestinians felt that unless they concluded an agreement , with Israel now, they would be facing a different Israeli government and a wave of Jewish settlements in the territories..
Israelis have also changed, Shamir said. They realize the Palestinians have a viable national identity and that talk of a "voluntary transfer" of . millions of Palestinians to the Arab countries is unrealistic.
He said Israelis don't belieye time is working against diem, but are con-cemijd that if no agreement is reached > with the present Palestinian leadership, "then in five years they will find only the [fundameritalistj Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the arena."
Nevertheless, a price tag is attached to the termination of the 100-year-old conflict between the two peoples, he said. "Many Israelis aren't willing to pay that price, and their priorities certainly constitute a legitimate political position, but the only realistic possibility of ending the conflict is by meeting the following conditions."
must have sovereign
• The Palestinians miist have a sovereign entity, be it a Palestinian independent state or a Jordanian-Palestinian entity. ' 'The struggle will not end if there is anything less than Arab-Palestinian sovereignty. Auton-; omy is no solution," he said. He : made the comparison to autonomous Eskimos living in Greenland under Danish sovereignty.
• Most of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip must be returned to Arab hands, although the parties may reach agreements which may provide for the establishment bf security zones.
• The Palestinians must have "a foothold" in Jerusalem to establish "some of their national institutions." Shamir said 150,000 Palestinians live in the capital, and Jews cannot lay claim to a city which was under their
rule for 1,000 years arid expect Arabs to give up a city >yhich was under Islamic rule for 1,200 years. Besides, said Shamir, Jerusalem today is practically divided: Israelis avoid East Jerusalem.
• An agreement must be reached over the issue of the Palestinian right of return. However, returning refugees should be allowed back "into whatever territory they receive into their hands hot to ours."
• Finally, the Israeli settlements cannot constitute "islands of Israeli sovereignty in the Palestinian terri-toiy. this will be a real hindrance,''
Even if all these conditions are met, several challenges will face supporters, like the threat from Muslim and Jewish fundamentalists. Shamir said he anticipates problems in Jeruisalem.
Eariier Gazit, a senior researcher at TAU's Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies, said that the Declaration of Principles "laid the groundwork for the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state."
Gazit, who has met with senior PLO security personnel, said Israel and the PLO will have to disciiss the size of the Jericho area which is to be handed over to the Palestinians. "I have seen general headquai;ters maps with the Israeli Defence Forces proposals and they're definitely minimal. I doubt they will satisfy the other side."
He said he was sure the Palestinian maps would be "maximal."
He also spoke of handing over responsibility for intemar security. The agreement says responsibility must be traiisferred within four months "but Palestinians say they need 18 months to. prepare for this task adequately," Gazit said.
Joseph Alpert, director of the Jaffee Centre, participated in talks with PLO security experts. He said he believed the Palestinians will agree to intelligence co-operation with Israel "because it v/ill be clear to them that they will benefit from it." .
JERUSALEM (JPFS). ^"We have not come to receive your gratitude; we have not come to be thanked. The feeling was that we were just'doing our duty," Mo-gens Kdfod-Hansen, chair of the Danish-Israel Friendship Society, said last week at a ceremony at the , presidential residence marking the 50th anniversary of the rescue of Danish Jewry.
He was summing up the general feelings of a delegation, of 125 Danish citizens, most of whom were resistance fighters during the Nazi occupation.
Mogens Ryefelt 75, the leader of an 11-member sabotage group that saved hundreds of Jews from capture and almost certain death, could hot say how many pecJple owed him their lives.
"I didn't count them," he said. Only one of the survivors contacted him after the war, but he bears no grudge/He said he doesn't feel others owe him anything.
The rescue operation would not have been possible without Sweden's cooperation and its willingness to accept the Jews, said Stefan Isaak, vice chair of the Danish Jewish community.
Disregarding the dangers and showing "humanity and compassion," Danes saved 93 percent of the country's Jews of Denmark, he said, noting that 472 Danish Jews fell into German hands and were deported to There-sienstadt.
Eariier this month in Copenhagen, pianist-comedian Victor Borge, oheof7,300 Jews saved during the war, thanked his countrymen in a ceremony attended by Queen Margrethe n, Denmark's Chief Rabbi Bent Mel-chior, Israeli Ambassador Nathan Meron and German Ambassador Hermann Grunedel.
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