Palestinians Set New Date for Statehood

Backing away from a confrontation with Israel, Palestinian leaders Sunday postponed declaring their territory an independent country and instead said they will pursue another round of peace talks.

A key governing body, the Palestinian Central Council, wrapped up a two-day, sometimes heated debate to decide whether to defer the statehood decree indefinitely or to set a new deadline. Members chose the latter course, making Nov. 15 the revised target date but also directing that concrete “steps of sovereignty” be undertaken immediately.

For months, Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat had threatened to take the unilateral action Wednesday--the deadline that he and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak agreed to last year for concluding peace talks.

But those talks, aimed at ending 52 years of conflict, have foundered, failing most spectacularly at July’s Camp David summit, when the two sides moved closer than ever to a final settlement but ultimately could not see eye-to-eye on how to share the holy capital of Jerusalem. Consultations with President Clinton on the margins of last week’s U.N. Millennium Summit produced no breakthrough.

Arafat, confirming that negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians will resume this week for an intensive four-week crunch period, called on his Palestinian associates to agree to defer the statehood declaration to give mediation another chance. The next four weeks, an Arafat aide told reporters, will determine whether a deal is possible.

Nabil Amr, Arafat’s minister for parliamentary affairs, said Sunday that a majority of the 129-member Central Council had accepted the deferral, which came in the form of a directive to all committees charged with setting up the new country to finish their work by Nov. 15. Those include committees that are drafting a constitution and an elections law.

It was the second time in 16 months that Arafat has been forced to delay a declaration of statehood.

Sunday’s decision was a foregone conclusion. The council is largely a rubber stamp for Arafat, and the Palestinian leader had come under enormous international pressure to delay a move. Israel had said it would respond to a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence by annexing parts of the West Bank, and a chain of escalating violence seemed likely. Israel could also strangle the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with an economic blockade.

Palestinian leaders sought to put the best spin on their decision--which is sure to aggravate an already frustrated population--and denied that they were acting out of fear. The council meeting was closed to the press, whose members were reduced to jostling with dozens of overly eager security guards attempting to shield emerging politicians.

“Israel has no right to punish a new Palestinian state,” Arafat’s finance minister, Mohammed Zuhdi Nashashibi, said outside the convention hall where the meeting took place. “We will have a state whether you like it or not.”

Peace Deal Seen as Key for Statehood

For many Palestinians, the issue was nearly irrelevant.

“We can declare a state on Sept. 13 and what will it change?” said Khaled Abdel Shafi, a Gaza businessman who built and runs one of this city’s newest hotels. “It won’t change anything on the ground, it won’t give the people anything more--and it will hurt our international position.”

Abdel Shafi, the son of a prominent Palestinian diplomat and member of the Central Council, echoed the sentiments of many Palestinians, saying the issue is not when statehood is declared but what kind of state will be established.

Without a meaningful peace deal that meets Palestinian political and economic requirements, he said, declaring a state would be a futile gesture.

Indeed, the economy of the West Bank and Gaza is so intertwined with Israel’s that any Palestinian state would have to maintain working relations with the Jewish state. Roughly 90% of the West Bank and Gaza’s exports go to Israel, and the Palestinian territories import about $2 billion worth of goods from Israel, making them the Jewish state’s largest market after the United States. In addition, about 125,000 Palestinians daily go to Israel to work, earning salaries far superior to what they could earn in Gaza or the West Bank.

Many Palestinian institutions, from the legislature to the judiciary and the banking system, are still woefully ill-prepared to operate on their own, in the opinion of many Palestinians and foreign experts. Israel is also expected to continue to demand some control over Palestinian borders and the comings and goings at the Palestinians’ only airport, here in Gaza.

“Why declare a state if you don’t have sovereignty?” Abdel Shafi said.

Other Palestinians opposed the delay. Several hundred rallied outside the council meeting Saturday chanting, “The rifle is the alternative, and September is the criterion.”

Selim Zaanoun, the head of the Central Council, said he will quit his post if a declaration is put off until after the end of the year. And Sheik Ahmed Yassin, founder of the militant Islamic movement Hamas, boycotted the meeting and said Palestinians must fight to win Jerusalem.

“This [the delay] will hurt the credibility of the Palestinian leadership,” said Tayseer Khaled, a council member for the opposition Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

In moving the statehood deadline, the council considered Nov. 15 because that is the anniversary of the symbolic 1988 declaration of statehood the Palestinian leadership made while in exile in Algiers. The lawmakers also considered Jan. 1 because that is the anniversary of the 1964 founding of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Barak Welcomes Delay, Says Talks Will Resume

Earlier Sunday in New York, Barak told ABC News that he would welcome a Palestinian delay on the statehood decree and reiterated his warning that a unilateral declaration would prompt Israel to “take our own unilateral steps.” He also confirmed that peace talks will resume soon.

“Israel has not yet lost hope,” Barak said. He again urged Arafat to “get moving” toward compromise, especially on the most contentious matter in negotiations--control of the Temple Mount, or Haram al Sharif, the part of Jerusalem’s Old City sacred to both Jews and Muslims, as well as to Christians.

“This is the moment of truth,” Barak said.