Israel's harder line on Gaza complicates U.S. push for talks

Washington wants to bring Israeli, Palestinian, and other Arab leaders together for a mid-November peace summit.

from the September 21, 2007 edition

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But the Saudis and other Arab leaders are not likely to agree to attend the conference unless there are clear indications of substantive progress on the major issues. When peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians broke down in 2000, they had been trying to tackle some of the thorniest, most enduring points of contention, such as the status of Jerusalem, the Palestinian refugee question, the borders of Israel, and a Palestinian state.

Mr. Abbas said the conference the Bush administration is trying to set up must "give a push to serious negotiations with the aim of ending the Israeli occupation of our land and Arab lands that began in 1967, in conforming with international law, the roadmap, the vision of Bush, the Arab initiative and signed accords."

Palestinians in Fatah worry that the drive to reach real progress with Israel in the next two months will be set back by Israel's move this week to declare Gaza hostile territory. Hamas, which overran Gaza in June, says that the announcement is tantamount to a declaration of war.

But Israel's Minister of Internal Security, Avi Dichter, says that on the contrary, the announcement just changes the legal definition of how it will approach Gaza, which Israel occupied 40 years ago but then withdrew from in August 2005.

"Many people don't believe that Israel finished the occupation of Gaza, but we did," Mr. Dichter said in an Israeli television interview. "This means that we need to deal with this problem in a military way."

Israel has been at a loss as to how to combat the launch of small and roughly made Kassam rockets from Gaza over the border into Israel. Some commentators here suggested that the government's decision was aimed at placating Sderot, the southern Israeli town that is the most frequent target.

The decision to declare Gaza an enemy territory also means that the Israeli defense establishment might be planning a military offensive. But officials here indicated that they would prefer not to see Israel get "bogged down" in Gaza, particularly given tensions to the north. Israel struck at a suspected weapons' site in Syria this month.

Moshe Negbi, an Israeli commentator on legal affairs, says that the government's attempt to change the status of Gaza was ultimately irrelevant in the eyes of international law.

"You cannot escape the rules of international law and the Geneva Conventions, and these prohibit harming infrastructure and other essential services to the civilian population," says Mr. Negbi, who writes a column for Haaretz newspaper.

"As long as Israel controls exits and entrances to Gaza and air space over it, I don't think Israel can say it's not responsible," he says. "At the same time, if the world wants international law to be respected, you need to reform it in order to deal with the fight against terrorist gangs, not armies."

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