POLITICS-PALESTINE: British Leaders Struggle to Save Summit

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Jan 7 2003 (IPS) - British ministers and senior officials were struggling Tuesday to save the London summit on Palestine planned for mid-January.

The summit is under threat after Israeli foreign minister Benjamin Netanyahu banned Palestinian delegates travelling to London for the meeting following the suicide bombings in Tel Aviv on Sunday that left 22 people died and more than 100 injured.

"We have no dates for the summit yet, and we cannot confirm anything," a spokesperson for the Foreign Office in London told IPS Tuesday. "We continue to believe that the summit would be an important opportunity to discuss practical ideas for reform of the Palestinian authority."

The spokesperson said "we are continuing with our preparations for the summit as before, and we are talking to Israeli officials at a senior level."

In emphasising the proposed summit as a meeting to discuss Palestinian reforms, the British are now telling Israeli leaders that the summit would be in their interest. And in continuing to talk to Israeli leaders in the face of Netanyahu’s intransigence, the Foreign Office is pushing strongly for a role to be played by Britain in the peace process.

Netanyahu made his announcement banning Palestinian officials without informing the British government. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he heard of Netanyahu’s decision "I regret to say on the radio" just before he was due to be interviewed on the conference on BBC’s Radio 4.

Straw emphasised that the conference may be postponed but it will not be cancelled. "If this conference goes ahead, and the conference will go ahead, it may not be next week but let us see, there has to be a process of reform in respect of the Palestinian authority and then political dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians," Straw told Radio 4 Monday immediately after hearing the news from Netanyahu.

Straw said, "such bombings and terror requires a prompt security reaction it also emphasises the need for there to be a political process which brings the Israeli and the Palestinian peoples together."

Straw said: "I hope very much that the Israeli government will think again because it’s important that these people are able to travel and that we are able to engage in a process of reform which I may say has already had a significant impact on the level of administration in the Palestinian authority so far as their financial administration is concerned." In such situations "initial reactions are not the final reactions so let us wait and see," Straw said.

"One of the oddities really so far as dialogue is concerned is that it’s being suggested to us that we shouldn’t allow this dialogue here even though it’s backed by the U.S., United Nations, the European Union and the Russian Federation," Straw said. "And yet we know there is continuing, albeit covert, dialogue between the Israeli government and the Palestinian authority for all sorts of issues."

A spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority in London told IPS Tuesday that there is considerable Foreign Office pressure on Israel to allow Palestinian leaders to attend the London summit. British ambassador to Israel Sherard Cowper-Coles is in London but has been telling senior leaders in the Israeli government that it would be in their interest to let the summit proceed.

Palestinian representative to Britain Afif Safieh told IPS in an interview earlier that "the Palestinian National Authority does not have the means to stop suicide attacks" because "Israel has destroyed the security pillars" of the Palestinian Authority.

Safieh acknowledged that "Palestinians should deliver better on security," but said they can do so "only if this is coupled with Israeli withdrawals, removal of checkpoints and curfews, and the liberation of urban centres."

Safieh claimed a strong groundswell of public opinion in Britain in support of the Palestinian position in relation to Israel. The immediate reactions following Netanyahu’s declaration seem to support Safieh’s claim.

Not only is the British government taking an unprecedented line against Israel in support of the Palestinian summit, the media has been strongly critical of the Israeli government.

"The conference on Palestinian reform should go ahead," The Times wrote in a leader Tuesday. Even if the Israelis want Palestinian leader Yassar Arafat out, "treating all potential Palestinian leaders as terrorists is unlikely to speed Mr Arafat’s exit," The Times wrote.

The Guardian wrote in a leader that the Israeli move is "foolish and self-defeating" because "Mr Sharon and his hawkish foreign minister have once again given Israel’s enemies the opportunity to portray it as the main obstacle to reconciliation and progress." It said Netanyahu’s response was "as irrational as it was ungracious."

The Guardian wrote that the Israeli decision was also "a slap in the face for (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair who has invested much personal capital in trying to assist Israelis and Palestinians to break out of the cycle of violence in which they are currently snared." It said the Sharon government’s tendency to describe all Palestinians as terrorists is "nonsense".