Thu, 14 Sep 2000

Palestinians' patience

The Palestinian Central Council's decision on Sunday to postpone a declaration of an independent Palestine state for at least two months, from the scheduled Sept. 13 deadline to Nov. 15, is widely seen as a gesture of goodwill by the Palestinian people to achieve peace with the Israeli government.

By putting off the declaration, the Palestinians have once again demonstrated their patience in the belief that they will eventually get back their rightful homeland -- taken away from them 52 years ago when the Israelis established a Jewish state in that strategic Middle East stretch of land -- through a peaceful process.

Besides, the Palestinians are fully aware that if they make the declaration unilaterally, they then violate the internationally sponsored Oslo agreement and therefore would face possible Israeli military action, since the agreement stipulates that Palestinian independence has to be negotiated with the Israeli government as part of the permanent agreement that covers border and refugee issues as well as the question of the future of Jerusalem.

Although tough issues concerning the return of Palestinian refugees and Jewish settlements could be partly resolved during the faltering U.S.-brokered tripartite peace talks in Camp David, Maryland, last July, neither the Israeli nor Palestinian side has budged on the question of Jerusalem. And even in the meetings U.S. President Clinton held separately with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on the sidelines of the United Nations Millennium Summit in New York last week, the future of Jerusalem remains the most difficult issue to solve.

The Israeli government claims Jerusalem as its eternal and undivided capital while the Palestinians insist that East Jerusalem -- which includes the Old City that houses holy sites for Christians, Muslims and Jews -- will be the capital city of their new state.

The Jewish state annexed East Jerusalem during the Arab- Israeli war in 1967, but the annexation has never been approved by the world community.

Because of the complexities of the Jerusalem problem that involves not only the interests of the Palestinians and the Israelis but also that of the world's three major religions, a number of world leaders have suggested that the holy city be put under international control overseen by the United Nations.

Pope John Paul II, for example, recently reintroduced the idea he considered could, at least, diffuse the tension in the Middle East and put an end to the hostilities between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Indonesia's President Abdurrahman Wahid came out with a more concrete suggestion last month when he said that sovereignty over Jerusalem should be well differentiated between political and administrative sovereignty.

Abdurrahman, who was briefed on the development of the Middle East peace process by Israeli Minister of Regional Cooperation Shimon Peres and Arafat during their short and separate visits to Jakarta in August, said that while administrative sovereignty of Jerusalem may be in the hands of the Israeli government, the holy city should be jointly controlled by a seven-member committee comprising Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and the United Nations.

That suggestion of putting Jerusalem under international control, in our opinion, is worth considering by the disputing parties.

In the final analysis, it is high time the Israeli government concede to and respect the Palestinian people's aspirations to have an independent sovereign state before their patience wears out, thereby opening the possibility of another violent intifada uprising.