Just last month,
In an interview with the Jordanian daily al-Dustur, Abbas said that he was opposed to an armed struggle against Israel - for the time being."At this present juncture, I am opposed to armed struggle because we cannot succeed in it, but maybe in the future things will be different," he said.
Israel and the Palestinians agreed Sunday to a series of "concrete steps" aimed at paving the way for a final peace agreement later this year, beginning with Israel's pledge to remove some West Bank roadblocks.Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, visiting the region for the second time this month in hopes of energize faltering talks, said the moves "constitute a very good start to improving" a Palestinian economy crippled by the Israeli restrictions.
Under the plan that Rice announced, Israel will remove about 50 roadblocks, upgrade checkpoints to speed up the movement of Palestinians through the West Bank and give Palestinians more security responsibility in the town of Jenin with an eye toward looking at "other areas in turn."
The Israelis also pledged to increase the number of travel and work permits it gives Palestinians and to support economic projects in Palestinian towns.
In return, the Palestinians promised to improve policing of Jenin "to provide law and order, and work to prevent terror," according to a State Department statement released shortly before Rice spoke....
"We've been told that this is going to start and, hopefully even be completed in a relatively short period of time," Rice told reporters. "I am expecting it to happen very, very soon.""We will be monitoring and verifying," she added.
The agreement includes:
- removing 50 travel barriers in and around Jenin, Tulkarem, Qalqiliya and Ramallah.
- dismantling of one permanent roadblock.
- deploying 700 Jordanian-trained Palestinian police in Jenin and allowing them to take delivery of armored vehicles.
- raising the number of Palestinian businessmen allowed into Israel to 1,500 from 1,000.
- increasing the number of work permits for Palestinian laborers by 5,000 from its current number of 18,500.
- building new housing for Palestinians in 25 villages.
- connecting Palestinian villages to the Israeli power grid.
- Israeli support for large-scale economic development programs and encouragement of foreign investment.
Palestinian "businessmen" ? Who woulda thunk it?
... graffiti says "Palestine" ...
Just one question. Why is it that housing for Arabs is part and parcel of the "peace process," but housing for Jews is an "obstacle to peace" ??
I guess everyone is assuming that Jews have no future in a post-peace-process world.
Gd forbid.
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