But some Arab and Zionist groups criticize accord, and major question looms over right of return for refugees

George S. Hishmeh
Special to The Daily Star

WASHINGTON: Yasser Abed Rabbo and Yossi Beilin, the self- styled Palestinian and Israeli peace negotiators who managed over a period of 30 months to negotiate the “Geneva Initiative” blueprint for a final status agreement between their peoples, took Washington by storm last week.
Their achievement, described as a “virtual” accord by Beilin, attracted the attention of the American president and led to meetings with high government officials, who have long been frustrated in their attempts to hammer out a settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Even UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan took time out last Friday to invite the pair to New York, shortly before they were scheduled to appear separately at meetings with the press and representatives of the Arab-American and American Jewish communities.
Annan said he was encouraged after talks with Beilin and Abed Rabbo, saying through a spokesman that “a major part of the Geneva Initiative’s importance comes from the hope of future reconciliation and peace that it brings to both Israelis and Palestinians.”
Former President Clinton also announced his endorsement. Writing in USA Today, he said that “such efforts (including those of Ami Ayalon and Sari Nusseibeh) prove that Israelis and Palestinians of goodwill can agree on even the most vexing settlement issues.”
“We should make clear our willingness, along with the international community, to back up any agreement with military and political weight,” he added, “providing the two sides with confidence that the deal will be implemented and their security ensured”
Moreover, seven former US Cabinet members issued an open letter praising the accord, saying: “Wwe believe that the best way to move forward is to address at the outset, not at the end of an incremental process, all the basic principles of a fair and lasting solution.” Among the signatories were former Secretary of State Warren Christopher and former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.
Abed Rabbo and Beilin have also been hosted by leading members of the American media in editors’ offices and on current affairs programs.
Their visit here followed their announcement at a Dec. 1 ceremony in Geneva of their peace plan. It is described in a 47-page document as “a model Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.”
The occasion was well-attended by prominent Palestinians, whose trip had reportedly been sanctioned by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, leading Israelis from various political parties and retired senior military officers from the Israeli armed forces.
But the most outstanding event of the Washington visit  was the meeting with Secretary of State Colin Powell, who had turned a deaf ear to Israeli protests that he is meddling in Israeli politics.
Also present at the meeting was Elliot Abrams, head of the Middle East desk at the National Security Council and a fervent supporter of Israel. Neither Condoleeza Rice, the national security adviser, nor Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, met with the Palestinian and Israeli negotiators.
Rice reportedly refused to grant them an audience and Wolfowitz, who was originally scheduled to meet them, changed his mind at the last moment. He is often at odds with Powell on policy issues.
Powell said he had “a good discussion” with Abed Rabbo and Beilin and their delegations. “I thought it was a very good meeting (and) I had a chance to convey to them the primacy of the “road map” as the way forward.”
In comments after a meeting at the White House with visiting Jordanian King Abdullah, President George W. Bush said of the initiative and Powell’s meeting: “I think it’s productive, so long as they adhere to the principles I just outlined,” namely, “(that) we must fight off terror, that there must be security, and there must be the emergence of a Palestinian state that is democratic and free.”
But despite these public endorsements, the Geneva Initiative was vehemently criticized here both by some Arab-American intellectuals, who circulated a petition to this effect on the internet, and right-wing American Jewish groups including the Zionist Organization of America and the Anti-Defamation League.
The 12-point petition said the accord sought “to nullify the Palestinian right of return, both as a collective national right and as an individual right.”
The Zionist Organization of America, on the other hand, found it “appalling that the Bush administration would legitimize an agreement by radical Israelis acting in opposition to the democratically elected government of Israel.”
Among the organizations that welcomed and facilitated the visit were the American Task for Palestine, the Arab-American Institute, the Foundation for Middle East Peace, and the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.
The authors of the Geneva Initiative declared bluntly from the outset that their purpose in coming to Washington was to win US support for their effort. They argued that their work supported the road map peace plan, and that they were seeking only to outline a formula for its third phase, the establishment of a Palestinian state in 2005.
“I believe we have salvaged the road map,” Palestinian Planning Minister Nabil Kassis, here in a private capacity and not as a representative of the Palestinian Authority, said after the meeting with Powell.
Another Palestinian member of the delegation, Bethlehem Governor Zuhair Manasrah said: “The important thing is that we made a move that told the world that there are partners for peace and that there is a possibility for peace.”
In impassioned remarks at a luncheon hosted by the Saban Center, Abed Rabbo traced the origins of his negotiations with Beilin to the period when official talks ended between Israeli and Palestinian delegations at Taba in early 2001.
“We felt we made some progress toward having a final status agreement,” he recalled, “an agreement that will convince both sides that it is applicable and it will represent the basis for a final and comprehensive solution.”
“We felt we were very close to that aim and to that conclusion, but we did not have enough time and at that moment we felt it is our duty to continue and to try to finalize what was not finished in Taba.”
Abed Rabbo made it clear that he was acting with full support from the Palestinian Authority in the negotiations. “I’m a member of the Palestinian leadership … (and) a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization,” he said. He added that the Palestinian Authority had supported his negotiating efforts “and the results we had reached,” pointing out that Arafat had sent a message to this effect to the Geneva launch.
But the vexing problem of the Palestinian refugees and their right to return, as supported by UN General Assembly Resolution 194, remained murky.
Beilin explained his view of the compromise thus:  “If I might be very crude in describing the solution, the formula is that sovereignty is handed over to the Palestinians on the Temple Mount (Haram al-Sharif) and sovereignty about the admission of refugees (to Israel) is handed over to Israel.”
Kassis however insisted that the refugees’ fate will be determined by UN resolutions, as well as the so-called Arab Initiative reached at the last Arab summit conference in Beirut in March 2002 that demanded the right to return be upheld. Even among supporters of the initiative, it is clear that major divisions are yet to be overcome.