The Ramon Plan
NAHUM BARNEA and SHIMON SHIFFER
Yediot Aharonot, 7 September 2007, p. B2
[translation: McClatchy Jerusalem bureau]
Haim Ramon is the dove that Ehud Olmert sends to the Palestinians with an olive branch in his mouth. Ramon has a plan, whose details we will bring below. He is convinced that he is acting with permission and authorization. The Prime Minister’s Bureau says he has permission, but not authorization. That everything he proposes is at his own initiative. If it works, somehow, for Israel and the Palestinians, the Ramon plan, retroactively, will become the Olmert plan. If it doesn’t work, it will be Ramon’s alone. This technique is known in diplomatic language as deniability.
Ramon is not just proposing, he is proposing a lot. He has held a number of talks on the details of his plan with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who responded enthusiastically, if not to the details, then to Ramon’s embrace, and with other high-ranking people in the West Bank. Ramon also presented his plan to Director of Egyptian Intelligence General Omar Suleiman in a meeting in Cairo in August.
Ramon proposes formulating a document of principles, two pages long, which for the first time in the history of the conflict, would set an agreed-on and binding basis for the essence of a comprehensive arrangement. He also talks to the Palestinians about what will happen on the ground, what Israel will do and what they will do after the signing ceremony in Washington.
The document of principles would go deep into the four core issues of the conflict: the borders of the Palestinian state, security, Jerusalem, refugees. Ramon is convinced that his plan provides an answer both to Olmert’s political needs and to Abu Mazen’s political needs, each and their electorate.
Ramon tells the Palestinians that the moment Israel built the separation fence, it determined its border in the West Bank. The border would be the fence, with certain changes. This means that 3% to 8% of the West Bank would be annexed to Israel, including the Jewish neighborhoods and settlements built in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
This means, says Ramon, that Ariel and Maale Adumim would be annexed to the State of Israel, but Karnei Shomron and its satellites, Beit El, Ofra, the Haredi town of Tel Tziyon and all the settlements on the mountain ridge would be evacuated and given to the Palestinians.
The Palestinians would be compensated for the territories they lost with identical territory inside the Green Line. Ramon talks to the Palestinians about a land corridor between Gaza and Hebron. The width of the corridor would be decided based on the size of the area that Israel would receive for the settlement blocs. The Israelis would pass either under or over the corridor. In the past, Tzippi Livni proposed giving the Palestinians a tunnel connecting Gaza to Hebron, and Shimon Peres proposed linking the two areas by train. Israeli public opinion will find it harder to accept a corridor of the kind that Ramon proposes.
The document meant to be signed in November would not go into detail. It would only state that the borders are to be determined based on the 1967 lines and on land swaps. “You will be able to say that you received 100% of the territory,†Ramon tells the Palestinians. “We will be able to tell our public that we included the settlement blocs, as Bush promised in his letter of April 14, 2004.â€
Security: in the document of principles, both sides would promise, immediately after signing, to carry out the first stage of the road map. The Palestinians are supposed to disarm all the organizations and instate their authority over their territory, and Israel is supposed to withdraw the IDF forces from the Palestinian cities, to accept the security arrangements formulated by American Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton and to evacuate all the outposts.
Ostensibly, this is less complicated than in the past. There is no Fayyad government in Gaza. In the West Bank, it fights Hamas openly. The matter of security is no less important to it than it is to Israel, and it is offering to cooperate extensively with Israel on this matter. It is demanding that Israel dismantle the roadblocks and allow freedom of movement, but is willing to accept Israeli military activity throughout the West Bank as necessary. Fayyad knows that his government depends on the points of the IDF’s soldiers’ bayonets. If the IDF withdraws, Hamas will take its place.
Jerusalem: Ramon, in his talks, adopts the principle that Clinton outlined in January 2001: East Jerusalem would be divided between the two states. What is populated by Jews would remain under Jewish sovereignty; the parts populated by Arabs would come under Palestine’s sovereignty. In the holy basin, i.e., the Old City and its environs, each religion would be responsible for its holy places. No national flags would be flown, neither of Israel nor of Palestine.
In his talks with the Palestinians, Ramon says that immediately after signing the document of principles, Israel would transfer to the Palestinians three outlying neighborhoods in East Jerusalem: Walaje, a village south of Jerusalem that borders on the Har Gilo settlement; Sawahra, a neighborhood in southeastern Jerusalem that borders on the Judean Desert; Shuafat, near the Atarot airfield. “By transferring the neighborhoods, Israel would be making a gesture of good will, and that is just the beginning,†Ramon tells the Palestinians. To the Israelis, Ramon says that transferring the neighborhoods should only gladden them: there will be less clients for the National Insurance Institute, less of a demographic headache.
Refugees: This is the most complicated subject. Ramon tells his interlocutors on the other side. The document of principles will have to say that the right of return will be realized in the Palestinian state. Israel will not bring refugees inside its borders unless this is part of a quota and is defined as a humanitarian gesture. Ramon talks about 1,000 families, but the number could change during negotiations.
An international foundation would be established to pay for rehabilitating the refugees. Israel would be a partner in it.