15 June 2008

Dear Secretary Rice;

In the event of this trilateral meeting, we would like to present to you our vision of the current status of negotiations, because both yourself and President Bush have made such a commitment to assist us in realizing our common goals of the realization of two states based on the 1967 borders, living side by side in peace and security, and to a just resolution to the refugee issue.

We have reached an important point in the negotiations; on some issues we have advanced, but there remain many gaps and difficulties.  The issues themselves are difficult, and Israeli policies and practices, such as the Wall, the Settlement enterprise and the Closure regime are even more so.  

In short, we are facing two major difficulties in our negotiations with Israel.  First, our negotiations approaches are fundamentally different.  While our goal is to define where we want to go up front, namely to establish an independent sovereign state based on 1967 borders with all the rights and responsibilities that entails, and to have a just resolution to the refugee issue, the Israeli approach is to start with the status quo and negotiate small and gradual improvements to the current situation.  This allows Israel to use “security” as a catch-all to derogate from Palestinian sovereignty in a permanent status agreement.  

Palestinians want the same rights and responsibilities enjoyed by all other states, no more and no less: full sovereignty with all its attributes, including full control of our airspace, maritime space, territory, borders, water, electromagnetic sphere and other resources.

We define this goal ? full sovereignty ? using the standards the rest of the world has defined for us:  basic rights as enshrined in international law, international best practice as applied everywhere else in the world, good neighborly relations ? these are the terms by which all nations participate as part of the global community. They are also the terms on which Palestinians base our positions and demands for statehood.   We are no less deserving than everyone else in the world.

While we understand that this goal will be difficult to achieve and that it will take time, it is the only outcome the Palestinian people would accept in a peace agreement.  Any proposal that merely consolidates unilaterally imposed facts on the ground would necessarily contradict our fundamental rights and interests.  The Palestinian people cannot be expected to acquiesce to a slightly improved version of the occupation that is then repackaged as a “state”.   

Second, Israel continues to create facts on the ground.  Israel is undermining the current negotiations, as well as the credibility of the United States, by continuing to build settlement houses, roads and other infrastructure everywhere in the West Bank, particularly in and around East Jerusalem.  Settlement activity is aimed at imposing a de facto outcome to the negotiations by creating facts on the ground that integrate the settlements and occupation infrastructure with Israel itself. More importantly such activities threaten the viability of an independent sovereign Palestinian state and will soon spell the death of the two-state solution.

In the months since Annapolis, we have continued to see a flagrant disregard on the part of Israel for Palestinian national and individual rights, in violation of international law and the Road Map. Construction has continued in at least 101 settlements (not incl. Jerusalem-area settlements). Similarly, Israeli authorities have issued tenders for 1731 new housing units since Annapolis, as compared with 138 housing units tendered in the 11 months prior to Annapolis. Meanwhile, Israeli authorities demolished at least 185 Palestinian structures, including 85 residential structures, in the first four months after Annapolis. The number of checkpoints, roadblocks and other physical barriers to movement now exceeds 600. And, of course, Israel has yet to comply with the 2004 ruling of the International Court of Justice, which held that the settlements and the Wall that are built in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) are illegal, and which requires Israel to stop constructing the Wall, remove those parts already built and provide reparations.    

Despite these ongoing violations of Israel?s obligations, and despite the embarrassment they cause us daily, as we continue to negotiate under this barrage of facts on the ground, we have persisted in the serious discussions between President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert, and between Foreign Minister Livni and her team, and myself and our team in the hope that we will achieve the peace that we?ve committed to reach in Annapolis.

Throughout these negotiations we have never stopped demanding that Israel stop its ongoing violations with respect to the Wall, the Settlements, the Closure, the incursions into Palestinian territory, the demolitions, among other things.  Throughout the negotiations, Israel has never stopped ? in fact the violations have only intensified, as you can see from the figures noted above.  These ongoing violations deprive our meetings and negotiations of all credibility, and ensure that they cannot get the necessary support of the Palestinian people.  

In any case, we have entrusted you, Secretary Rice, to facilitate these negotiations towards our common goals of the realization of two states based on the 1967 borders, living side by side in peace and security, and to a just resolution to the refugee issue and to assist us all in finding a constructive way forward that ensures that the interests and needs of both parties are satisfied.  In furtherance of this goal, we outline below for you the status, as we see it, of each of the core issues currently being discussed in these negotiations.

 Terms of Reference

Although we?ve agreed to several ground rules for the negotiations, we have yet to agree to the terms of reference any agreement will be governed by.  

The three key elements of the ground rules have been that:

1.  nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,
2.  we will not involve the media in the discussions, and will keep all substantive aspects of the discussions completely confidential, and
3.  we will discuss all core permanent status issues, including Borders, Jerusalem, Refugees, Water and Security.  

On the terms of reference, however, there is significantly less agreement.  While Israel would like a minimalist terms of reference and relies heavily on agreeing to bilateral arrangements in a vacuum, we continue to insist on the universally accepted terms of reference for this conflict.   Our baseline and terms of reference are those that the international community and international law have established, namely that any agreement must be based on the United Nations resolutions pertinent to the conflict, namely UNSC 242 and 338, the Road Map and the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, reaffirmed in 2007; the agreement, based on the “land for peace” formula, must lead to the end of the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 and end the conflict, thus establishing an independent viable Palestinian State; and resolving the issue of the refugees in a just and agreed upon manner, in accordance with UNGA 194.

 Territory