(MEMRI) Y. Yehoshua - In October 2003, in Jordan, Israeli and Palestinian politicians and activists were reported to have reached a detailed understanding on a permanent-status Israeli-Palestinian settlement, known as the "Geneva Understandings," following two years of secret talks. Mamdouh Nowfal, military advisor to Yasser Arafat, told the Jordanian daily Al-Rai: "What was offered [to the Palestinians] at Taba was better than what was offered at Camp David, but what was offered at the Dead Sea [i.e., in the Geneva Understandings] is twice as much progress as both, and also more than the initiative of former president Bill Clinton." Ashraf Al-Ajrami, director of the PA Information Ministry's Department of Israel Affairs and columnist for the PA daily Al-Ayyam, wrote: "The Geneva document is considered the best thing that the Palestinians and Israelis can attain at this stage. This can put an end to the Zionist expansion enterprise that knows no borders. This will enable a strategic change that will perhaps make the solution of a bi-national state or a united democratic state feasible in the long run."
2003-11-11 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive