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U.S.-Financed Study Opposes Palestinian Demilitarization
(Ha'aretz) Ze'ev Schiff - The State Department is financing a study on the conditions for establishing a Palestinian state based on the outline presented by President Bush. The study was apparently drafted by a pro-Palestinian group at the Council for Foreign Policy in New York and ignores the fact that for the last two years a war initiated by the Palestinians has been underway. A member of the official Palestinian negotiating team on security was asked to formulate a synthesis of the Israeli and Palestinian demands. The Palestinians, in effect, are demanding that the Palestinian state not be demilitarized. The study suggests that the Palestinian army in the future state be equipped with anti-aircraft missiles and mortars. The Palestinian state would also be allowed to invite whoever it wants to train its army (the Iranians?). In exchange for the IDF's right during an emergency to reach the Jordan Valley, they demand an Israeli surrender of the cities of Ma'aleh Adumim and Ariel. Israel has to regard the latest Palestinian demands as either hutzpah or a joke.