A Comparison Of Three Drafts For An Israeli-Palestinian Peace Agreement

[Classical_Liberal]

A Comparison Of Three Drafts
For An Israeli-Palestinian Peace Agreement

The Gush Shalom Peace Proposal (2001)
The Ayalon-Nusseibeh Statement of Principles (2002)
The Geneva Initiative (2003)


By Adam Keller

Note: the three documents here compared are of very different length, the one of Gush Shalom covering three pages,

that of Ayalon-Nusseibeh a single page (being more a statement of general principles then a draft peace agreement) and the Geneva document the far longest, covering 47 pages and going into the fine technical details of implementation. This should be taken into account in reading the following comparison, and in particular the lack of reference in the Ayalon-Nusseibeh document to many points mentioned in the others should not be necessarily taken to mean a lack of concern to these points by its drafters.



Basic principles

All three documents start with affirming the principle of "Two states for Two nations". The Ayalon-Nusseibeh document and the Geneva document include in this context a Palestinian obligation to recognize the Jewish character of Israel (Ayalon-Nusseibeh document: "both sides will declare that Palestine is the only state of the Palestinian people, and Israel is the only state of the Jewish people"; Geneva document: "the State of Israel and Palestine Liberation organization (...) affirm that this agreement marks the recognition of the right of Jewish people to statehood and the recognition of the right of the Palestinian people to statehood, without prejudice to the equal rights of the Parties' respective citizens"). The Gush Shalom document does not include such a reference.

The Gush Shalom document mentions as a basis for the agreement UN resolutions 242, 338 and 194. The Geneva document mentions resolutions 242, 338 and 1397 (which did not yet exist when Gush Shalom drafted its proposal) as a basis for the whole agreement. 194 is not mentioned in the preamble of the Geneva document, but it is mentioned in the specific article about the refugee problem. In the Ayalon-Nusseibeh document there is no mention of UN resolutions.

All three documents include the statement that their implementation constitutes the end of the conflict (the Gush Shalom document has the specific stipulation that the two parties will jointly report to the UN about completing the implementation of the agreement).....

http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/compare_eng.html

[papau]

1. Thanks for posting - Geneva seems a fleshed out Taba -

I like it - except I think the Temple Mount must be international- UN controlled - so as to not have a faith saying what another faith can do.