Almost Halfway Home /

By LISA BEYER/GAZA STRIP

According to the original plan, by now Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat should be ensconced in new headquarters in the West Bank, overseeing Palestinian self-rule in Jericho and the Gaza Strip. The Israeli occupation authorities should be leaving those enclaves as the two sides prepare for an expansion of Arafat's authority into the whole of the West Bank by summertime. Instead, Arafat remains in exile, occupiers continue to control every aspect of Palestinian life, and the Israelis say it could take the rest of the year to implement autonomy in just these two areas. No wonder Palestinian residents are losing faith in their dream of a better future. Says Ghazi Abu Jayyab, a Gaza-based activist: "People have stopped believing things will change."

In Cairo last week Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres shook hands on a new agreement they insisted had brought the stalled peace plan much closer to fruition. Negotiated with the help of Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa and President Hosni Mubarak, the accord settled a number of sticky disputes that have delayed the transfer of power, notably concerns about the safety of Jewish settlers in the enclaves and the control of border crossings into the occupied territories. But the pact leaves to further negotiations numerous other issues, including the size of the Jericho district and economic relationships. Until they are resolved, Israel refuses to relinquish any of its authority to the Palestinians.

However much their leaders may defend the Cairo agreement, it has generated antipathy among Palestinians in the territories, who think its terms tilt heavily in Israel's favor. "We got almost everything we wanted," says Uri Dromi, head of Israel's government press office. "Why should I apologize for our success?" That is just what troubles Dr. Eyad Sarraj, who runs a mental- health clinic in Gaza. "Under this agreement, we will have an occupation in everything but name," he says. "Instead of being next door to me, the Israeli army will be a few meters farther away. Gaza will continue to be a prison, with Israel controlling all our exit points."

Under the agreement, Israeli soldiers will be stationed in the three areas in the Gaza Strip where 5,000 Jewish settlers live. The army will also control three roads linking these communities to Israel. Many Palestinians see the ! military's future presence in the area as a violation of the peace accord signed by Israel and the P.L.O. last September, which called for a "withdrawal" of Israeli military forces from the Gaza Strip, rather than the redeployment now planned.

The Israelis will also retain ultimate jurisdiction over the border crossings to Egypt and Jordan. The Palestinians will have their own wing in the border terminal, through which Palestinians will pass, but these travelers will still be subject to Israeli security checks. Israel maintains the right to refuse entry to anyone who is not a resident of the West Bank or Gaza Strip, and can restrict the return of refugees from the Arab-Israeli wars, quashing Palestinian hopes of unfettered immigration.

In the interest of granting the P.L.O. at least the trappings of real authority, the Israelis did agree to allow armed Palestinian policemen at the border terminals, as well as the Palestinian flag. But that concession did not much impress residents of the territories, who have freely been flying their four-color banner for five months.

Arafat's aides think they deserve credit for even getting Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to resolve most of the security issues, especially since his military advisers kept raising objections right up to the last minute. At 7 p.m. last Wednesday, when the Egyptians summoned journalists for the signing ceremony, Peres suddenly received a telephone call from Rabin. Army officers still had questions about the procedures for screening Palestinians coming across the Allenby Bridge from Jordan into the West Bank. Mubarak sent a personal message to Rabin urging flexibility, while Moussa offered a compromise that allowed a Palestinian policeman to join an Israeli policeman at the magnetic gate for Palestinian travelers. It was not until after 11 p.m. that Peres and Arafat initialed the agreement.

If Arafat's constituents are feeling let down, it is partly because the P.L.O. chairman raised their expectations too high when he made the original agreement with Israel in September. He told them then that he had achieved "sovereignty" in the Gaza Strip and Jericho, when in fact the accord provided only for limited self-rule. Now every missed deadline feeds distrust on each side about the good faith of the other and breeds violence among the disappointed citizens in the territories. While Palestinian factions fight one another in Gaza, a black market in guns is flourishing as ordinary citizens ! seek to protect themselves.

Rabin says it will take at least a month more to resolve the remaining details of the Gaza-Jericho pact. But negotiators on both sides are hoping that after their toughest problems are tamed in Cairo, the rest of the work will go quickly. "I accept his deadline," says P.L.O. senior negotiator Nabil Shaath, "but I hope to beat it." The pace will have to pick up, however, before the goodwill spreads beyond the negotiators to the people whose lives they are shaping.

With reporting by Dean Fischer/Cairo and Jamil Hamad/Gaza Strip