Israel and the Palestinian occupied territories are witnessing a time of hot diplomacy -- borne of the cold realities of the disengagement plan, writes Graham Usher in Jerusalem In the next five days Israel and the Palestinian Authority will host a slew of visitors, including US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit and Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman. The ostensible reason for this frenzied activity is to prepare the meeting on 21 June between Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas, their first head-to-head since the Sharm El-Sheikh summit in February. But the real cause is fear. Two months before Israel is to commence its disengagement from most of Gaza and four settlements in the West Bank there are growing doubts over whether it will or can be implemented. A smooth transition is the priority for Rice. Arriving in Ramallah on 18 June, she is expected to foist "coordination" on the reluctant parties not only for the disengagement but, critically, for the day after. According to Israeli sources, there is a growing belief in the Bush administration that Sharon's ruling coalition may not last long beyond the pullback, heralding new elections in Israel and stasis in any movement to a political process. The void is likely to be filled by an emphasis on Palestinian "governance" in the "liberated" Gaza. The problem is PA governance is crippled and Gaza will not be liberated. While Israel apparently has now transferred to the PA up-to-date maps of the settlement and military areas in Gaza, there is still no agreement on the fate of the border crossings, the safe passage linking Gaza to the West Bank or a reopening of the Gaza sea and air ports. Without these Gaza remains what it is today: a vast gulag to which Israel holds the key. It is a recipe for collapse. A stable Gaza is the priority for the Egyptians. Abul-Gheit is expected to seek answers from Israel over the status of the Rafah crossing, aware that Israel's ongoing occupation of the border area may make Rafah to Gaza (and Egypt) what the Sheba Farms are to Lebanon. Backed by the World Bank, Egypt wants the Rafah crossing transferred to PA control as quickly as possible. Israel wants to relocate the crossing from Rafah to Kerem Shalom, a border region inside Israel. Suleiman will try and keep Israel and the Palestinian factions bound to a cease-fire that is fast running out of rope. At a meeting in Gaza on 12 June the factions warned the "calm" was on the brink of exploding due to Israeli violations. They have a point. According to the Israeli army, there has been a 90 per cent drop in Palestinian armed resistance in the West Bank (though less so in Gaza) and no suicide attacks inside Israel since February, when an Islamic Jihad bomber killed five Israelis in Tel Aviv. Over the same period -- according to PA sources -- the army has killed 38 Palestinians, wounded 400 and arrested 500. "Israel has completely shattered the state of calm through its operations and aggression on the Palestinian people," said Mohammed Al-Hindi, an Islamic Jihad leader. "Therefore, there is nothing called a unilateral calm. We will never agree to remain idle while our people are being butchered every day." Suleiman will prevail on Israel the importance of maintaining the calm, though few Palestinian officials believe he will get much traction from Sharon. Instead the onus is on Abbas to appease the factions, whose relations with him are strained following his decision to postpone the PA parliamentary elections originally set for July. Appeasement has come. On 12 June -- in the teeth of protests from Palestinian and international human rights organisations but with the approval of Hamas and Jihad -- Abbas authorised the executions of four Palestinians convicted of murder, the first such sentences since 2002. He ordered free nine Islamic Jihad men, jailed in Jericho for their alleged role in the Tel Aviv attack. And, on 11 June, PA Foreign Minister Nasser Al-Kidwa, gave voice to a view the Islamists have long wanted to hear. "Although the Palestinian leadership is committed to stopping attacks on Israeli citizens and ending all kinds of mutual violence between the two sides, it is our people's right to defend itself under occupation. Possession of weapons is a strategic issue as long as there is occupation," he said. Perhaps most importantly, Abbas approved the election law agreed between the factions in Cairo in March, where half of parliament's seats are to be elected by constituency and half by proportional representation. The belief is that parliament will approve the law and set a new date for elections by the end of the month. Egypt is urging December so that "the PA can glean benefit from the achievement of the disengagement", in the words of one official. Abbas has mooted November. The factions have agreed to be flexible so long as the elections are guaranteed and held before the end of the year. If so, the hope is that calm can continue throughout the disengagement. The fear is that one Israeli assassination, one incursion or one rogue Palestinian operation will blow everything sky high. This is why maintaining the cease-fire will be "top of the agenda" of the Sharon- Abbas meeting, says Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, with the priority being "the halt to Israeli military operations in the PA areas". Abbas will also press for compliance of other pledges made at Sharm El-Sheikh, including further Israeli redeployments from Palestinian West Bank cities, quality prisoner releases and the return of Palestinian fugitives expelled to Gaza and Europe. "We also want an end to settlement expansion, house demolitions and the policy of imposing facts in Jerusalem." With some arm-twisting from Rice, the Palestinians may get some movement on Sharon's confidence building gestures, like prisoner releases. But Sharon is not going to do a thing on Jerusalem and settlements. According to Israeli press reports, work is about to start on those sections of the separation wall mapped to loop around the vast settlement blocs of Maale Adumim in the central West Bank and Gush Etzion south of Jerusalem. As for the West Bank settlements, their fate was eloquently explained on 14 June by PA Planning Minister Ghassan Khatib, in his regular column on the bitter-lemons web site. "While vacating less than 2,000 housing units in the Gaza Strip, Israel has been busy constructing, this year alone, approximately 6,400 units in the West Bank, mostly in Jerusalem."
