Omar Suleiman is working out Egypt's future role in Israel's disengagement. It is a tough assignment, writes Graham Usher from Jerusalem The waves made by Ariel Sharon's disengagement policy are starting to subside -- at least in Israel. Most Israelis back the plan and his minority government now enjoys a parliamentary safety net provided courtesy of the Labour Party. Even Labour's recent threats to vote against the government's social and economic policies seem to leave the prime minister unfazed. While most of his Likud Party is opposed to any policy that involves the evacuation of settlements, Sharon knows the majority of his Likud ministers are against any return of Labour to government. Dividing and ruling, Sharon should be able to keep his ship afloat until parliament's long summer recess in August. Where tremors are being felt is within the Palestinian and Arab arenas, triggered especially over the preeminent place Egypt has assumed in the disengagement. This, too, is a form of Sharon's policy of divide and rule. Formally, Egypt's role in the disengagement comes down to a trade, aside from legitimate concerns over what is happening on its border with Gaza. It has agreed to bring up 1,000 police to seal the tunnels that smuggle arms into the Strip and arrest those Palestinians and Egyptians engaged in the trade. It is also willing to dispatch 100 or so "security advisers" to help train and "re-structure" the Palestinian Authority's police forces. In return it seeks commitments from three different power centres. It wants Yasser Arafat to "consolidate" the PA's 12 existing security forces into three, putting them under the control of an "empowered" prime or interior minister. It also wants the Palestinian factions to agree a ceasefire before and during any Israeli pull out, whether from Gaza or the four settlements (out of 145) Sharon has agreed to dismantle in the West Bank. Third, it wants Israel to refrain from all military action in Gaza while Egyptians are deployed there, agree to a multinational force being stationed at Gaza's air and seaports and re-open Gaza's long closed safe passage route to the West Bank. Taken together, says Egypt, the three sets of commitments will chart a course back to the negotiating process that was once known as the roadmap. Otherwise "we are worried that the peace efforts would be halted after the [Israeli] withdrawal from Gaza," said Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Maher, on Monday. These are not his only worries. So far Egypt has received little on any of its three demands. Officially the PA accepts the Egyptian role in Gaza but it is also clear that the PA wants disengagement to be much more firmly tied to the roadmap. Otherwise Egypt and Jordan may become Israel's permanent interlocutors for the Palestinians, a displacement that fits Sharon's political worldview like a glove and would deny the PA what little political legitimacy it has left. Arafat too is playing hard to get. He has accepted Egypt's proposed reforms "in principle", while creating a fog as to what they might mean in practice. PA sources say there is little chance their leader will give up control of the security forces. Instead he will strike the same bargain as he did with Mahmoud Abbas's short-lived Palestinian government last year, transferring some forces to the prime minister's nominal control while keeping all ultimately answerable to the PA's National Security Council, which he chairs and appoints. Arafat is not alone in his obstruction. On Monday his Fatah movement, Hamas, the Popular and Democratic Fronts and other Palestinian factions issued a blistering denunciation of the disengagement, and Egypt's role. Warning Egypt and Jordan not "to take over the Palestinian problem", the factions declared that "our people expect the Arab nation to act according to the logic of supporting the Palestinians and not the logic of 'security'". This is to "turn things on their heads, making the problem the Palestinian people and not the occupation". On the contrary, "any withdrawal must be unconditional, with no guarantees for the safety of the enemy and must be the first step towards the liberation of our lands. The armed struggle will continue until the expulsion of the occupiers." Israel has already ruled out any curb on its military actions in Gaza, whether before, during or after disengagement. "We will not agree to any such conditions," said a senior diplomatic source quoted in Haaretz newspaper on Wednesday. "If terrorism continues in the Gaza Strip, we will continue operating there." Nor is Israel expected to look favourably on a multi-national force in Gaza, viewing it as a Palestinian ruse to "internationalise" the conflict. The most that is on offer -- says the source in Haaretz -- is a "formula" that appears to satisfy Egypt's demands while actually satisfying Israel's. Such are the knots Egypt's head of intelligence, Omar Suleiman, will try to undo while visiting Israel and the occupied territories. He must feel there is a chance of a "formula" that satisfies the three parties otherwise it is doubtful he would have come. But the risk of failure is great and the fear -- held not only by Palestinians -- is that Egypt may have taken the trade Israel has long sought: a toehold in Gaza for Israel's deepening hold on Jerusalem and the West Bank.
