Despite feverish diplomatic activity, demographics were the only indication of progress for the Palestinian cause. Khaled Amayreh, in the Palestinian West Bank, reports In the occupied territories, Palestinians continued to protest against the Geneva Accord, with Fatah -- the backbone of the Palestinian Authority -- leading the opposition to the unofficial document. This week the movement organised several demonstrations in the Gaza Strip against the increasingly unpopular accord. The largest demonstration took place in Rafah, the devastated southern Gaza town, with protesters warning the PA leadership, particularly Chairman Yasser Arafat, against adopting the "surrender document". The protesters were mostly cadres and supporters of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the armed wing of Fatah. They are Arafat's men and as such cannot be dismissed easily by the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah. The growing opposition to the Geneva document across the Palestinian political spectrum, especially within Arafat's own Fatah camp, has apparently forced the Palestinian leader to gradually distance himself from it. Arafat's Advisor Jebril Rajoub said on Arab satellite TV this week that, "Chairman Arafat never really supported the Geneva initiative". Arafat had earlier described the Geneva document as a "courageous step", but stopped short of endorsing it for fear of alienating Palestinian public opinion. It seems that initial Palestinian objection to the document developed into a flat-out rejection after it became clearer that the Geneva Accord departs from the Palestinian national consensus on two central issues; the right of return for some 3.5 million displaced refugees and the issue of Jerusalem. The document would allow Israel to retain control over virtually all Jewish settlements built in East Jerusalem since 1967; a fact which many Palestinians argue seriously undermines the principle of full Israeli withdrawal to its pre-1967 borders. Supporters of the document argue that the Palestinians would receive a comparable amount of land near Gaza proportionate to the Jewish "neighbourhoods" in East Jerusalem to be annexed by Israel. Most Palestinians strongly reject trading the hills of Jerusalem for what they would describe as sand mounds east of Gaza. Many Palestinian intellectuals also reject a key term in the document stipulating that the Palestinians would recognise Israel as a "state for the Jewish people". "This blatantly violates international law and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," said Mazin Qumsiyeh, an American-Palestinian associate professor at Yale and co-founder of the Palestine Right of Return Coalition. Writing in the Jordan Times on 7 December, Qumsiyeh argued that such a recognition would be illegal and immoral. "What it means is that the victims of Israeli colonialism are expected to certify that it is OK for Israel to remain the only country in the world that identifies its land as belonging not to its citizens but to Jewish people everywhere." Likewise, many Palestinians are afraid that such a recognition might one day be used by Israel to "ethnically cleanse" its 1.3 million-strong Palestinian community (nearly 20 per cent of the population) on the grounds that "this is a Jewish state where only Jews belong". Meanwhile, as representatives of Palestinian political factions were in Cairo negotiating a possible cease-fire with Israel, the Israeli occupation army kept up its onslaught against Palestinian population centres, killing an average of two Palestinians a day. Most of the killings took place in the Gaza Strip. On Friday, 4 December, the mass circulation Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahranot published an interview with Ehud Olmert, the former mayor of Jerusalem and Ariel Sharon's deputy and close aide, in which he proposed a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the bulk of the West Bank. Olmert said that the status quo was destroying Zionism and "the Jewish homeland", arguing that Jews would have to do some "deep soul-searching" and "make hard fateful decisions sooner than later", because later could be too late. Olmert, an erstwhile Likud hawk, warned that Jews "must now choose between keeping the territories and risk losing the Jewish majority, or leaving the bulk of the territories and maintaining Israel as a Jewish state". Olmert's interview sent shock waves through the Israeli society, particularly the right-wing establishment. Following the interview, right-wing activists pasted posters of Olmert bearing a Nazi insignia in West Jerusalem. However, due to his status and stature within the Likud Party, the official government reaction to his remarks was marked by confusion and reticence. Olmert's "warnings" are actually being echoed, if not vindicated, by "gloomy" demographic forecasts, showing that the Palestinians are likely to soon form a majority of the population of mandatory Palestine (the area between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean). On 9 December, a prominent Haifa University demographer, Amnon Sofer, was quoted as saying that there is already a majority of non-Jews within the total area of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. "At this very minute, within the 'western land of Israel' from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, there is already a non-Jewish majority," an Israeli paper quoted Sofer as saying.
