After months of intensive diplomatic effort Israel and the Palestinians begin implementing the roadmap, writes Khalid Amayreh In a move that appeared to legitimise Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem Palestinian Prime Minster Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday became the first Palestinian leader ever to visit the office of his Israeli counterpart in Jerusalem. With no displayed flags and no questions allowed from the press, Abbas and Ariel Sharon shook hands and smiled for the cameras following their first meeting since the two sides reached a cease-fire agreement. The hastily arranged meeting was intended to take advantage of the positive mood between the two sides following Monday's redeployment of Israeli troops from northern Gaza and the re-opening of the road connecting the northern and southern parts of the Strip. Israel began transferring security responsibility to the PA after Palestinian factions agreed to a three-month cease-fire with Israel. In an emotional speech that avoided any demands on the Palestinians Sharon emphasised the need to make "painful compromises" for the sake of peace. For his part, Abbas demanded the release of Palestinian prisoners but avoided mentioning Israel's settlement policy and the separation wall being constructed on confiscated West Bank land. The PA hopes the partial withdrawal from northern Gaza and the withdrawal from Bethlehem, planned for Wednesday, will lend momentum to a complete Israeli withdrawal to pre-Intifada lines. And this, arguably, will constitute a significant step towards the implementation of the US-backed roadmap. US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice sought to push towards this end during her visit this week to Israel and Jericho. Rice criticised the apartheid wall and de facto borders being built by Israel well inside the West Bank. It is criticism of which Sharon, who argues that Israel's security knows no boundaries, will take little heed. For now, however, Sharon has to face the fact that Palestinian resistance groups have made considerable political gains by agreeing to reach a temporary cease-fire with Israel. Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad declared the cease-fire jointly on Sunday, with Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades making a separate but similar cease-fire declaration simultaneously. The cease-fire stipulates a halt to all resistance attacks against Israeli targets in both the occupied territories and Israel. In return Israel is expected to end its repression of the Palestinians, including incursions, assassinations, curfews, house demolitions, the uprooting of trees and the destruction of private and public infrastructure. A key demand highlighted by Hamas is the release of thousands of Palestinian political prisoners, many of them held without trial or charge. In its own cease-fire declaration Fatah also demanded that Israel immediately lift the 18 month-old siege of PA Chairman Yasser Arafat. Sharon indicated that he would be willing to allow Arafat to enter Gaza but made no promises that the Palestinian leader would be allowed to travel between Gaza and the West Bank. The decision of the resistance groups to accept the cease-fire came after intensive behind-the-scenes efforts by the Egyptian government. It was only finalised after the terms were negotiated by imprisoned Fatah leader, Marwan Barghouti, and the head of Hamas's politburo, Khalid Mashaal. Contacts between the two were conducted via Barghouti's lawyer Khader Shkeirat and Palestinian Legislative Council member Qaddura Faris. Shkeirat and Faris travelled to Damascus and Beirut several times for discussions with Mashaal and Islamic Jihad Leader Ramadan Shallah. These efforts, conducted in coordination with PA Leader Yasser Arafat, and apparently with Israel's knowledge and tacit approval, yielded the long-awaited cease-fire. The cease-fire declaration has effectively desensitised tensions between the Abbas government and the Islamic resistance groups. This, say many Palestinians, effectively grants Hamas a certificate of good conduct, enabling it to underline its status as an integral part of the Palestinian political fabric. More importantly, the cease-fire makes it harder for the Palestinian government to hound and persecute Hamas activists or dismantle its "infrastructure", an incessant demand of both Israel and the US. The Palestinian public has welcomed the cease-fire as a respite from unprecedented levels of Israeli repression. The conflict, they increasingly realise, cannot be resolved through armed struggle given the imbalance of power and the conspicuous absence of any effective Arab or international support. More to the point the US invasion and occupation of Iraq has forced Palestinians, including Hamas, to change tactics and "bow in the face of the storm". For its part Israel dismissed the cease-fire declaration as "a time bomb" and "poison covered in honey". Israel's hawkish leadership had hoped the cease-fire would never materialise since it will "fetter Israel's hands" -- an allusion to Tel Aviv's policy of assassinating Palestinian leaders. Sharon has always sought the unconditional capitulation of the Palestinians, particularly following the Anglo-American occupation of Iraq. Having failed to achieve this goal he must be greatly disappointed by a cease-fire that he views as a skillful piece of propaganda. Israeli designs vis-à-vis the Palestinians, which found expression in the slogan "let the army achieve victory", have started to unravel. Three years of brutal repression, and the death of 2,500 people, has failed to secure a decisive victory over the Palestinians. Palestinian bombings inside Israel and other guerrilla attacks against Israeli targets have killed as many as 800 Israeli soldiers, settlers and civilians and the implication of this "balance of terror" -- given the disparity between the two sides -- is that Israel will lose by not winning while the Palestinians will win by not losing. This has unsettled the Israeli government which, despite its insistence that it has nothing to do with the cease-fire -- describing it as an internal Palestinian agreement -- knows it cannot escape its ramifications. Indeed, on the day the cease- fire was announced Israel and the PA agreed on an Israeli withdrawal from northern Gaza and Bethlehem. The 29 June pull-out from Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahya in northern Gaza went smoothly, enabling the Palestinian police to assume "security responsibility" along roughly the same lines as pre-Intifada arrangements.
