By Dina Ezzat in Cairo;Tarek Hassan in Gaza Five years after the Oslo Accords were signed on the White House lawn, following secret Palestinian-Israeli talks in the Norwegian capital, implementation continues to be problematic. The reason, in view of critics, is that the provisions of the accords did not make for a good -- that is, fair -- deal. "A much better job could have been done," remarked one opponent. "The wording of the documents was so sloppy that there were problems of implementation almost every step of the way." In effect, Israel has been refusing to enforce the accords for the past 18 months. Dennis Ross, the US envoy to the Middle East, returned to the region yesterday for the first time in four months, in a fresh attempt to break the stalemate. Ross had previously vowed not to return unless Palestinians and Israelis managed to significantly narrow their differences, thus making an agreement possible. Ross's mission is to get the two sides to agree to a deal that is basically a watered-down version of a US initiative suggesting a withdrawal from 13 per cent of West Bank territory in return for the Palestinian Authority enforcing tougher security measures. According to informed sources, Ross is expected to play a "semantics game" that would give the Palestinians 10 per cent but make it appear "on paper" that they received 13 per cent. "What Ross is going to do is to suggest alternative wording and phrasing and alter punctuation to make the document acceptable to the Palestinians," a source said. "But this is a very dangerous game, because it would result in more textual ambiguities and more difficulties in implementation." Whether or not the Palestinians will go ahead with Ross's suggestion is unclear. Mixed signals have been coming from the Palestinian Authority, sometimes suggesting that an agreement was imminent and sometimes reporting that no progress was being made. Sources say there is an obvious split within the PA over whether or not to accept the deal. "The majority of PA decision-makers are in favour of acceptance. Yasser Arafat himself argues that 10 per cent is better than nothing," one source told Al-Ahram Weekly. Israeli sources, for their part, suggest that it is Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat's second-in-command in the Palestine Liberation Organisation, who is blocking an agreement. They say that Abbas, the man who co-signed the Oslo Accords with then Labour Prime Minister Shimon Peres, is opposing the deal to undermine Binyamin Netanyahu's chances to win a second term in office. The Palestinians have already agreed to the return of one per cent of West Bank territory to their full control, nine per cent to joint control with Israel, and a nature reserve taking up three per cent of the territory, on which neither side is permitted to build, provided that this area is also under joint control. But Israel insists that it should have uncontested security control over the three per cent area and opposes any mention of further redeployment in the agreement. Shortly before Ross's return, the Palestinians had sent a set of questions to the Israelis via Miguel Moratinos, the European Union envoy. The Palestinians sought clarification of Israel's position on the construction of additional settlements in the Occupied Territories, the demolition of Palestinian homes, the confiscation of Palestinian property and the implementation of long-delayed interim commitments, including the opening of air and sea ports in Gaza. While awaiting Israel's reply, Palestinian decision-makers agreed that, for them to accept a deal, it must be comprehensive. "We do want a deal. It is in our interest to have a deal. But it cannot be just any deal; it needs to be a comprehensive deal," Nabil Abu Rudeina, Arafat's political adviser, told the Weekly. Privately, Palestinian sources concede that, after a two-year stalemate, they are in a corner and need to accept whatever they can get. Given the limited chances of an Arab summit or an international peace conference, and the negative implications of military cooperation between Israel, Turkey and Jordan, sources say that Arafat is quite inclined to go ahead with the proposed deal. The Jordanians are encouraging him in this direction, but he also wants Cairo's support. The response of Egyptian officials has been that "this is [Arafat's] decision and [he] will have to sell it to [his] people. We are not telling [him] either to accept or reject it." Policy in Cairo holds that, if Arafat accepts a watered-down version of the US initiative -- that is, a watered-down version of the Palestinians' original demands -- then Netanyahu has no reason to be serious about implementing or respecting the signed accords. "It is true that we are not interfering to stop this agreement. But also, we cannot tell Arafat to accept a deal that we don't find credible," said a Cairo official. "We firmly believe that no deal is better than a bad deal." The Egyptians argue that if no deal is struck now, a good deal may eventually be reached. But if both sides are stuck with a bad deal, such as the Hebron agreement reached in 1997 through Jordanian mediation, it will almost certainly not be implemented. Foreign Minister Amr Moussa, speaking to reporters on Tuesday, said that Cairo will listen to what Israel has to say before Ross starts his mission and "before entering what could be the final stage of this series [of talks] that has been going on for much too long." Asked if the Israelis had serious ideas to offer, Moussa responded: "There are so many question marks about the Israeli stance, which has caused the peace process much trouble. We know that there are several draft documents, but not all of them are reasonable or even logical."
