Temperature's Rising
Palestinians have anxious eyes on the
Erez negotiations.
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nxious and tense best de-
scribes the street of the
West Bank during and af-
ter last week's Washing-
ton summit.
"We are in a disastrous situa-
tion," said Hebron Mayor
Mustafa Natshe, whose con-
stituents were closed in their
homes under a full curfew dur-
ing the talks. "Our people are still
suffering. They lack food, they
can't go to work, and their chil-
dren can't get to school, while the
settlers are out on the streets cel-
ebrating their feast [of Sukkot]."
Asked how Hebronites would
react if the chief result of the
talks was Israel's pledge to enter
ongoing negotiations on the re-
deployment in that city — among
other issues — Mr. Natshe
replied cautiously: "People might
be prepared to wait a reasonable
amount of time. But if the Israelis
use that time to block the way,
there will be a catastrophe."
On the half-deserted streets of
Ramallah, a usually bustling
commercial center sealed off from
the surrounding towns and vil-
lages by Israeli roadblocks and
tanks, the mood was of raw
anger.
"We didn't join in the demon-
strations to embarrass Yassir
Arafat or the Palestinian Au-
thority," said 24-year-old Ahmad
Sha'ib, a student at Bir Zeit Uni-
versity and a Fatah (and thus
Arafat) loyalist. "We did it be-
cause we were enraged at the
halt in the peace process and
wanted to see some real steps.
But if the meeting in Washing-
ton fails, not just young people
but the entire city will march on
the Israeli checkpoint."
Similarly, dire predictions
were heard in Bethlehem and
east Jerusalem.
But immediately after the
summit, and during the first days
of negotiations at the Erez cross-
ing, the Palestinians cities were
calm and east Jerusalem was
jammed with traffic and shop-
pers, giving no hint of a prelude
to violence.
But that doesn't mean that the
Palestinians were particularly
pleased by the outcome of the
Washington conclave.
"The results of the summit
stink," said a 31-year-old east
Jerusalem engineer who would
identify himself only as Mo-
hammed. "All they did in Wash-
ington was eat, drink, sleep and
come home. But whether or not
riots erupt again depends on
what happens now at Erez, not
what happened in Washington."
Despite widespread disap-
pointment in the summit, some
Palestinians chose to see the full
half of the glass. "Arafat was
right to turn down a meeting
with Netanyahu just after the
fighting," said Riyad Abu Snein,
a 43-year-old Bethlehem busi-
nessman. "I also feel President
Clinton is standing beside us. Af-
ter all, he's sending his own peo-
ple to babysit the talks at Erez.
Surely that's a sign that he won't
let Netanyahu get away with just
more talk, talk, talk."
Meanwhile, neither the resi-
dents of Ramallah nor of any oth-
er Palestinian city have marched
on the nearest Israeli checkpoint.
But that's not because of Prime
"Netanyahu is a man
you can negotiate
with but not get any
results from."
—Ali Jirbawi
Minister Netanyahu's appeal to
Palestinians, on television and
radio, not to lose hope. `Most peo-
ple took that broadcast as a joke,"
said American-educated Profes-
sor Ali Jirbawi, a political scien-
tist at Bir Zeit University outside
Ramallah.
Nevertheless, the general con-
sensus was that after venting
anger and cementing their pre-
vious ambivalence toward the po-
lice, most Palestinians will await
the results of the Erez negotia-
tions.
But Profesor Jirbawi reports
that the students at his school
don't expect much. "They see [the
talks] as an Israeli tactic to gain
more time," he said. "No one is
planning any actions right now,
but they'll be ready when the
time comes."
East Jerusalem political ana-
lyst Nathalie Abu Ata predicts
that the "waiting period" will last
until the American elections next
month. But Abdel Rahman Alm
Arafeh, president of the Arab
Thought Forum — an institute
devoted to political and econom-
ic studies — believes that vio-
lence will erupt again "whenever
there's some clear signal from
Arafat that the Erez talks are a
total disaster."
And Professor Jirbawi believes
such a signal is inevitable. "If I
were a negotiator, I wouldn't
EREZ NEGOTIATIONS page 124