MIDDLE EAST: The Israeli government was working feverishly behind the scenes yesterday to try and persuade the Bush administration to cancel a meeting, tentatively scheduled for Friday, between the US Secretary of State and the key protagonists of the unofficial Geneva Accord on Israeli-Palestinian peace.
However the diplomatic effort by the government of the Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon, who has castigated the Geneva initiative as "subversive," appeared to be failing. Mr Avraham Burg, an opposition Labour Knesset member who is one of the signatories of the accord, said he believed the meeting with Mr Colin Powell would go ahead.
The deputy prime minister, Mr Ehud Olmert, employing unusually direct language for a senior politician with respect to Israel's main ally, declared that Mr Powell was "making a mistake" in scheduling a meeting with former Israeli Justice Minister Mr Yossi Beilin, former Palestinian Authority Information Minister Mr Yasser Abed-Rabbo and other signatories.
"This is an incorrect step by a senior representative of the American administration," Mr Olmert declared in a radio interview. He was "certain" of Mr Powell's fundamental friendship for Israel, "but I would cast doubt on his judgment in this matter".
Bitterly opposing many of the terms in the peace accord - including the effective relinquishing of all of the West Bank and the transfer of full sovereignty on the Temple Mount to the Palestinians - the Sharon government has been much dismayed by the warm international reception accorded the Geneva initiative, and especially the Bush administration's endorsement in principle of the effort at advancing peace hopes.
While stressing its continued commitment to the US, UN, EU and Russian-backed "road map" peace framework, a State Department spokesman said on Monday "we think it's worthwhile that people are already considering" the core issues of dispute between Israelis and Palestinians, as addressed in the Geneva text.
In contrast to the Israeli government's furious opposition, the Palestinian Authority president, Mr Yasser Arafat, sent his National Security Adviser and a message of congratulation to Monday's ceremony, while simultaneously indicating that he did not accept the specifics of the text, in particular the apparent foregoing of the Palestinian demand for a "right of return" to Israel for millions of refugees.
Opposition Knesset members appealed to the attorney-general yesterday to prosecute a group of rabbis who have issued a ruling branding the Geneva accord "an act of treason" and who are calling for the signatories to be "brought to justice."
A Jerusalem court yesterday convicted two settlers on weapons-related offences and receiving illegally obtained goods. The plea-bargain arrangement came after prosecutors concluded that they could not back up their suspicion that the two, captured in July in a car filled with explosives, were en route to attack Palestinian targets. Shalhevet Pass, the baby daughter of one of them, Yitzhak Pass, was killed by a Palestinian sniper in May 2001.