[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA: The great advantage of having a sovereign
Palestinian state before resolving major issues with the Palestinians is
that this way when the Palestinians continue with terror even after they
have a state the Israelis who support the Palestinians can explain that the
terror is Israel's fault for not being willing to compromise enough to make
a deal.]

U.S. official: American road map monitors will report, not judge

By Mazal Mualem and Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondents and Haaretz Service
Last update - 21:07 12/01/2008

Three U.S. generals will monitor Israeli and Palestinian compliance with the
road map for peace, but won't act as judges, a senior U.S. official said
Saturday.

The same sources also said that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
plans frequent Mideast trips as the sides attempt to fulfill their objective
of reaching a peace deal by the end of 2008.

Negotiations on core issues - borders, Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees -
are to begin in coming days. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas agreed on the eve of President George W. Bush's
visit to the region to instruct their negotiating teams to hold talks on
those issues.
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According to the deal, which was first reported in Haaretz earlier this
week, all the core issues in the negotiations between Israel and the
Palestinians for a final status agreement will be discussed in a special
committee headed by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and former Palestinian
prime minister Ahmed Qureia.

Such talks were to have started immediately after a U.S.-hosted Mideast
conference in November, but the sides got bogged down quickly in
recriminations over Israeli construction in East Jerusalem and criticism
over Palestinian security performance.

Under the arrangement outlined Saturday by the senior U.S. official, Qureia
and Livni would from now on be shielded from distractions and be left to
focus on the core issues.

Instead, a three-way committee headed by Lt. Gen. William M. Fraser III, a
U.S. air force general, will now deal with grievances, mainly noncompliance
with the road map peace plan, which requires Israel to freeze settlement
building and the Palestinians to disarm militants.

However, the general's mandate falls short of that of a judge, said the U.S.
official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.

Fraser, 55, who has accompanied Rice on many of her foreign trips, will send
his findings back to Washington, the official said. "The judging... would be
done at a higher level," he said.

"Sometimes we will do that in private with the parties, sometimes in
public," he added.

The general will be based in Washington, but will make frequent trips to the
region. He accompanied Bush and Rice on their trip earlier this week, and is
expected back in two weeks, the official said.

The U.S. official said Fraser's committee "allows us to have a structured
conversation, with a three-star general on our side, who has got experience
in security, listening to both sides... and then allowing important
judgments to be made in Washington."

Government spokesman Mark Regev said that Israel "accepts the U.S.
monitoring role and is committed to meeting its road map obligations." Under
the U.S.-backed road map for peace, Israel must halt settlement
construction. But Israel insists this does not refer to construction in East
Jerusalem, which it annexed after the 1967 Six-Day War but which
Palestinians claim for their future capital.

Fraser is the latest addition to what has become a trio of U.S. generals
involved in Mideast talks.

During the November peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, the Bush
administration appointed former NATO commander James Jones, a retired Marine
Corps general, as a security envoy.

Jones, also based in Washington, will participate in talks on security
arrangements in a final peace deal, such as the possible deployment of
foreign forces and drawing defensible borders for Israel.

The veteran in the group is Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton, who is helping train and
equip the Palestinian security forces. Initially, Dayton was dispatched
after the Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip in September 2005, and
was to help beef up the Palestinian side of border crossings between Gaza
and Israel. That assignment was canceled by the violent Hamas takeover of
Gaza in June.

The U.S. official said Rice will also visit frequently this year to check on
progress. He noted that the secretary visited the region eight times in
2007, and that he expected a similar intensity in 2008. Bush said he'd be
back at least once, for Israel's 60th birthday, and perhaps more often.

However, critics said it's still not enough.

Mofaz calls for an interim PA state before final peace accord

Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz said Saturday Israel should reach an
agreement with the Palestinian Authority on an interim state before signing
a final peace deal.

Mofaz, a former defense minister and Israel Defense Forces chief of staff,
said that the interim deal should grant a provisional Palestinian state
temporary borders, and should not include a settlement on two of the core
issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the fate of Jerusalem and the
Palestinian refugees.

"This kind of agreement would not include the issues of the refugees and
Jerusalem," he said, "but would guarantee a Palestinian state with temporary
borders. An immediate move toward a final status agreement will only
postpone the process and delay it."

The transportation minister was speaking at a conference hosted by the
Geneva Initiative, a peace proposal that was launched in 2003 by prominent
Israeli and Palestinian politicians.

Regarding the Second Lebanon War, Mofaz said that it "failed" because of the
way it was managed, not because of the IDF's level of preparedness before
the war.

"The management of the Second Lebanon War was confused and unsuccessful...
In the six years before the war, I wouldn't have done anything differently.
Until the war, we fought on the Palestinian front to prevent [suicide]
attacks, and I wouldn't have launched an additional front in Lebanon," he
said.

His comments came roughly two weeks before the January 30 release of the
final Winograd Commission report on the management of the Second Lebanon
War.