[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA:

Joke of the day: "Israel will transfer the names of wanted men to the PA
security forces, and if the PA forces do not arrest those wanted, the IDF
will be able to do so."

This when we know that when Israel does this the priority of the PA is to
find and prosecute the Palestinian "collaborators" who provided Israel with
the information about the "wanted men".

"Israel will also be reevaluating about 1,000 demolition orders for
illegally built Palestinian homes" -> so in return Israel can formalize
1,000 homes on outposts?]

Israel to transfer security in Jenin area to Palestinians
By Barak Ravid and Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondents Last update -
05:23 14/05/2008
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/983279.html

Israel and the Palestinians have been discussing an almost complete transfer
of security responsibility the Palestinian Authority security forces in
order to turn the area into a "model region" - where Israeli presence is
almost non-existent.

Sources in the Defense Ministry on Tuesday confirmed that talks on the new
security arrangements were underway with American mediation and that of
Quartet representative Tony Blair.

On Tuesday Blair presented several measures to ease life for the
Palestinians in the West Bank, to which Israel and the PA had agreed ahead
of the visit of U.S. President George W. Bush, who arrives in Israel
Wednesday.
Advertisement

According to the arrangements being formulated, which are to be implemented
in the coming months, the PA will be responsible for security in the area
north and east of Tul Karm, including Jenin, an area equal in size to the
Gaza Strip. The plan calls for full Palestinian control from 6 A.M. to
midnight and joint control with the Israelis during the night.

Israel will still be able to enter Jenin and its environs to act against
"ticking bombs," that is, someone who has knowledge of a terror attack to be
carried out. In other cases, Israel will transfer the names of wanted men to
the PA security forces, and if the PA forces do not arrest those wanted, the
IDF will be able to do so.

In talks with the Palestinians, Blair and the American generals made clear
that the PA would have to operate not only against Hamas, but also against
all terrorists, including those who are part of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs'
Brigades of the Fatah movement.

The Palestinian force in the northern West Bank will include more than 1,000
police personnel, most of who were trained by the U.S. in Jordan. More that
600 personnel are due to arrive in July, to join the more than 500 men who
were recently stationed in Jenin and its environs.

New prison, new court

To strengthen the PA, Israel has agreed to the construction of a new prison
in Jenin to replace the one Israel destroyed in the second intifada. Israel
also approved four new police stations for the area. The PA will also open a
new court in Jenin. Israel has also agreed to remove roadblocks in the
northern West Bank to ease the movement of Palestinian vehicles into Jenin
and to Nablus and the Jordan Valley, in keeping with security
considerations.

On the economic front, Blair announced at a press conference Tuesday in
Jerusalem that Israel has agreed to allocate a frequency range that would
enable a second Palestinian cell-phone operator. Blair said the range would
be 2.4 Megahertz for now, but that Israel was going to commit in writing
within six to eight months to double the frequency range.

Israel had delayed its approval of the frequency range for some time, among
other reasons, because of objections from the Shin Bet security service and
the army. Blair said the move would contribute to the improvement of the
Palestinian economy, as the PA stood to earn more than $350 million from
license fees. He also said the cellular operator would be investing more
than $700 million over the next 10 years, creating some 750 new jobs.

A new industrial area is also to be built by the end of the year at Jalameh,
north of Jenin, which is to be funded by the German government.

Israel also agreed to give work permits in Israel to about 1,000 laborers
and some 300 merchants from Jenin.

Reevaluating demolition orders

Israel will also be reevaluating about 1,000 demolition orders for illegally
built Palestinian homes, and will allow Palestinian customs officers to be
stationed at the Allenby Bridge as a prelude to the establishment of a
Palestinian border administration.

The commander of the Palestinian security forces in the Jenin area,
Brigadier General Suleiman Imran, on Tuesday said that his forces are
already operating against armed men in the area, including villages under
Israeli security control. "There will be no weapons in this sector that do
not belong to the PA. Only the law will rule," he said.

Imran said his men were operating in the area from Jalameh in the north,
down to but not including Nablus in the south, and to the Green Line in the
west. He said the coming days would see a widening of the operation to the
Far'a refugee camp in the east, near the Jordan Valley. However, he added,
so far no agreement had been reached that Israel would stop making arrests
in the area. "The matter of security responsibility is in the hands of
Israel for the present, but the parties are discussing it," Imran said.

People in Jenin said the PA forces in Jenin had been able recently to reduce
crime in the city, and that armed men are now rarely seen there or the
surrounding villages.
Blair initially raised the idea to make the Jenin area a model for PA
security control a few months ago, in an attempt to show the residents of
the West Bank a meaningful change on the ground. In his talks with the
Israelis and the Palestinians, Blair said only such a move would
significantly move ahead negotiations on the core issues of the final-status
agreement. Blair initially proposed the arrangement for Hebron, but given
the tensions and sensitivities in that city, Israel suggested Jenin instead.

Blair discussed the initiative in a series of meetings with the U.S.
mediators, generals James Jones and Keith Dayton, with Defense Minister Ehud
Barak and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, as well as at a number of
three-way meetings. As far as is known, Barak and the IDF brass have
expressed their support for the plan now being formulated.

Discussions on the new arrangements are taking into consideration lessons
learned from the previous transfer of security responsibility to the
Palestinians, in Nablus a few months ago. One of the conclusions was that
the Nablus transfer was not particularly successful because clear and
agreed-on rules of coordination between the IDF and the Palestinian security
forces were not set.