Arafat Blasts Peres Plan for Peace Deal Referendum
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GAZA CITY — Palestinian President Yasser Arafat on Tuesday slammed a proposal by Prime Minister Shimon Peres to hold a referendum in Israel on a future permanent peace deal with the PLO.
“This is completely against what has been agreed upon,” Arafat told reporters here when asked his view of the proposal and of a vow by Peres not to remove Jewish settlements from formerly Israeli-occupied territory.
Peres made the surprise announcement about the referendum Monday, effectively removing a contentious issue from public debate less than two months before May 29 national elections.
“We will ask the party for a mandate to hold negotiations on the final status accord with the Palestinians, to announce we will bring it to a referendum,” Peres told reporters.
Israel has handed over parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the Palestine Liberation Organization and is due to begin talks with the Palestinians in May on Arab East Jerusalem, Jewish settlers and the return of Palestinian refugees.
On Tuesday, Peres told Israel Radio that he is in favor of keeping Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, home to about 130,000 Israelis, in place.
Arafat did not elaborate on how the call for a referendum would violate three years of peace accords. But his advisor Nabil abu Rudaineh called it a “new condition.”
“Israel did not ask for a referendum when it signed agreements with Egypt, Jordan or even with the Palestinians,” he said.
PLO official Ahmed Korei, who negotiated the peace accord in Oslo, said Peres’ call for a referendum gave the Palestinians the right to do the same.
“This could open the door to us to hold a referendum for our people inside and in the diaspora on any agreement that would be reached with Israel,” he said.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Likud Party challenger, called Peres’ proposal an election ploy.
Netanyahu has accused Peres of planning to cede the Arab eastern half of Jerusalem to Palestinians--a charge Peres denies.
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