http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/990893.html

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have agreed to start drafting elements of a proposed peace accord, chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qureia said Friday.

Ahmed Qureia, the veteran negotiator heading the Palestinian team, made it clear the decision did not necessarily reflect agreement on the major issues that have tormented peace talks for years – final borders, the status of disputed Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees. But this would be the first time since negotiations resumed more than six months ago that anything on these divisive questions would be put to paper.

“We agreed with the Israelis to begin writing the positions,” Qureia told reporters late Friday.

Israeli political sources on Saturday said that the decision to begin drafting a proposal has been in the works for some months and that much work still lies ahead for the two parties in bridging their differences about core issues.

The timing of the decision coincides with a corruption scandal in Israel that threatens to unseat Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Should Israel find itself going to early elections, polls show Benjamin Netanyahu, who opposes major territorial concessions to the Palestinians, becoming Israel’s next premier.

However, drafting during previous rounds of peace talks has not meant always that those positions were then preserved for future negotiators.

Yisrael Beiteinu chair Avigdor Lieberman said on Saturday that any draft proposal drawn up by the Olmert government would not be recognized by Israel’s next government. Lieberman said of the decision to draft agreement “this is political opportunism for the purpose of survival, it is not a serious diplomatic agreement that has received consideration.”

MK Silvan Shalom (Likud) also said on Saturday that “this is another spin meant to create the appearance of a peace process so as to avoid early elections.”

Qureia did not explain why the two sides had agreed at this point to begin drafting a text.

Qureia also did not say what issue the two sides would start with. If they reach agreement on any issue, then they will draft a single provision, he said. If not, they will lay out on paper their divergent views, he added.

Israel and the Palestinians resumed peace talks in late November under U.S. prodding. Continued Israeli settlement construction and Israeli security concerns have clouded negotiations, and both sides have expressed doubt about achieving the declared goal of clinching a final accord by the end of the year.

Despite the announcement that negotiators would begin drafting their initial positions, Qureia said on Saturday that Israel hadn’t done enough to ease the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank, despite a pledge to ease Palestinian movement in the area as a part of peace talks.

“The checkpoints should have been removed after the Annapolis conference,” Qureia told reporters while standing at a major checkpoint outside the northern West Bank town of Nablus, refering to a Mideast peace conference that took place in November.

A U.N. report in May said that the number of Israeli obstacles in the West Bank increased from 566 in September to 607 in April.

Qureia confirmed that Israeli peace negotiators have offered the Palestinians land in exchange for territory where major West Bank settlements lie, but he termed their offer unacceptable.

Palestinians would like to incorporate all of the West Bank into a future state, but their moderate president, Mahmoud Abbas, has acknowledged that Israel, with U.S. backing, likely will hold on to blocs where tens of thousands of settlers live. In exchange, Abbas is prepared to relinquish some West Bank land for an equal amount of Israeli land.

Qureia would not say how much territory Israel offered, where it lay or how much West Bank land the Jewish state proposed to keep under a final peace accord with the Palestinians.

“The Israelis presented a land swap offer, but this offer is unacceptable to us,” he said.

Other Palestinian officials have said Israel has presented maps giving it 10 percent of the West Bank in exchange for southern Israeli territory near the Gaza Strip.

Rice to press Israel, PA toward peace during visit next week

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit Israel and the West Bank next week to try to nudge Israelis and Palestinians toward a peace deal this year despite Israel’s political turmoil.

Rice will travel first to Paris to attend an Afghan donors conference on Thursday and then to the Middle East, where the corruption scandal dogging Olmert has raised deep doubts about the chances of a peace agreement.

Olmert has rebuffed calls that he resign over allegations that he took envelopes stuffed with cash from Jewish-American businessman Morris Talansky.

Both, Olmert, who has said he would resign if indicted, and the New York-based businessman have denied any wrongdoing.

Israeli officials close to the prime minister have said his strategy will be to try to push ahead with peace negotiations as if nothing has changed and hope that the corruption investigation does not end in charges against him.

But given the political uncertainty, he may have even less room to maneuver in terms of both the peace talks themselves and in meeting U.S. demands that he ease travel and trade restrictions for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

“I know there’s a lot of political turmoil in Israel,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters. “That is not our concern…. We’re focused on the substance of this process and trying to move it forward with both sides.”

The State Department said Rice would travel from June 11 to June 16, making stops in Paris, where she will attend the International Support Conference for Afghanistan and join President George W. Bush for meetings with French officials.

She then visits Jerusalem and Ramallah. McCormack said she would discuss, among other things, the situation in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas Islamists seized control last June, and the effort “to achieve agreement this year on the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

In related news, the Israeli military said the the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be sealed at midnight for the Jewish Shavuot holiday, which begins at sundown Sunday. Holiday closures, which bar nearly all Palestinians from entering Israel, are routine, in an effort to minimize chances of a Palestinian attack. The closure is to last until midnight Monday.