Article74 Magazine

Now, two months after the signing of the Declaration of Principles by Israel and the PLO in Washington, and one month after the meeting of the Refugee Committee/multilateral talks (Tunis, October 12 - 14), it has become somewhat easier to distinguish between rumors and facts: 

- The question of the 1948 refugees, the status of Jerusalem, and the question of who will control the movement of Palestinian across the borders between the West Bank and Jordan and Gaza and Egypt will be discussed in the negotiations for the final status which will begin at the latest in the beginning of the third year of the interim period (i.e. 1997). Until then, that is for the next three years, Jerusalem and the borders will be under sole Israeli authority. 

- The question of the return of the 1967 refugees will be dealt with by a four party committee (Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt) in the framework of the bilateral talks in Taba. The names of negotiators and the date for the first meeting have not yet been set. 

- The Refugee Working Group which has been meeting in the framework of the multilateral talks will deal with the issues of family reunification and Palestinians who, although they held Israeli IDs in the past, lost their residency rights in the Occupied Territories. The Working Group will meet in Istanbul in January 1994. 

- A permanent four party committee (Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt) will together revise the laws and military regulations presently in force in the areas other than those to be transferred to Palestinian authority in the interim phase. Some of these laws and regulations concern procedures and implementation of family reunification by the Israeli authorities, e.g. military regulation 1208, according to which a child cannot be granted resident status if his/her mother is not herself a resident. No date has yet been set for this committee. 

Rumors and Contradicting Statements 
Two years before the actual start of negotiations concerning Jerusalem and the control of the borders to Jordan and Egypt, the Palestinian negotiators are presenting these problems as temporary problems assuring the public that East Jerusalem will be the capital of the future Palestinian state; and that after two years the borders will be under joint Israeli-Palestinian control. Israeli spokespersons, on the other hand, insist that Jerusalem will remain a united Israeli city, that settlement construction in East Jerusalem will continue, and that Israel will not relinquish control of the borders as a matter of external security. 
Regarding the return of the 1967 refugees, the Palestinian delegation maintains that the fact of their return is non-negotiable, and what needs to be discussed in Taba are modalities and numbers. 
According to Palestinian sources, there are 800,000 refugees and their families waiting to return home. Israeli negotiators and politicians are ready to discuss the possible return of no more than tens of thousands of returnees.