Israel Agrees to Second Redeployment

(October 23, 1998)

 

After nine days of talks at Wye Mills, Maryland, Israeli, Palestinian and American negotiators (with input from Jordan’s King Hussein) reached an agreement to advance the peace process. The key provisions of what is being called the Wye Mills Memorandum follow:

  • Israel will withdraw over a 90-day period from an additional 13.1 percent of the West Bank, of which three percent will be set aside as a nature reserve. This gives the Palestinians effective control over roughly 40 percent of the “occupied territories.”

  • Israel will transfer 14.2 percent of West Bank land from joint Israeli-Palestinian control (Area B) to Palestinian control (Area A).

  • Israel will release 750 jailed Palestinians (250 every three months) who have neither Jewish nor Arab blood on their hands and are not members of Hamas.

  • The agreement mandates that the Palestinian Authority (PA) imprison 30 murder suspects and institute a mechanism for monitoring that these individuals remain in prison. In addition, the PA will be required to confiscate illegal weapons within its jurisdiction and reduce the Palestinian police force to the size agreed upon in the 1995 Interim Agreement. The CIA will supervise the implementation of this agreement.

  • A joint Israeli-Palestinian committee will be established to discuss a third troop withdrawal. Israel is insisting that it determine the scope of this pullback, as agreed upon in the Oslo Accords and the Hebron Protocol.

  • A Palestinian airport will be allowed to open and an industrial zone created in Gaza.

  • Negotiations to allow Palestinians moving between Gaza and other Palestinian areas safe passage will be extended two weeks.

  • The Palestinians will remove language from the PLO covenant calling for Israel's destruction. The changes that will be made in three stages over 12 weeks.

  • Negotiations concerning the opening of a Palestinian seaport in Gaza are slated to conclude within two months,

Sources: Associated Press, (October 23, 1998), CNN and Consulate General of Israel in New York.