Cabinet To Vote On Peace Pact With Nablus-Area Plumber

If the cabinet approves the agreement, it will be brought to the Knesset, and then, under a law passed during the previous government’s tenure, to a national referendum.

Jerusalem, October 29 – The political fragmentation of Palestinian society has led the Israeli government to pursue separate peace agreements with different Palestinian entities, leading to a cabinet vote next week on an accord the Netanyahu government has reached with the proprietor of a family-run plumbing business in the northern West Bank area of Nablus (Shechem).

With Palestinian Authority President and PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas struggling to maintain legitimacy, and with Islamist groups eroding the leadership his Fatah faction can exercise, Israel decided recently that, rather than negotiate a final status agreement with an elusive, single representative of the Palestinian people, it would instead seek separate accords with various Palestinian entities that will, in the aggregate, cover enough of Palestinian society to make a difference.

If signed, the Nablus Plumber agreement will mark the first in what Israel hopes will be a series of about 250,000 such accords, adding up to a near-comprehensive peace. The plumber, Abed al-Fissis, 44, agreed on behalf of his extended family to recognize Israel’s borders and sovereignty, and in exchange Israel committed to respect his territorial integrity. If the cabinet approves the agreement, it will be brought to the Knesset, and then, under a law passed during the previous government’s tenure, to a national referendum.

Analysts predict an easy path for the Nablus Plumber agreement, which requires Israel to make few concessions. If it does pass, it will constitute an important precedent for the potential resolution of the age-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “While the PLO styles itself – and has been internationally recognized as – ‘the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people,’ that status might be rendered obsolete as more and more individual Palestinians seize the initiative and make a separate peace,” said commentator Rhea Liszt. “We can expect both the PLO and Hamas to try to stem the tide of such initiatives, but if enough of them start happening, they’ll be unable to stop  the phenomenon,” she predicted.

In fact, if Israel manages to arrive even at several dozen thousand such agreements, international organization may begin shifting their resources to respond to the trend. “Assuming some of the agreements are signed by Palestinian refugees, organizations such as UNRWA will have to reduce their rolls, and resources for genuine refugees from, say, Syria and Iraq, can be given priority in international forums,” she said.

Ongoing negotiations with a cucumber farmer in the Jordan Valley and a car mechanic in the Judean village of Tuqua have reportedly bogged down over issues of road access and maintenance.