World News 02-12-2003 Palestinian-Israeli Peace Accord who: Former US president Jimmy Carter what: Celebrates launch of Middle East peace accord where: Geneva, Switzerland when: Yesterday snippet: "A gathering of world statesmen gave their blessing to an unofficial Middle East peace agreement yesterday despite the ceremony being derided by both Israel and Palestinians," says The Telegraph. "A spokesman for Ariel Sharon, Israel`s prime minister, accused Israeli peace campaigners who negotiated the accord with Palestinian officials of dancing around a `golden calf`, the biblical symbol of a false god." More than 300 dignitaries, including former US president Jimmy Carter and former Polish president Lech Walesa, gathered in Switzerland yesterday to promote the Geneva Accord, which was formulated over three years of secret negotiations by Yossi Beilin of the left-wing Israeli Meretz Party and Yasser Abed Rabbo, an ally of Yasser Arafat. "The accord contains all the elements of a final two-state settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict," explains The Financial Times. "The initiative envisages the two states demarcated by a border close to pre-1967 lines; the abandonment of most Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza; Jerusalem as the capital of both states with a division of religious sites; and only a limited return of Palestinian refugees to their former homes in Israel." "But thousands of Palestinians held protests against the plan in refugee camps in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank," says the BBC. "The demonstrators said the plan was a `sell-out` and called its Palestinian supporters `traitors`." [... more]

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