27 October 1998

After eight days of negotiations between Netanyahu’s Government and the Palestinian Authority at Wye River, Maryland, the United States of America, the two parties, under the direct sponsorship of the U.S. Administration, concluded an agreement pertaining to the application of the redeployment of the Israeli occupation troops in the West Bank as provided for in the former agreements. This agreement will be implemented in conjunction with a pledge by the PA to take strict and specific security measures against the forces of the Palestinian People that reject any relinquishments and that also resist the Occupation, in particular the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). The agreement was signed on Friday, 23 October 1998 at the White House.

In view of the dangers of this agreement and its negative consequences to the Palestinian Cause and to the present and future conditions of the whole region, we, in the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), would like to introduce this memorandum directly to our People and Nation as part of our duty to enlighten and warn them. In addition, we strongly encourage everyone to play their role in defending Palestine’s Cause, its people and its holy places, as well as to work seriously to prevent the expansion of the Zionist project at the expense of the Nation’s interests now and in the future.

First: The main comments on the agreement’s provisions

The Wye River Memorandum tackles five subjects: the redeployment, security, economic issues, the final status talks and the unilateral activities. The agreement details the security issues making it, formally and practically, a non-political security accord.

The Wye River Memorandum considers the "Note for the Record" by the U.S. of 17 January 1997, which was annexed to the Hebron Agreement and the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip of 28 September 1995, as an authority to the application of the agreement. One of the most serious ramifications of this Memorandum is the recognition of Israel’s sole right to determine the percentage and time-schedule of the redeployment. As long as there are no maps attached with the new agreement, the Israeli enemy will, alone, determine the criteria for which the redeployment will be made.

Although the agreement talks about the reciprocity principle, it is free of any details or required guarantees from the Enemy. It was satisfied with what was mentioned in the prior agreements. However, the present agreement describes in detail a list of commitments and relinquishments that must be carried out by the PA.

The agreement states that the redeployment of the Occupation troops should be linked to the PA’s commitment to the application of a time-schedule for the security measures that must be implemented in order to encounter the Palestinian forces that resist or call to resist the Occupation. While the provisions concerning the commitments by the PA are clear and specific, the commitments by the Enemy are vague and general. Examples of the provisions regarding the different security measures that should be implemented by the PA according to the agreement are as follows:

The ensuring of systematic and effective combat of "terrorist" organizations and their support structures along with the environment conducive to the support of "terror".

Combat should be continuous and constant over the long term, without pause in its implementation.

Security cooperation between "Israel" and the Palestinians as well as a continuous exchange of information, concepts and actions. The cooperation should be "bilateral, complete, continuous, intensive and comprehensive."

A U.S.-Palestinian committee will meet biweekly to review the steps being taken to eliminate "terrorism".

A U.S.-Palestinian committee will meet to review and evaluate information pertaining to the decisions on prosecution, punishment or other legal measures to be taken against suspects. The PA will abide by this condition.

There must be professional cooperation in investigations between the two parties along with an exchange of information.

A U.S.-Palestinian-Israeli committee will meet not less than biweekly to assess current threats and to deal with any impediments.

The Palestinian side will fully inform the members of the committee of the results of its investigation of suspects.

Instant apprehension of 30 Palestinians wanted by the "Israeli" Enemy to try them under CIA supervision.

The Palestinian side will prohibit the importation or smuggling of illegal weapons in areas under Palestinian jurisdiction.

The prohibition of all forms of incitement to violence or terror. A U.S.-Palestinian-Israeli committee will monitor cases of possible incitement to violence or terror and exchange information in this regard.

The Palestinians will provide the United States with a detailed security work plan after the first week of the implementation of this agreement.

The agreement does not give specific meanings for some terms such as terror, violence and its support structures, and the concept of incitement. Instead, it leaves this identification to the joint security committees between the PA and the "Israeli" Enemy or between the PA and the CIA, or to a trilateral committee; this means that their definitions will be varied because the Israeli Enemy and the CIA will be the ones who will impose their meanings.

The gist of the agreement concerning the land is the agreement of the Israeli Government on a conditional redeployment of its troops that will be in conjunction with the implementation of strict and specific security measures by the PA. The redeployment will be from 13% of the West Bank area, excluding Jerusalem: 1% will be transferred to area (A) and 12% to area (B); 3% of the latter will be allocated as Nature Reserves (the security of which will be controlled by the Occupation forces). In addition, 14.2% will be transferred from area (B) to area (A). If these redeployments are implemented according to the specified percentages, the situation of the West Bank would be as follows:

18.2% area (A) (under PA’s security and administrative control)

21.8% area (B) (administration run by the PA but security by the Occupation)

60% area (C) (fully controlled by the Occupation).

In addition, the agreement mentions the operation of Gaza airport and the need to renew negotiations on the safe passage between Gaza and the West Bank. The parties also agreed to conclude an agreement to allow the construction and operation of Gaza port. Issues such as the settlement, the third phase of redeployment and other issues of the Interim Agreement were adjourned by referring them to negotiation committees.

According to the agreement, Netanyahu has obliged the Palestinian negotiators to nullify specific provisions of the Palestinian National Charter in a humiliating manner. The PLO’s Executive Committee will start this work and the PLO’s Central Council will ratify the nullification. Then a joint meeting will be held and attended by members of the Palestinian National Council, the Central Council and the Palestinian ministers to be addressed by President Clinton to reaffirm their support for the decisions of the Executive Committee and the Central Council regarding the nullification and the amendment of the Palestinian National Charter.

The agreement does not include any specific or clear provision that restricts the settlements or strips the settlers of their arms.

Although the media talk about an Israeli pledge to release 750 detainees out of 4,000 detainees presently in the Israeli jails in stages, the agreement does not include a clear and specific provision regarding this issue. Instead, it refers this issue to the "prior agreements".

Second: Analysis of the contents and meanings of the agreement

The agreement reaffirmed Netanyahu’s approach, which is to renegotiate on what was already agreed upon with the aim of increasing the Palestinian commitments while at the same time reducing the Israeli ones. He agreed last August to the redeployment from 13% of the occupied territories, however, he took many Palestinian relinquishments at Wye Plantation using this as a bargaining chip.

The Palestinian Authority introduced new relinquishments, the most important of which are as follows:

Responding to Netanyahu’s approach by accepting new negotiations on what was already agreed upon.

Accepting the 13% redeployment but with the added condition of using the formula of (10+3) that was imposed by Netanyahu even though the PA was initially demanding the redeployment from 40% of the West Bank as stated in the Interim Agreement, then only to turn around and agree on 13% as outlined by the American initiative.

The 4 May 1999 deadline for the end of the final status negotiations was left undecided, which denies the PA its negotiating card of declaring the independent State of Palestine before that date. The reference to that date in the agreement is general and not binding.

Retracting from the comprehensive solution of the Interim period and accepting a partial solution.

Accepting the CIA’s partnership and supervision on the implementation of the required security measures against the Palestinian People and their forces that resist the Occupation. This puts the PA in a position unable to free itself from any commitments or room to maneuver, nor will it be able to declare the independent State.

The agreement would not be signed without efforts exerted by all of the U.S. Administration in general and President Clinton in particular. Also, it will not be implemented unless under the supervision of the U.S. Administration through the CIA. This makes the provisions of the agreement decidedly in favour of the Israeli concepts because of the strategic alliance between Israel and the United States.

The agreement gives the U.S. Administration represented by the CIA a big role in planning, implementing and supervising all provisions of the agreement, which means that the PA has accepted its lowered status of merely an administrative authority, which is already undermined, to be confiscated in favour of the American party. Playing this role requires the CIA to expand its activities, increase its cadres and to establish its own offices in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and perhaps in other countries.

Although the agreement puts an end to the freeze that has been dominating the Israeli-Palestinian negotiation track over the past 19 months, the victory achieved by Netanyahu’s way of thinking and the generality of the provisions pertaining to Israel’s commitments enable Netanyahu, who already does not believe in the Oslo Accords, to rid himself of the agreements under various pretexts such as his non-conviction that the PA would meet its commitments or that he would not be able to convince his partners in the Government of the agreement that has just been signed. Because there are no guarantees to implementing the agreement by Israel, and because there are many gaps that impede its implementation, this could be reason enough to aggravate the situation again.

The agreement includes a call to start the final status negotiations but it does not put any restrictions on the contents of these negotiations. This could make the Interim situation of the final status turn out the way Netanyahu’s Government has already planned.

The Zionist negotiators persisted in the nullification of certain provisions of the Palestinian National Charter and in the way it is described in the agreement. This means that Israel was not satisfied with the PA’s recognition of the occupation and that it wants it to condemn its history and past. It also wants to humiliate the Palestinians by obliging them to change their convictions and ideology.

The agreement ignores the issues of settlement and the settlers’ arms, which is a serious mistake and is proof that the PA is unable to protect its people and to provide them with security. Or it could mean that the PA does not care, which subjects the civilian Palestinians to the savage acts and atrocities at the hands of the settlers. Is this the security and the stability that will be achieved by the agreement?

Third: Consequences and dangers to the Palestinian situation

The agreement transfers the Palestinian Cause from a national liberation question to an Arab demographic minority in a Zionist State. It also poses an authority on this minority with a function to preserving the security of the Zionist entity and to suppressing the Palestinian "minority" in order to prevent them from resisting the occupation and even from expressing their opinions regarding the resistance and removal of occupation.

Because the PA is committed to the provisions of the agreement and because there is a mechanism to supervise the implementation of this agreement in participation with the CIA, the PA will be involved in a direct struggle with the Palestinian People, whether from Hamas, the Islamic Jihad or others because they have adopted a programme to resist occupation. The PA will also suppress the forces that have views supporting the resistance under the pretext of incitement. It will even suppress the pro-PA forces when the PA starts collecting their weapons.

As a result of the PA’s atrocities of combating the resistance programme; silencing the opposition forces; suppressing the journalists; arresting the Muslim scholars, notables, politicians and thinkers; breaking up the Zakat (alms) committees, social and charitable establishments under the pretext that they support the resistance; and destroying the mosques, media and cultural institutions under the pretext that they incite people to resist the occupation, the Palestinian society is facing a state of confusion and instability as well as internal conflicts that may develop into a civil war that in the end only benefits the Israeli Occupation, which has been working on that objective and knows that the agreement is pushing the Palestinian people in that direction.

The unilateral implementation of the agreement will enable Israel to establish its occupation and superiority over the whole of the Palestinian territories and to close the file of the Palestinian Cause under the pretext that the Palestinian People have obtained an authority of administration and services in the highly populated areas, while the majority of the West Bank remains under the control of the Israeli Occupation to build more settlements. The fate of the Palestinian People in the West Bank will become the same as the Palestinian People in the territories occupied in 1948.

The expanded role of the CIA in the agreement, which includes participating in investigations, the monitoring of the courts’ sentences, adding details to the concept of incitement, collecting information and performing their own investigations, makes the U.S. Administration a direct enemy in the eyes of the Palestinian People and another tyrant that has developed its previous role in supporting the Zionist enemy into a direct role of suppressing our People and hatching plots against them. This will complicate the situation more and undermine the stability to which the peace process supposedly aims.

Fourth: Consequences and dangers to the Arab and Islamic situation

The implementation of the agreement will open the region to the Israeli Enemy, because it undermines the steadfastness of the Palestinian People and their ability to resist the occupation by involving them with internal disputes causing the dismantling of their national unity. Consequently, the Enemy will be in a position to confiscate more Palestinian land, erect more settlements and Judaize the region before shifting to the expected procedure of expelling more of the Palestinians to the neighbouring Arab countries. This agreement harms the Palestinian question and the Arab and Islamic interests as well.

The agreement encourages the isolation of the Palestinian question from its Arab and Islamic dimensions. It gives the American-Zionist alliance an additional card to separate the Palestinian track from the Syrian and Lebanese tracks while simultaneously pressuring Syria and other Arab countries to make similar agreements. The Israeli Enemy will be stronger in any future bilateral or regional negotiations, especially with their unlimited U.S. support.

The agreement helps the Israeli Enemy and the United States to continue imposing regional security plans to protect the Zionist entity and to dominate the region. These plans will also prevent the countries of the region from procuring advanced technology of weaponry and atomic energy. The Israeli-Turkish military alliance could be the beginning in this regard.

As a result of the partnership between the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority, which was boosted by the agreement, the PA, virtually and necessarily, will be involved in the alliances between Israel and some countries of the region. The Zionist enemy will also make use of the PA’s relations with the Arab countries by making the PA an instrument for spying, pressuring or persuading them to achieve the Zionist interests, especially because the Zionist entity has already succeeded in planting its agents within the PA’s services.

In view of the expanded role of the U.S. Administration in the implementation of the agreement, it will request, as it did before, the Arab and Islamic countries to stop the financial resources they give to the Palestinian People and their civil and social institutions under the pretext that they support what it calls "violence and terrorism". The U.S. Administration, encouraged by the PA itself, will pressure these countries to sever their relations with the Hamas Movement in particular, although we are sure that the Arab and Islamic attitude will not yield to these pressures that do not serve the interests of our cause and our Nation.

As a result of this hostile effort to isolate the Palestinian question from its Arab and Islamic dimension, Jerusalem and the holy mosque of Al Aqsa will be the victims in the final status negotiations. The Muslims’ first Qibla will remain under the control of the Zionist enemy whose future plans include demolishing Al Aqsa and building the so-called "Third Temple" on its present site.

Fifth: Conclusions and the required attitude

The agreement is of a security nature and yields to the Zionist conditions and demands. It should be considered an instrument used to destroy the capabilities and potential of the Palestinian People, along with their civil society, institutions and national unity. It will cause instability in the region in a way that serves the Zionist-American interests at the expense of the interests of the Arab and Muslim people.

The combating of the agreement and its consequences is not exclusive to the Hamas Movement, the other Palestinian opposition forces, or even the Palestinian People in general. It is rather the duty of the Arab and Islamic governments and people.

The PA began the implementation of the security provisions of the agreement from the first moment after signing the agreement. It arrested the journalists who visited Sheikh Ahmed Yassin to interview him concerning the agreement. The PA’s security forces also started an arrest campaign against members and supporters of Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements. They also arrested Sheikh Hamed Al Bitawi, the khatib of Al Aqsa Mosque and President of the Palestine Ulam’ League, after he gave a statement to a TV channel via telephone, and Sheikh Nafez Azzam of the Islamic Jihad after his speech in a rally in Gaza. The Palestinian Military Intelligence raided Fateh Movement’s office in Ramallah to confiscate weapons and opened fire at a peaceful demonstration organized by Fateh supporters, killing a young Palestinian supporter and injuring others, causing increased tension in the city.

In view of the dangerous situation that makes it impossible to wait or to give a chance to examine the agreement, we, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), call upon our Palestinian People to be aware of the reality of the agreement, which destroys the present and future of our Palestinian Cause, and which destroys the achievements and attainments over the past decades. We also appeal to all popular forces and activists to unite their ranks to defend the rights of their people, institutions, security and national unity.

We call upon all Arab and Islamic government and popular forces to take the initiative to voice their views about the agreement and its dangers, and to press the PA, using all means possible, to prevent it from cracking down on the Palestinian Jihadi forces and from igniting an internal war, which would put the Palestinian People at the mercy of the Zionist ghoul. If the Palestinian wall of unity collapses, the Zionist flood would sweep the whole Nation.

On this occasion, the Hamas Movement is fully confident that no part of the agreement, or the Zionist enemy, or the Palestinian Authority will be able to uproot the resistance of our People or to prevent them from continuing their resistance programme.

Finally, while we in Hamas condemn this agreement and warn of its dangers and consequences to our People, our cause and our Nation, if the PA insists on implementing its contents and playing the role of the servant and the instrument of the Occupation, we reiterate our stand prohibiting Palestinian-Palestinian fighting. We also reiterate our keenness to preserve National Unity. We shall be firm in rejecting oppression and the Occupation while at the same time very positive in maintaining Palestinian unity and directing our People towards the resistance of the Enemy in order to build their present and future. We shall remain, by the Will of God, beside our People and Nation, and defend our legitimate rights, land and holy places until we achieve victory, liberation and the return of our People to their homeland.

Everyone should learn that the Right will triumph and the falsehood will no doubt be removed, even if it is bristling with arms and supported by all earthly powers.

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