The Tenet Plan: Israeli-Palestinian Ceasefire and Security Plan

Summary

The Tenet Plan is a work plan proposed by CIA Director George Tenet which, in the Avalon descriptive line, took effect on 13 June 2001: the security organizations of the Government of Israel (GOI) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) reaffirm their commitment to the security agreements forged at Sharm el-Sheikh in October 2000, embedded in the Mitchell Report of April 2001, on the operational premise of a mutual, comprehensive cease-fire applying to all violent activities, and agree to resume security cooperation immediately, enforce the cease-fire, exchange terrorist-threat information and act on it, prevent the use of their areas for violence, forge within one week a schedule for complete Israel Defense Forces redeployment to positions held before September 28, 2000, and develop within one week a timeline for lifting internal closures and reopening internal roads, the Allenby Bridge, Gaza Airport, the Port of Gaza and border crossings, with demonstrable on-the-ground action on both redeployment and closures beginning within the first 48 hours (The Tenet Plan: Israeli-Palestinian Ceasefire and Security Plan, lines 27-33, 79-85).

What the file is

The Avalon Project reproduction headed “The Tenet Plan : Israeli-Palestinian Ceasefire and Security Plan, Proposed by CIA Director George Tenet; June 13, 2001”, 1,244 words in the text copy, lines 1-130: a one-line Avalon description, a preamble and six numbered items, and a closing pledge, with no signatures or signatories reproduced. Text quality is good. As printed: line 33 gives the baseline date as “28 September” with no year, where lines 39 and 79 give September 28, 2000; line 39 prints “join Israeli-Palestinian patrols” for the patrols to be reinitiated; line 59 prints “terrorist operation” in the singular; line 75 has no full stop after “control” before “In addition”; and the closing pledge at line 87 has no final full stop. Each of these forms is also in the HTML original, not only in the text copy. Avalon navigation and footer occupy lines 1-23 and 89-129, with line 130 blank.

Section by section

• Heading and description (lines 1-27). The plan is an Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire and security plan, proposed by CIA director George Tenet, which took effect on 13 June 2001.
• Preamble (lines 29-33). The GOI and PA security organizations reaffirm their commitment to the security agreements forged at Sharm el-Sheikh in October 2000, embedded in the Mitchell Report of April 2001. The operational premise is a mutual, comprehensive cease-fire applying to all violent activities, in accordance with the public declaration of both leaders; the joint security committee referenced in the work plan will resolve issues arising during implementation. The steps that follow are to be initiated immediately, to reestablish security cooperation and the situation on the ground that existed prior to 28 September.
• Item 1 — resumption of security cooperation (lines 35-41). A senior-level meeting of Israeli, Palestinian and U.S. security officials will be held immediately and will reconvene at least once a week, with mandatory participation by designated senior officials. Israeli-Palestinian District Coordination Offices (DCOs) will be reinvigorated, carrying out their daily activities to the maximum extent possible according to the standards established prior to September 28, 2000; as soon as the security situation permits, barriers to effective cooperation, which include the erection of walls between the Israeli and Palestinian sides, will be eliminated and joint patrols reinitiated (printed “join”). U.S.-supplied video conferencing systems will be provided to senior-level Israeli and Palestinian officials.
• Item 2 — cease-fire enforcement (lines 43-57). The senior-level security committee will develop specific procedures to ensure the secure movement of GOI and PA security personnel traveling in areas outside their respective control, in accordance with existing agreements. Israel will not conduct attacks of any kind against the Palestinian Authority Ra’is facilities, the headquarters of Palestinian security, intelligence and police organization, or prisons in the West Bank and Gaza. The PA will move immediately to apprehend, question and incarcerate terrorists in the West Bank and Gaza, providing the security committee the names of those arrested and a readout of actions taken. Israel will release all Palestinians arrested in security sweeps who have no association with terrorist activities. In keeping with its unilateral cease-fire declaration, the PA will stop any Palestinian security officials from inciting, aiding, abetting or conducting attacks against Israeli targets, including settlers; in keeping with Israel’s unilateral cease-fire declaration, Israeli forces will not conduct “proactive” security operations in areas under PA control or attack innocent civilian targets. The GOI will re-institute military police investigations into Palestinian deaths resulting from IDF actions in the West Bank and Gaza in incidents not involving terrorism.
• Item 3 — threat information and preemptive action (lines 59-65). Palestinian and Israeli security officials will use the security committee to provide each other, and designated U.S. officials, information on terrorist threats, including known or suspected operations in or moving to areas under the other’s control; legitimate information will be acted upon immediately, with follow-up and results reported to the committee. The PA will undertake preemptive operations against terrorists, terrorist safe houses, arms depots and mortar factories, with regular progress reports to the committee. Israeli authorities will take action against Israeli citizens inciting, carrying out or planning violence against Palestinians, with progress reports to the committee.
• Item 4 — preventing violence from each side’s areas (lines 67-77). Both sides will move aggressively to prevent individuals and groups from using areas under their control to carry out violence, and to ensure those areas are not used to launch attacks or as refuge after attacks. The security committee will identify key flash points, each side naming the senior security personnel responsible for each. Joint Standard Operating Procedures (SOP’s, as printed) for each flash point will address handling of and response to security incidents, emergency contact mechanisms and deescalation procedures. Officials will agree practical measures to enforce “no demonstration zones” and “buffer zones” around flash points, and both sides will adopt all necessary measures to prevent riots and control demonstrations, particularly in flash-point areas. Officials will make a concerted effort to locate and confiscate illegal weapons, including mortars, rockets and explosives, in areas under their respective control, with intensive efforts against smuggling and illegal production, reporting status and success to the committee. The IDF will adopt additional non-lethal measures for Palestinian crowds and demonstrators and, more generally, seek to minimize danger to the lives and property of Palestinian civilians in responding to violence.
• Item 5 — IDF redeployment (lines 79-81). Within one week of the commencement of security committee meetings and resumption of security cooperation, the GOI and PA will forge, through the senior-level security committee, an agreed schedule to implement the complete redeployment of IDF forces to positions held before September 28, 2000. Demonstrable on-the-ground redeployment will be initiated within the first 48 hours of that one-week period and continue while the schedule is being forged.
• Item 6 — closures and reopening (lines 83-85). Within one week of the commencement of security committee meetings and resumption of security cooperation, a specific timeline will be developed for the lifting of internal closures and for the reopening of internal roads, the Allenby Bridge, Gaza Airport, the Port of Gaza and border crossings; security checkpoints will be minimized according to legitimate security requirements and following consultation between the two sides. Demonstrable on-the-ground actions on lifting the closures will be initiated within the first 48 hours of that one-week period and continue while the timeline is being developed.
• Closing pledge (line 87). The parties pledge that even if untoward events occur, security cooperation will continue through the joint security committee (no final full stop as printed).
• Avalon footer (lines 89-130): navigation repeated, © 2008 Lillian Goldman Law Library, 127 Wall Street, New Haven, CT 06511, Yale Law Library / University Library / Yale Law School links; line 130 is blank.

Key passages

• “The operational premise of the work plan is that the two sides are committed to a mutual, comprehensive cease-fire, applying to all violent activities” (lines 31).
• “Israel will not conduct attacks of any kind against the Palestinian Authority Ra’is facilities” (line 47).
• “The PA will move immediately to apprehend, question, and incarcerate terrorists in the West Bank and Gaza” (line 49).
• “The parties pledge that even if untoward events occur, security cooperation will continue through the joint security committee” (line 87).

Evidence the work relies on

• The plan cites no evidence, statistics, testimony or outside sources. It rests, as it presents itself, on the security agreements forged at Sharm el-Sheikh in October 2000, embedded in the Mitchell Report of April 2001 (line 29), on the public declaration of both leaders (line 31), on existing agreements (line 45), and on each side’s unilateral cease-fire declaration (lines 53, 55).

Analysis

The plan is a security-only work plan, not a political agreement: its six items are all mechanisms — a weekly senior-level security committee, reinvigorated DCOs, information exchange with reporting back to the committee, flash-point procedures, and two one-week deadlines (a redeployment schedule and a closures timeline), each with action required in the first 48 hours. Its obligations are asymmetrical in content while parallel in form: the PA’s named duties are arrest, incarceration and preemptive operations against terrorists and weapons sites, plus stopping its own officials’ attacks; Israel’s named duties are non-attack on PA facilities and prisons, release of sweep detainees with no terrorist association, no “proactive” operations in PA areas, action against Israeli citizens’ violence against Palestinians, restored military police investigations, IDF non-lethal crowd measures, redeployment and lifting closures. The file itself gives no account of whether any step was carried out, and no signatures or acceptance text are reproduced, so compliance and the parties’ formal assent cannot be stated from it.

People, organizations, places and events

George Tenet, Central Intelligence Agency, Palestinian Authority, Israel Defense Forces, Israel, United States, West Bank, Gaza, Tenet Plan

Concepts

Closure system

How it relates to other sources

• The plan expressly builds on the Mitchell Report: where the Mitchell Report recommended an unconditional cessation of violence, immediate resumption of security cooperation, restored military police investigations of Palestinian deaths in non-terrorism incidents, non-lethal IDF responses, lifted closures and withdrawal to positions held before 28 September 2000, the Tenet Plan turns those recommendations into a dated work plan for the two security organizations, with a weekly committee, 48-hour first steps and one-week schedules, and adds items the Mitchell recommendations as summarized on its source page do not name, including DCO reinvigoration, video conferencing, flash-point SOPs, “no demonstration zones” and “buffer zones”, and the reopening list naming the Allenby Bridge, Gaza Airport and the Port of Gaza (Report of the Sharm el-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee, lines 62-102, 368-380; The Tenet Plan: Israeli-Palestinian Ceasefire and Security Plan, lines 35-85).
• Unlike the political texts ingested before it in this sequence — the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum, the The Clinton Parameters (23 December 2000) and the Moratinos Report on Taba — the Tenet Plan contains no territory, Jerusalem, refugee or permanent-status provisions; its subject is cease-fire and security cooperation only.

Open questions

• Line 33 gives the baseline as “28 September” with no year, where lines 39 and 79 give September 28, 2000; the file does not explain the omission.
• The file reproduces no signatures, acceptance statements or names of the two leaders whose public declarations line 31 refers to, so who formally accepted the plan, and in what form, cannot be stated from the file.
• Line 39 prints “join Israeli-Palestinian patrols” where the sense requires “joint”; the form stands as printed in both the HTML original and the text copy, and is not corrected.
• Line 47 lists what Israel will not attack as “the Palestinian Authority Ra’is facilities: the headquarters of Palestinian security, intelligence, and police organization; or prisons in the West Bank and Gaza” — the punctuation leaves open whether prisons are inside or outside the Ra’is facilities list, and the file does not resolve it.

Coverage

lines 1-130 of 130, read in full