After two days of inconclusive Middle East talks, the United States on Tuesday gave Israel six more days to accept an American plan for reviving the peace process or face public blame for a breakdown.
If Israel signs on to the plan, already accepted in principle by the Palestinians, President Clinton will invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to meet with him in Washington next Monday. At that meeting, the two sides would leapfrog the next interim negotiation phase and move directly into talks on the shape of a final settlement.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright announced this formula at a news conference after she held a final round of talks with Netanyahu and Arafat at different London hotels.
The formula serves up to Israel a mixture of carrots and sticks. Israel will be under heavy pressure to avoid being blamed for a breakdown in the peace process and it will be rewarded if it accepts the American plan because it has long wanted to go into final settlement talks.
Netanyahu, who flew back to Israel for a meeting Tuesday night with his Likud bloc leadership, is faced with the task of trying to win approval from his divided coalition Cabinet for the American plan–something that cannot be taken for granted.
Netanyahu told the meeting of party stalwarts that he had been a tough negotiator and would not show flexibility if Israel’s security was at stake.
A senior Israeli official in Jerusalem said strong opposition remains in the Cabinet and among members of the coalition government in the Knesset.
“I think the next couple of days will determine if there will be a Washington conference,” the official said.
“We are neither optimistic nor pessimistic,” Albright spokesman James Rubin said. “We are ever hopeful, but there are serious difficulties, and we don’t know if we can bridge the gap.”
U.S. officials said progress had been made on all aspects of the peace talks, and Arafat himself offered a similar assessment.
The incentive for Arafat in the American formula is that it offers him the prospect of getting land back from Israel and meets his desire to resolve final-status issues.
Under the 1993 Oslo peace plan, the parties are supposed to arrive at a final settlement by May 4, 1999.
Netanyahu stressed the gap remaining after the talks in London and said: “The difficulty arises from a very simple point: We cannot compromise on Israel’s security.”
Albright said the American plan was fair and did not threaten Israel’s security.
The U.S. has declined to give details of its plan, but it has been widely reported to include the insistence that Israel yield 13.1 percent of the occupied West Bank to the Palestinian Authority in the next round of Israeli troop withdrawals and that Israel call a “timeout” on new Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.
The Israelis are variously reported to have offered to give up another 9 percent or 11 percent of the West Bank, and they have declined to halt settlement activity.
Arafat has accepted the American ideas even though he says the Palestinians are entitled to 30 percent of territory at this stage.
U.S. officials said Albright outlined the formula for going into final-stage negotiations at the outset of her meetings with the two leaders in London on Monday. They said both had expected such a proposal but the new element was that Albright made the Washington meeting conditional on acceptance of the American ideas for reviving the long-stalled peace process.
If there is still bickering between the two parties over troop withdrawals and other interim issues next Monday, there will be no Washington meeting, officials said.
They said that the substance of the American ideas would not change but they could be “refined” in talks that U.S. Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross and other officials will hold with the parties in the next few days, in London and elsewhere.
Ross went into talks with Israeli officials Tuesday afternoon after Albright’s news conference. Netanyahu left two top lieutenants, attorney Yitzhak Molho and Cabinet Secretary Danny Naveh, behind in London for the negotiations.
The officials declined to say what they meant by “refined,” but other sources in London said the size of the Israeli redeployment envisaged in the American plan would not change.
If the final-stage negotiations do go ahead, U.S. officials said they could take place in a variety of locales. They said they believe most meetings would involve face-to-face discussions between Israelis and Palestinians, with the U.S. on the sidelines. In the London talks, the two delegations did not meet.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who held separate courtesy meetings with Netanyahu and Arafat, told reporters: “I certainly think we are into the final chapter of this now, and people have got to realize that crunch time is coming. There is movement and progress, but we don’t want to overhype it.”
At a news conference, Netanyahu said: “There has been progress, even significant progress in some of the areas, not all of them. There are still areas that remain unsolved.”
He said the gaps could be closed if he is satisfied Israel’s security is protected.
“We don’t have to make any excuses to anyone that we are standing firm on our national interest of security,” he said.
Netanyahu said progress had come on such issues as the opening of a Palestinian airport and construction of a seaport and industrial zone. But he said the key issue of troop redeployment had not been solved.
However, other sources said progress had been made on this issue.
European diplomats said Israel had demanded a firmer Palestinian crackdown on Hamas terrorists and guarantees that Arafat would not declare an independent state, as he has threatened to do.
They said that Netanyahu also had objected to the proposed “timeout” on Israeli settlements.
Arafat, after a final meeting with Blair, said: “It is true that we are still facing obstacles from the Israeli side. I have heard today that there is some progress and I hope as soon as possible to see this progress in reality.”
At her news conference, Albright credited Netanyahu and Arafat with engaging in talks in a “serious and constructive manner” and later said Netanyahu had been “helpful and creative.”
She said there had been “progress across the board” but some crucial issues still existed and needed to be discussed.
The issue of a Palestinian state, she said, did not come up in the talks.
Albright warned that if no agreement is reached on the American plan by next Monday, the U.S. would “have to re-examine our approach to a Middle East settlement.”
She did not elaborate, but U.S. officials are expected to single out Israel for blame if there is a breakdown before Monday.
