Israel to Offer 4-Step Plan to Break Logjam

Israel plans to propose a phased exchange of information, and eventually prisoners, in an effort to break a logjam in the release of hostages held in the Middle East, Israeli officials said Tuesday.

A pair of negotiators are scheduled to meet in Geneva today with U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar to make the offer.

The plan involves four steps: Israel would obtain details from hostage-holders on the condition of seven Israeli servicemen who are missing in Lebanon; Israel would agree in principle to release about 400 Lebanese detainees imprisoned in an Israeli-controlled jail in Lebanon, as well as a Muslim cleric held hostage in Israel; the Israelis and Westerners held captive in Lebanon would be released, and Israel would then free its prisoners.

One official said Israel would consider making a token release of captives simply in return for information.

The outline gives shape to Israel’s main preoccupation--that any hostage deal also include Israeli captives or, if they are dead, their remains. If not, officials have warned, Israel will take no step to free prisoners of its own, despite international pressure to do so as a gesture of goodwill. British and American officials have suggested that a release by Israel would maintain momentum in the efforts to free hostages.

“We are really not saying anything new. We want information on our boys first. As soon as there is a sign of life, we can move forward,” said Dani Naveh, a spokesman for Defense Minister Moshe Arens.

“There is no doubt that Israel is ready to make gestures for the whole issue of freeing hostages and prisoner exchanges,” added another Israeli official. “But first and foremost, we have to take care of our own people.”

Of the seven missing Israelis, officials here believe that one is alive; the others are presumed dead, despite conflicting reports. Ten Westerners remain the hostages of various Shiite Muslim terrorist groups in Lebanon.

The Israeli negotiators, Uri Lubrani and Ori Slonim, are bringing to Geneva a list of captives Israel is willing to set free; it will include Lebanese and Palestinians captured in Lebanon, but not Palestinian rebels from the occupied West Bank or Gaza Strip, officials said.

Perez de Cuellar called the issue of the missing Israelis “one of the main problems, one of the main concerns.”

“If I could solve this problem,” he added, “almost everything would be solved. That is why I attach great importance to the whereabouts of the seven Israelis who are missing.”

Israel officials began to speak in hopeful terms about the chances for progress. They pointed out that the willingness of Lebanese groups to use the offices of Perez de Cuellar means they are serious about reaching a deal. In addition, public statements by officials in Syria and Iran over the need to bring the hostage saga to an end has heartened the Israelis.

“It seems they are interested in getting over the problem with hostages,” said Yonatan Bein, a Foreign Ministry official and hostage negotiator who met with Perez de Cuellar on Monday.

“Israel is asked to pay the price for whatever deal will be done regarding Western hostages,” Bein continued. “It must be very clear that Israelis be included in the deal.”

The price Bein refers to is the release of the Lebanese and Palestinians held under Israeli control in southern Lebanon. They are jailed in the custody of the pro-Israeli South Lebanon Army on suspicion of aiding attacks on Israeli and SLA troops that operate north of Israel’s border. Israel also holds Sheik Abdel Karim Obeid, a Shiite Muslim cleric and believed to be a mentor of the Hezbollah militia group in southern Lebanon. The pro-Iranian Hezbollah is believed to hold many of the Western hostages in Lebanon. Obeid was abducted two years ago by Israeli commandos in a move expressly designed to provoke a prisoner exchange.

The Bush Administration opposed the action; Israel and Washington differ over the wisdom of dealing with kidnapers.

Washington’s disapproval of Israel’s methods has led to a kind of underlying propaganda war. Bush has implied that Israel, like other hostage-takers, should go ahead and release its captives unconditionally. Israeli officials have responded that Israel took captives only to shake up a stagnant situation. They insist that Arab hostage-takers will release their prisoners only when one of their own is endangered.

“I think it is fairly justified to say that hostages were released largely as a result of the fact that we are holding Shiite terrorists here,” said Defense Minister Arens, in an apparent reference to Obeid and other prisoners. Arens referred to the prisoners as “trump cards” in any hostage deal.

Newspapers offered opposing advice over how to proceed. Yediot Aharonot, the largest of the country’s daily papers, advised Israel to resist pressure from abroad and make no move until the whereabouts of its own soldiers is pinned down. “Israel has suddenly become the bad guy,” the newspaper complained.

The leftist Al Hamishmar newspaper suggested that “Israel should try a new tactic” by making a token release “in the hope that the terrorists will respond in kind.”

Media reports in London that Hezbollah is holding two or more live Israeli captives were treated with caution here. Such statements have been made before but not followed up with proof. “This is the kind of thing we are trying to verify,” said an Israeli official.

Conflicting reports on the fate of missing Israeli soldiers has upset the families of the men. The parents of Avi Katz, a soldier who was captured nine years ago, returned from abroad with information that they say contradicts stories that their son is dead, newspapers reported.

The mother of Yossi Fink, who has been missing for five years, denounced a televised broadcast listing her son as dead. “Why are they burying my son?” she asked, and blamed Israel’s military censor for failing to block the report.

The wife of missing flier Ron Arad, captive for nine years, made a radio appeal for his freedom “to let him see our daughter.” Tamar Arad added: “I want to ask them to sit and negotiate and solve this problem. How much better it would be for both sides.”

Word of secret contacts to free the hostages continue to surface here. Maj. Gen. Antoine Lahad, who directs the South Lebanon Army, Israel’s client across the border, said that Hezbollah approached him last month with a prisoner-exchange offer, but it came to nothing.

Meanwhile, the prolonging of the low-intensity war in southern Lebanon indicates that more prisoners on each side may well be taken. Israel and its allies are battling Lebanese nationalist groups and Palestinian guerrillas. Hezbollah claimed to have set off three bombs in Israel’s border buffer zone Tuesday, and reports from Lebanon said that at least one civilian died in the attacks.