Arafat Is Pressed to Pull Back on Statehood Goals

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators held a second day of talks Tuesday as Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat came under increasing pressure to sacrifice the trappings of Palestinian statehood for a chance to make peace.

The two partners who helped conclude the landmark secret peace talks in Oslo--Mahmoud Abbas for the PLO and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres--were reunited at the negotiating table. Both sides appeared optimistic that the current round of talks could clinch the so-far elusive goal of an agreement for Palestinian autonomy in Jericho and the Gaza Strip.

“We are talking like friends,” Peres said Tuesday.

The two sides had dined at a luxury Cairo hotel and held an unexpected late negotiating session the previous night that left delegates on both sides looking wan but cheerful.

Negotiators continued their sessions Tuesday night, prompting the Israeli team to cancel plans to return to Israel on Tuesday evening and signaling a mood of cautious optimism.

“We will stay here for as long as it takes,” Israeli Environment Minister Yossi Sarid said.

Earlier in the day, the Israeli foreign minister emphasized that Israel is prepared to negotiate fairly with the Palestinians as long as Israel’s security concerns are met.

“I want to say something,” Peres said. “We may have disagreements with the Palestinians. But in fairness, I believe that they too, are interested in reaching an agreement, and as far as we are concerned, we shall respect their dignity and as much as we can, their aims.”

Israel has long sought to deal with the two PLO officials with whom it concluded the Oslo agreement, Abbas and PLO financial chief Ahmed Suleiman Khoury. But both men were sidestepped when Arafat intervened and handed the talks to other PLO officials, a process that left Abbas angry on the sidelines, privately criticizing Arafat for being unreasonable in his negotiating demands.

The return of Abbas and Khoury to head the PLO delegation in Cairo this week signals the conclusion of a diplomatic process in which a number of intermediaries, including Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, have attempted to persuade Arafat to make more concessions, according to sources close to the talks.

The two primary snags in the talks--disputes over the size of the area around the West Bank town of Jericho to be controlled by the Palestinians and who will control border crossings into Jordan and Egypt--have so far been points of deadlock, in part because Arafat has seen both issues as symbols of how much the Palestinians will control a homeland of their own.

The Israelis have repeatedly countered that they are negotiating not Palestinian statehood but an interim, five-year period of autonomy, after which the two sides will make a determination about the final status of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Arafat, under fire from Palestinian radicals and exiles who believe the “Gaza-Jericho first” agreement is a forfeiture of Palestinian national rights, has so far insisted that whatever agreement is signed produce a territory that Palestinians can in many respects call their own.

But a variety of Arab officials and many moderate Palestinians now fear that Arafat’s insistence on symbols could cost the Palestinians their chance at an agreement with Israel, and the choice of Abbas to head the Palestinian delegation suggests that this view is gaining ground.

“It’s no secret that Abu Maazen (Abbas) is unhappy with some of Arafat’s positions,” said one source close to the talks. “Arafat is under the influence of hypothetical vision. He had been struggling all his life to liberate a piece of land called Palestine, to hoist a flag on it, to go in and out of Jerusalem freely. He’s been promising his people all of this, as a prophet. So maybe he cannot be realistic.”

Arafat, he said, has been reluctant to compromise on the issue of the size of Jericho to fall under Palestinian control because to preside as leader in a dominion of only 50 square kilometers or so, “maybe he can’t live with the idea.”

“If after the risks he has taken, he has to satisfy himself with 50 square kilometers, if he has to carry a travel document issued by another country, and it has to be stamped by the Israelis to let him in, if he has to have his things searched, of course all of this will imply some kind of indignation for him,” said the source, who asked not to be identified.

The Israelis appear to have increased the size of the Jericho area they are willing to concede, perhaps to as much as 70 square kilometers (28 square miles), according to the semiofficial Middle East News Agency. Until now, the Palestinians have been insisting on at least 200 square kilometers, and there are also disputes about linking the areas of Jericho under Palestinian control with access to the Dead Sea.

The two sides are also discussing possible compromises about control of international border posts and protection of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip. Sources close to the talks said Israel had come prepared to make some concessions on both points.

Closeted in a private room at the luxury hotel beside the Nile, the delegations talking over security issues Tuesday night were headed by PLO official Nabil Shaath and Israeli Maj. Gen. Amnon Shahak, though Abbas and Peres also continued discussions.

“We are meeting each other all the time, everybody meets everybody,” Sarid said, though he refused to discuss details of the talks. “We have pledged not to reveal a word, even half a word, about any progress, even half-progress,” he said.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Amir Moussa, who met with the two delegations and hosted Monday night’s dinner, arrived for another session with the delegations Tuesday night. He said it is still possible an agreement could be concluded this week.

“Look, I do not want to offer a rosy picture. But at the same time, I don’t want to exaggerate the present disagreements, for there is a chance for agreement, no doubt about that,” Moussa said.

Another Egyptian official emphasized that the two sides are not deadlocked. “Both sides have a genuine will to reach a compromise, and none of the issues that they differ about is a critical one,” he insisted.

The official said that Egypt, the only Arab country to have made peace with Israel, is attempting to convince the Palestinians that the fact of autonomy over a part of Palestine is much more important than the size of the area to be controlled in this interim phase.

“For the Palestinians, if they are going to exercise their autonomy on 100 square kilometers or 150 square kilometers, the idea is that they are in full control of a specific and well-defined piece of land,” the official said.

“On the Israeli side, if they relinquish 100 square kilometers or 150 square kilometers, it’s the same. They are willing to deliver territories to the Palestinians on an experimental basis to test their goodwill, their abilities to coexist with them, to fulfill their commitments.”