Rabin Open to Palestinians Joining Police

In an effort to restart the Middle East peace talks, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin hinted Wednesday that his government would let Palestinian patrol officers join police forces in cities and towns throughout the West Bank--but only under supervision of Israeli military authorities.

Although the suggestion stopped far short of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s demand that Palestinian police take over law enforcement responsibilities in Hebron, Rabin said he is prepared to negotiate over other security measures for the occupied territories--if the PLO returns to the bargaining table.

Rabin said his government might be willing to add Palestinian patrol officers in Gaza and Jericho. He made his remarks in a news conference with President Clinton after the two leaders met Wednesday in search of ways to get Middle East peace talks under way again.

Although the White House meeting focused on ways to restart Israeli-PLO negotiations, Clinton and Rabin said they also discussed steps to produce a peace agreement between Israel and Syria.

Early indications were that Rabin’s offering to the PLO failed to impress its leader, Yasser Arafat, who watched the televised news conference at his headquarters in Tunis, Tunisia.

Moments after it ended, Reuters news agency quoted Yasser Abed-Rabbo, PLO chief spokesman, saying: “We are disappointed by Rabin’s position. The Israeli government did not respond in any positive way to our demands, and (this) leads us to a kind of a deadlock.”

A U.S. official said later that the Administration will brief Palestinian leaders soon by telephone to try to persuade them that Rabin was more forthcoming than he may have appeared.

The most recent round of Israeli-Palestinian talks has been aimed at resolving Palestinian self-government issues left unfinished by the historic peace agreement signed by the bitter enemies last September on the White House lawn.

The PLO abruptly broke off the discussions last month after an Israeli settler opened fire in a Hebron mosque with an assault rifle, killing about 30 Palestinians.

Arafat has since demanded steps to protect Palestinian civilians as the price for resuming the negotiations.

Although Rabin did not announce any measures tailored to meet PLO conditions, he assured Clinton that he is ready to negotiate the issue once the talks resume, said a senior U.S. official who attended the talks.

The official said Rabin acknowledged “that something has to be done about the security environment, that something has to be done so the Palestinians will feel secure.”

Recalling that about 900 Palestinian patrol officers had been included in West Bank police forces before they resigned en masse at the start of the intifada, the Palestinian uprising, Rabin said a new Palestinian police presence could be worked out--but only if the ultimate control remains with Israel.

“You can’t separate armed groups,” Rabin said at the news conference. “There must be one chain of command of those who have to keep and maintain law and order.”

Police throughout Israeli-occupied territories, he said, “have to come under the control of the government, and the government is the military government of Israel.”

At the same time, Rabin said Palestinians can assume complete police responsibility in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho just as soon as Israel and the PLO agree on all details for interim Palestinian self-government in those jurisdictions.

“If by now agreement had been reached, by now there would have been 8,000, 9,000 Palestinian policemen in Gaza and Jericho,” Rabin said. “The more the negotiations are postponed, the longer it will take them to come.”

After the news conference, a U.S. official said Rabin emphasized that Israel will address PLO demands only in negotiations, not as bait to lure the Palestinians back to the table.

Rabin told Clinton that if he made concessions without a commitment to resume the talks, “these would be pocketed and dismissed as not enough and there would be no end to it,” the official said.

Addressing the concerns of Syria, Clinton said he and Rabin discussed how to make 1994 “a year of breakthrough” between the Syrians and Israelis.

He said Rabin and Syrian President Hafez Assad “have a great responsibility to the people of their region.”

Since the start of peace negotiations at the Madrid conference in 1991, U.S. mediators have sought to spur at least one of the most important tracks--Israel-Syria or Israel-Palestinians--at all times.

Syria interrupted the negotiations to protest the Hebron massacre, but U.S. officials said the Syrians made it clear that they regarded the break as only temporary.

“We are ready to negotiate, negotiate peace with Syria that takes account of our mutual needs and interests,” Rabin said. “The promise of peace and its genuine benefits for all Israelis justifies making such decisions vis-a-vis Syria. We will not compromise on our security, but we will stand ready to do what is required of us if the Syrians are ready to do what is required of them.”

But Rabin did not spell out specific steps his government is prepared to take to reach agreement with Syria.

Israeli and Syrian negotiators agreed on most secondary issues of a peace treaty more than a year ago but are deadlocked on core issues--Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, exchange of ambassadors, trade and open borders.

Syria wants assurances that it will regain the Golan before it will negotiate other issues, while Israel wants to determine the nature of peaceful relations before committing itself to return the strategic highlands that it captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East War.