Israel and PLO Pave the Way for a Wider Peace

The push for peace in the Middle East is again gathering momentum, with Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization determinedly leading the way toward what they hope will become an overall resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

After surprising themselves with the ease of the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho after 27 years of occupation and the establishment of the first Palestinian government, Israel and the PLO on Thursday announced new negotiations to expand Palestinian self-rule and to hold elections throughout the Palestinian territories.

Israel and Jordan, meanwhile, set a date--July 18--to begin formal negotiations on a peace treaty that would end the 46-year state of war between them and lay the foundation for what both expect will be warm relations.

In addition, a senior Israeli official suggested that, despite the apparent stalemate in talks with Syria and new clashes between Israeli forces and Syrian-backed guerrillas in southern Lebanon, negotiations with Damascus are at the “make or break” stage--and he was betting that key elements of a settlement will emerge late this year or early next.

“Nobody wants to be left behind,” Yasser Abed-Rabbo, information minister in the new Palestinian Authority, said after intensive talks between PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin here. “And we intend to move ahead, not waiting for anyone to catch up. . . .

“We and the Israelis have completed the first stage of what we agreed to almost a year ago,” he added. “It was a very difficult test, but our success is giving a very strong impetus to the peace process throughout the region. I won’t say it can’t be stopped, but even the doubters now want to join in.”

In Jerusalem, Yossi Beilin, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, was similarly upbeat, telling reporters: “There are many problems down the road, but I believe all of them are surmountable, all of them.”

Even the deep differences over the future of Jerusalem, claimed by both Israel and the Palestinians as their capital, could be surmounted, Beilin predicted to illustrate the progress that the mutual commitment to peace could bring. “I’m not saying Israel is ready to compromise on Jerusalem now, but I think that since we are ready to go a very long way with the Palestinians for many other issues, we can solve the problem of Jerusalem too,” he said, adding that an agreement will come when each side “understands the red lines of the other side.”

In agreeing to launch new negotiations Monday in Cairo, Arafat and Rabin both made key compromises to maintain the momentum they gained from the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and Jericho and from Arafat’s return there.

Israel accepted the Palestinian desire for early elections, including them in the talks, and the PLO again deferred such sensitive questions as Jewish settlers in the West Bank and the future of Jerusalem to a later stage of talks. At the same time, Israel agreed to “consider seriously” the PLO request for the release of more of the 5,000 Palestinian prisoners, particularly women and Islamic fundamentalists, whom it still holds.

Arafat promised to convene a meeting in Gaza “in the very near future” of the Palestine National Council, the Palestinians’ parliament in exile, to delete from the Palestinian Covenant longstanding calls for Israel’s destruction.

For Israel, this is a crucial test of confidence, and the PLO is treating it as such. Arafat said the meeting will be held in early autumn if Israel clears the entry of council members, many still listed as “wanted” by Israeli security services, into Gaza for the session.

Uri Savir, the director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and a leading Israeli negotiator, said Arafat needs a two-thirds majority in the 468-member Palestine National Council to amend the Palestinian charter; thus, achieving that will be a real demonstration of his ability to muster support among his people for the peace agreement with Israel.

“I imagine he will not convene the council unless he can meet the commitment,” Savir said. “The commitment is not just to put the changes to a vote but to adopt them.”

In a further measure of Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation, the two sides will begin discussions, along with Egypt and Jordan, on repatriation of the Palestinians who fled the West Bank and Gaza Strip after the 1967 Middle East War.

Israel agreed in principle 15 years ago to such negotiations, but it has never proceeded with them, and the refugee question is one of the most sensitive in the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue.

Although Rabin emphasized to Arafat the need to proceed cautiously, moving ahead step by step and even negotiating line by line, he finished his talks with the PLO leader clearly optimistic, even enthusiastic, Israeli sources said.

“We are going into the next stage with positive experience,” Rabin told Israeli journalists. “Things came together better and faster than we expected or even hoped for. It was a surprise to me, and I think to Arafat. But it gives a certain momentum for us to continue, and it creates a certain pressure in the other sectors (Syria, Jordan and Lebanon). So, we proceed.”

Both sides said the talks on expanding autonomy beyond the Gaza Strip and Jericho constituted one of the most difficult phases in the peace negotiations, but one where progress could bring a fundamental shift in relations between Israelis and Palestinians, including withdrawal of Israeli troops from West Bank towns and villages.

But two killings in the West Bank on Thursday were sure to intensify right-wing Israeli opposition to the peace process. Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli girl in a drive-by shooting near the settlement of Kiryat Arba, outside Hebron, and the body of an Israeli soldier was found riddled with bullets and stab wounds.

No group claimed responsibility for either killing, but suspicion fell on radical Islamic fundamentalists opposed to the peace process.

Israel and Jordan agreed last month to begin their new negotiations, but arrangements, announced in Amman and Jerusalem, made them sound more like a celebration of a treaty already agreed upon than like the start of hard bargaining.

The two countries, which had been negotiating in Washington with U.S. mediation for nearly three years, decided to hold the talks inside their countries in an effort to accelerate steps toward peace.

Jordanian officials said that Secretary of State Warren Christopher has been invited to attend the opening session outside Jordan’s Red Sea port city of Aqaba and its Israeli twin, Eilat.

Christopher is due in the region July 17 to try to unblock stalled Syrian-Israeli peace talks and help advance the Israeli-Jordanian track.

The Israeli-Jordanian meeting will be the first opportunity for a senior Israeli official to set foot, openly and formally, in Jordan, despite a well-established history of low-profile cooperation on security and day-to-day matters between the two. King Hussein and Israeli officials have been meeting secretly for decades, and the monarch said recently that he was prepared to meet Israeli leaders as soon as possible.

In assessing the deadlocked talks with Syria, Beilin said they too could begin to move shortly, with Christopher’s visit. “The gaps between Syria and ourselves are still very wide,” he said. “But we were never, ever, closer to peace with Syria, ever. . . . End of 1994, beginning of 1995 are the coming months that will make it or break it.”

Israel holds Syria, the main power in Lebanon, responsible for guerrilla attacks on its forces in southern Lebanon.

The talks are stuck over whether an Israeli commitment to withdraw from the Golan Heights must precede Syria’s acceptance of Israel in the Middle East by granting it diplomatic recognition and establishing full and normal ties with it.