Israeli-Palestinian Talks Get Tangled in Old Disputes

Israel and the Palestinians pledged Monday that their talks on a final peace settlement will lead to a “future devoid of terror and violence”--but the negotiations still became entangled in old disputes and recriminations.

The two sides ended two days of formal negotiations in this Red Sea resort Monday, but the meetings were largely a symbolic gesture to start the “final status” talks on time under earlier agreements. Three years have been allotted for the negotiations.

The main argument was over Hebron, the last West Bank city occupied by Israeli troops and the only one where Jewish settlers live among Palestinians. Israel was to have pulled out of Hebron in March but reneged after Palestinian suicide bombings left more than 60 people dead in Israel.

Hebron was not even on the agenda of the talks that opened Sunday to end the century-long conflict between Arabs and Jews in the region. The city was supposed to have been old business, solved in an earlier agreement.

But chief negotiators Uri Savir of Israel and Mahmoud Abbas for the Palestinians said Hebron was discussed, as was persistent violence by Palestinians opposed to peacemaking.

“There is no reason to hide that we did have a crisis situation between us after the violence and the terror,” Savir said.

The two teams issued a joint statement Monday saying they would negotiate on the basis of the land-for-peace formula set out in their original, 1993 declaration of peace principles.

They also agreed to take up the tough questions passed over in agreements on Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip: Will a Palestinian state exist beside Israel? What is the future of Jerusalem, wanted as a capital by both sides? What will become of the millions of Palestinian refugees and to the Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza?