Netanyahu Preparing to Meet With Arafat

Israeli and Palestinian officials have been holding secret talks to pave the way for the first meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and revive moribund peace negotiations, both sides confirmed Sunday.

Netanyahu--who once vowed he would never meet with the Palestinian leader--could sit down with Arafat as early as this week, before the Israeli leader’s scheduled trip to the United States, the officials said.

Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy, meeting with Egyptian leaders in Alexandria, Egypt, said he expects a summit between Netanyahu and Arafat to come “within days.”

In Israel, Netanyahu stopped short of confirming that an encounter was imminent, saying only, “I have said that when the developments allow, we would announce the meeting--and, indeed, there are all sorts of developments.”

The Israeli-Palestinian peace process has been paralyzed since the right-wing Likud Party leader was elected prime minister May 29. Netanyahu has reluctantly sent emissaries to talk with Arafat since his government took office in June and has refused to speak with the Palestinian leader personally.

Netanyahu apparently softened his position last week after Israeli President Ezer Weizman indicated that he would meet with Arafat if the prime minister continued to delay.

The secret Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have taken place in recent days between Netanyahu advisor Dore Gold and Arafat advisor Mahmoud Abbas in the Tel Aviv home of Norwegian mediator Terje Larsen. The talks were revealed Sunday in the English-language Jerusalem Post and confirmed by U.N., Israeli and Palestinian officials.

An official in the prime minister’s office who declined to be identified said that before the Netanyahu-Arafat summit can be held the two sides must agree on an agenda of issues that their negotiating teams will subsequently address.

But Levy and others familiar with the Tel Aviv talks suggested that the two sides were going far beyond setting an agenda and would be concluding negotiations on some issues.

It appeared that Israel would agree to increase the number of Palestinian laborers allowed to work in Israel to at least 50,000, allow the opening of a Palestinian airport in the Gaza Strip with Israeli security inspection and grant Arafat unrestricted travel by helicopter between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Israel also was considering the release of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the jailed leader of the Islamic fundamentalist group Hamas. Yassin, a 61-year-old quadriplegic serving a life sentence for ordering the deaths of Palestinians who collaborated with Israel, was hospitalized with pneumonia last week. He is a popular spiritual figure among Palestinians, and Israelis fear that his death in jail could set off a Palestinian uprising.

The Palestinians, in turn, would agree to reopen discussions on the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the flash point West Bank city of Hebron, which was supposed to have taken place in March. Former Prime Minister Shimon Peres delayed the redeployment after a series of deadly bus bombings in February and March by Hamas and by Islamic Jihad, another extremist group opposed to the peace process.

The Palestinians had said they would not renegotiate on Hebron or on any other issue that already had been signed with the previous Israeli government. They now appear willing, however, to accept changes in the redeployment agreement.

“Both sides want Hebron to be resolved in a secure way, since an explosion there can doom the whole peace process,” said the official in the prime minister’s office.

Netanyahu’s shift toward a meeting with Arafat appears to have been brought about not only by President Weizman but by pressure from Egypt and international financial donors to the Palestinians.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak told Israel’s Levy that he would cancel an Arab-Israeli economic summit scheduled for Cairo in November if Israel failed to pull out of Hebron, where about 450 Jews live among more than 100,000 Palestinians.

Until Sunday, the peace agreements between the Palestinians and the previous Israeli government had seemed close to unraveling. The Netanyahu government, which opposes the basic principle of trading land for peace, had announced that it will expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank, where--along with the Gaza Strip--Palestinians want to establish an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Last week, Israel demolished an Arab community center in East Jerusalem that it claimed had been built illegally. Arafat apparently was humiliated by the move, which came two days after he had bowed to a Netanyahu demand to close two Palestinian offices in the city.

Israel rejects any Palestinian claim on East Jerusalem and asserts its sovereignty over the area, captured during the 1967 Middle East War.

Arafat responded to the demolition by telling his legislature that Netanyahu’s policy on settlements and Jerusalem was a declaration of war on the Palestinians and by warning of a new Palestinian uprising.

On Sunday, Faisal Husseini, the Palestinian Cabinet minister responsible for Jerusalem issues, warned that the Palestinian leadership would unilaterally declare an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital if Israel refused to resume peace talks.

Netanyahu’s policies, Husseini said, “are creating a certain atmosphere which can put us on the edge of explosion. . . . There will be an explosion if the government will not respect the [peace] agreements.”

Husseini said a meeting between Netanyahu and Arafat was essential but that “if it will be a camera event it will not help. People are waiting to see results.”