Arafat, Netanyahu to Meet in the U.S.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat agreed Sunday to meet this week in Washington to discuss ways to rescue U.S.-sponsored peace accords shaken by the worst Arab-Israeli violence in years.

President Clinton, who announced the summit, said Netanyahu and Arafat overcame their initial reluctance to meet because both are alarmed “about the way events have spun out of control” since Israel opened an archeological tunnel last week near Jewish and Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem, sparking clashes that have threatened to undo years of meticulous peacemaking.

The Israeli government reopened the disputed tunnel Sunday after it had been closed for the Sabbath and the Sukkot holiday. Netanyahu vowed that the tunnel will “always be open,” and an aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “Closing the tunnel is as likely to happen as our giving East Jerusalem to the Palestinians.”

At the tunnel exit, Palestinian youths pelted Israeli police with stones, wounding one. The tunnel is in the Old City near both the Al Aqsa mosque compound, one of the holiest sites of Islam, and the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism.

Also Sunday, two Israeli soldiers were lightly wounded in a skirmish at the Rafah border crossing from the Gaza Strip to Egypt, but otherwise there were no reports of violence as Palestinian police kept their people far from Israeli checkpoints.

The stakes in this week’s Washington talks are nearly as high for the United States as they are for the Palestinians and Israelis. Washington has invested countless hours of diplomacy and more than $100 billion in foreign aid in an effort to bring peace to one of the world’s most strategic and unstable regions.

Officials said the Clinton administration hopes that the summit, expected to be held Tuesday and Wednesday, will give Netanyahu and Arafat a face-saving way to step back from a confrontation that each blames on the other and to ease away from the emotional rhetoric of the last week--a week that saw at least 72 people die in clashes between Israelis and Palestinians.

Clinton said that King Hussein of Jordan also will attend the talks. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was invited but had not yet accepted, he said.

Egypt’s foreign minister said later that Mubarak “is definitely upset” by the Netanyahu government’s hard-line approach to peace negotiations and is not willing to participate unless assured that the meeting will produce positive results. It seemed unlikely, however, that Mubarak would boycott a summit that could reaffirm his role as Middle East peacemaker.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who wore down the objections of Netanyahu and Arafat to elements of the U.S.-proposed agenda for the talks during almost three days of intense telephone diplomacy, said Washington’s first objective is to bring the antagonists back to face-to-face talks.

“They are estranged; they are pretty raw,” Christopher said on the NBC-TV program “Meet the Press.”

“The important thing is to get them back into direct contact.”

Assessing the gravity of the crisis, Christopher said, “The peace process no doubt is in jeopardy.” But he added hopefully, “The peace process has proved quite durable in the past.”

Earlier, Netanyahu and Arafat had agreed in principle to meet. But each had balked at conditions proposed by the other. For instance, Arafat wanted to meet in Cairo in a session mediated by Mubarak, whom he considers an ally. Netanyahu preferred Clinton as referee.

Ultimately, they agreed that both Clinton and Mubarak would participate along with King Hussein.

It would appear, however, that the only way for the summit to defuse the violence is if both sides accept concessions they have vowed never to make. U.S. officials clearly want Netanyahu to close the disputed archeological tunnel and Arafat to promise to settle differences with Israel at the negotiating table instead of in the streets.

U.S. mediators intend to remind the Israelis and the Palestinians that both have benefited from a 1993 U.S.-brokered peace agreement despite recent complaints from each side that the pact is skewed in favor of the other.

“Both parties have a lot of grievances against each other,” Christopher said. “We have to get beyond those grievances.”

That is easier said than done. Both Israel and the Palestinians dispatched officials to appear on U.S. television’s Sunday morning interview programs to argue that the confrontation was entirely the fault of the other side. There was no indication that either side is ready for compromise.

In Jerusalem, Netanyahu spokesman David Bar-Illan said the prime minister expects the meetings to produce an agreement for a cessation of hostilities and a renewal of talks. But he dampened expectations for further Israeli concessions.

“We don’t feel there is much we can do except say we will resume peace talks, which we were prepared to do anyway,” he said. “We can also promise what we have been promising for a long time, which is to lift the closure [of the West Bank and Gaza Strip] as soon as the security situation is stable.”

Palestinian officials said they want Israel to lift the military closure of the West Bank and Gaza at once. Since Thursday, all Palestinians have been prevented from entering Israel under a closure ordered by Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordecai. The government had already prevented most Palestinian workers from entering Israel after a wave of suicide bombings in February and March.

“We want the removal of the army from all the entrances to our cities, towns and villages,” said Palestinian Minister of Higher Education Hanan Mikhail-Ashrawi. “We want an end to all these expressions of military power. This is a siege within a siege.

“If this meeting turns out to be just a photo op for Clinton’s reelection, the letdown will be much more dangerous,” she added. “You can’t keep disappointing people like this.”

Bar-Illan warned on Israeli radio that the government would consider reentering Palestinian-ruled cities “to disarm” the Palestinian police if clashes with Israeli soldiers were to resume. Israeli military officials acknowledged that a contingency plan exists for such an action.

The suggestion drew a sharp protest from Palestinian officials. Planning Minister Nabil Shaath, interviewed on the CBS-TV program “Face the Nation,” called the proposal “arrogance of power beyond which no one can answer.” Ashrawi said such a move could destroy the entire peace process.

Netanyahu and his national security advisor, Dore Gold, stopped short of supporting Bar-Illan’s warning, although they denounced the Palestinian police for firing on Israeli troops last week.

Christopher said Bar-Illan’s suggestion “is not part of the program.” He said the objective should be to enhance the ability of the Palestinian police to control the West Bank and Gaza, not to talk about seizing their weapons.

On Sunday, West Bank highways, cut by Israeli roadblocks and lined with tank encampments, were all but deserted. Outside the central West Bank town of Ramallah, cars with blue Palestinian license plates could be seen inching along dirt roads to circumvent Israeli roadblocks between the city and surrounding villages.

“If we try to talk to the soldiers at the roadblock, they treat us like animals,” said one back-road driver who identified himself only as Mohammed. He said he had been to a Ramallah hospital to visit a friend wounded in last week’s fighting and was trying to make his way home.

Kempster reported from Washington and Miller from Jerusalem.