Expectations Low and Risks High for Talks on Mideast

Arab and Israeli leaders began arriving here Monday night for an emergency meeting designed to end the latest Israeli-Palestinian violence and resume progress in the region’s tortuous search for peace.

The summit is scheduled for today and Wednesday, despite Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s deep misgivings and a snub from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who rejected President Clinton’s personal appeal to attend.

Risks are high and expectations low for the talks, which Clinton proposed over the weekend after clashes in Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank left more than 70 Palestinians and Israelis dead and more than 1,000 wounded in a burst of violence that put the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in jeopardy.

“It’s clear to me that the Middle East peace process is in a state of crisis,” Secretary of State Warren Christopher said.

Clinton brings together Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Jordan’s King Hussein with no “negotiating paper or formula” for success, White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said. “It is rare in this process that we engage at this level--at the highest level--without a preordained outcome,” McCurry said. “I think the fact that President Clinton took the step to call this session, to invite the leaders here, reflects the seriousness and gravity of this moment.”

Officials noted that each of the foreign leaders could face hazard at home by appearing weak or too quick to compromise under pressure from the United States.

Netanyahu left Israel amid urgings from Likud Party compatriots not to make concessions.

Arafat vacillated for 24 hours before finally deciding to make the trip to Washington. The Palestinian leader apparently fears that meeting directly with Netanyahu at this juncture could touch off a revolt among hard-liners in his government.

Even Clinton faces some peril by investing U.S. prestige only five weeks before the presidential election in an undertaking with no guarantee of success.

But administration officials said that the danger of inaction is greater than that of trying and failing to restart the frozen Middle East peace talks.

A senior State Department official said: “There was a real risk that if we didn’t do something dramatic, the whole fabric [of the peace process] would have unraveled. There is a recognition on the part of all those who are coming that the risks of the present situation were so great that they overshadowed all other considerations.”

The official said Washington’s primary objective is to restore a measure of confidence between Netanyahu and Arafat. “We have had a very serious deterioration in the environment, a very serious diminution of trust,” the official said. “Every time we have had [a crisis] before, there was a modicum of trust between the parties.”

Although final details for the summit’s format had not been fixed by Monday night, officials released this outline:

Middle East trouble-shooter Dennis B. Ross planned to meet with each delegation shortly after its arrival in Washington to talk about agenda and procedure. Hussein landed Monday evening. Netanyahu was expected about midnight. Arafat’s plane was scheduled to arrive early this morning.

Clinton is to meet with each of the three leaders separately at the White House this morning, with perhaps a brief meeting of the four principals before lunch.

The delegations are then scheduled to split up for substantive afternoon meetings with Christopher and other U.S. officials at the State Department or Blair House, the U.S. government guest quarters.

The U.S. organizers hope--but have no guarantees--for a working session with Netanyahu, Arafat, Clinton and Hussein sometime today. If that does not happen, it will probably indicate that things are going badly.

U.S. officials also hope that more meetings of all participants will occur Wednesday. But it is uncertain whether there will be a final communique or closing news conference before the delegations depart.

State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said of the U.S. objectives for the talks: “You can boil it down to five words--meet, stop fighting, start talking. . . . The Washington summit, we hope, will jump-start the peace negotiations, bring them back together talking. But we would expect that this process would have to continue well beyond their departure from Washington.”

Burns brushed aside suggestions that Mubarak’s refusal to attend was an insult to the United States, which supplies Egypt with $2 billion a year in aid. “Certainly it would have been preferable to have had President Mubarak here,” he said. But he added that Egyptian Foreign Minister Amir Moussa, a Mubarak confidant, will attend the talks in an unofficial capacity.

Meanwhile, in the Middle East, thousands of Jewish settlers danced and sang in the West Bank town of Hebron near the Cave of the Patriarchs on Monday to press for continued Israeli rule of the city, where about 450 settlers live among 100,000 Palestinians. The Cave of the Patriarchs, believed to be the burial place of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and which is holy to Muslims and Jews, was the site of a 1994 massacre by a Jewish gunman that left about 30 Palestinians dead.

The settlers said last week’s fighting between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian police proved that Arafat could not be trusted to uphold his side of the bargain that promises the Palestinians autonomy in the West Bank.

The crowd, made up of Hebron settlers and Jews who traveled to the city for the event, danced and sang songs commemorating the Jewish Sukkot holiday. Hundreds of Israeli border police stood guard.

The Palestinians are demanding that Israel pull its troops out of Hebron--the last West Bank city under occupation--as the peace accord called for it to do six months ago. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hebron’s Jewish minority would not be safe if he did so.

Also Monday, Israeli commanders in the Gaza Strip were quoted as saying that indiscriminate shooting by Jewish settlers and Israeli soldiers ignited the bloodiest day of clashes in Gaza last week. The Israeli army said it was checking the report, which appeared in Israel’s liberal Haaretz newspaper.

Speaking of the Washington meetings, White House Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta said that Clinton is willing to do whatever he can to try to get the Middle East peace process back on track.

“Does it involve political risk? You bet it involves political risk,” Panetta said at a White House briefing. “Any time you bring the parties together in this kind of volatile situation, it is . . . difficult to predict what ultimately can happen.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Emergency Meeting

President Clinton will press ahead with talks on the recent Mideast violence, although Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak--a key voice for moderate Arabs--declined to attend. The hastily called two-day summit begins today.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Insists Israel had right to excavate controversial archeological tunnel in Jerusalem, which he says will remain open. Blames Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his people, particularly the armed Palestinian police force, for “inciting” violence.

****

Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat

Accuses Netanyahu of ignoring or abrogating aspects of peace accords agreed to by previous Israeli governments. Claims that Israelis provoked latest round of violence by excavating controversial tunnel--an act that Palestinians say imperils Islamic sites.

****

Jordan’s King Hussein

Was asked by White House to participate in summit. Leads nation with majority Palestinian population and which has peace treaty with Israel. Is a ‘moderate’ voice in Arab world who was close to Netanyahu until opening of controversial tunnel.

THE AGENDA

The White House said the discussions would focus on several key issues:

* Restoring calm in Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

* Restarting the peace process.

SUMMIT SEQUENCE

1) Clinton will meet separately with Hussein, Netanyahu and Arafat, in that order.

2) Clinton may then meet in a general session with all three this afternoon.

3) U.S. officials hope for more talks Wednesday.