Netanyahu, Arafat Meet Privately as Summit Begins

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, apparently determined to overcome the bitter animosity generated by a week of deadly combat, talked for more than three hours Tuesday in the opening of a U.S.-brokered Mideast summit.

American organizers described the White House session, the two leaders’ first extended face-to-face discussion, as “relaxed and informal,” though whether it will be enough to repair the tattered Middle East peace process remained uncertain after the first of what was scheduled to be two days of hastily arranged meetings.

U.S. officials called it a good start.

“Our goal today . . . was to reestablish some element of trust,” White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said of Tuesday’s session. ‘We’ve taken a positive step in that direction.”

For two politicians whose careers have been defined by almost unremitting opposition to the causes advanced by the other, trust will not be easily attained.

Since Netanyahu’s May election, he and Arafat had met only once, a perfunctory, chilly session that both seemed to find distasteful.

But U.S. officials insisted that the two leaders on Tuesday were edging toward a working relationship that would permit each side to address differences at the conference table instead of in the streets.

Pitched battles last week between Palestinians and Israelis left 74 dead and more than 1,000 injured. The confrontations, which many analysts have termed the culmination of months of growing mistrust and frustrations between the two sides, erupted after Israel opened an excavated archeological tunnel near Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem.

As the Washington meetings began, Netanyahu said this summit was intended “to try to put the peace process back on track.”

He said his Likud Party-led government is committed to carrying out the 1993 peace agreement, which it inherited from its Labor Party-led predecessor.

But other Israeli officials said Netanyahu had no intention of offering a specific timetable for meeting certain requirements of the 1993 accord, such as redeployment of Israeli troops in Hebron, the only West Bank city still under Israeli military occupation.

Netanyahu, citing security concerns regarding about 450 Jewish settlers living among roughly 100,000 Palestinians in Hebron, has sought to negotiate further the troop redeployment, infuriating the Palestinians.

Tuesday’s talks occurred at the White House and at Blair House across Pennsylvania Avenue under tight secrecy.

McCurry and State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns refused to talk about the substance of the negotiations. Israeli and Palestinian leaders also avoided details.

After meeting separately with each of the delegations, Clinton convened a late morning session attended by Netanyahu, Arafat and King Hussein of Jordan. That meeting went on for about 45 minutes before Clinton suggested that it was time for lunch.

Clinton, Hussein, Netanyahu and Arafat then sat down to chicken, vegetables and couscous in the White House library.

After about 25 minutes, Clinton and Hussein excused themselves, leaving Netanyahu and Arafat alone at the table with only an Arabic-speaking State Department interpreter, Gamal Helal.

The two men met alone for a little less than an hour, then they were joined by Abu Mazen on the Palestinian side and Yitzhak Molcho, an Israeli attorney. That session lasted two more hours.

Hassan Abed Rahman, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington and one of Arafat’s closest advisors, said he is hopeful about the meeting’s outcome.

“The general environment is not cold,” he said.

Still, to achieve a breakthrough, Netanyahu and Arafat will each have to make concessions they have vowed never to make.

U.S. officials said Clinton’s role in the talks is to give the Israelis and the Palestinians a face-saving way to move, should they wish to do so.

In previous Middle East negotiations, both sides have explained unpopular concessions to their own people by suggesting that the U.S. pressured them into action.

But in an American election year when the Jewish vote is a notable element of the constituency Clinton hopes will reelect him, the president carefully tried to avoid the appearance of pushing Netanyahu too hard.

Instead, he said he was trying to get the parties together to explore alternatives and to “find common interests and shared values.”

The president said the meeting demonstrated “a common commitment to end the violence and to get the peace process back on track. We are committed to that.”

Republican candidate Bob Dole and GOP congressional leaders urged Clinton not to back Netanyahu into a corner or to isolate the Israeli leader.

Netanyahu was scheduled to meet Dole on Tuesday evening, but the Israeli leader postponed the session until tonight, probably an indication that more of substance was occurring in the meetings than he had expected.

While Netanyahu and Arafat were meeting at the White House, Secretary of State Warren Christopher huddled with lower-ranking Israeli and Palestinian officials at Blair House. Burns said each delegation outlined its objectives for the summit, in effect underlining the wide differences of opinion.

Burns said Christopher then offered U.S. proposals intended to point to possible compromise. He declined to provide specifics.

Netanyahu and Arafat are expected to hold more face-to-face meetings today.

The summit will probably end with a joint news conference, though U.S. officials said that is not yet certain. Although the two leaders may reach substantive agreements in Washington, U.S. officials say they expect talks to continue, perhaps at a lower level, when the two delegations return home.

Notably absent from Tuesday’s summit was Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who turned down a personal invitation from Clinton.

In an interview with an Israeli newspaper, Mubarak was quoted as saying he was angry with the intransigence of Netanyahu and his hard-line government, and he did not believe that the Washington summit would accomplish anything.