Hebron Stymies Israel, Palestinians

Nearly two months after Israelis and Palestinians agreed to hold urgent talks aimed at reaching a compromise on the disputed West Bank city of Hebron, negotiators for both sides admitted Friday that they are all but deadlocked.

“We seem to be at a real stalemate,” David Bar-Illan, the spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said of the discussions on Hebron, the last West Bank city under Israeli occupation. “Whether the gaps can be bridged any time soon is very hard to say.”

Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat described the U.S.-brokered talks as “stuck,” and a leading Palestinian negotiator has warned that further delays in the troop withdrawal--already eight months overdue--could lead to confrontation.

Given the escalating rhetoric, sources close to both sides said Friday that there is little point in continuing the discussions.

Until Arafat and Netanyahu authorize their negotiators to reach an accord--and resign themselves to take the political heat that seems inevitable--the negotiations cannot progress, they said.

“It’s high time for Mr. Netanyahu to make up his mind whether he’s going forward with this or not,” said Saeb Erekat, who heads the Palestinian negotiating team. “It will take a political decision from the top before we can make any progress.”

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Bar-Illan put the blame for the impasse squarely on Arafat but said there has been no move, at least on the Israeli side, to abort the talks.

“It’s always dangerous to break off talks, because it creates an atmosphere of crisis and alienation,” Bar-Illan said. “So maybe they’ll talk about Hebron or maybe they’ll talk about the weather, but they’ll keep meeting.”

Highlighting the uncertainty surrounding the withdrawal, Israeli soldiers this week moved furniture out of, then back into, the military headquarters in Hebron.

Netanyahu ordered the furniture returned to the building after he received complaints from right-wing lawmakers that the redeployment was taking place before a political agreement had been reached, according to media reports.

Under an interim agreement reached with the Palestinians in September 1995, Israel has already withdrawn troops from six of the West Bank’s seven major cities and from hundreds of villages.

But Hebron, the only West Bank city where Jewish settlers live among the Arab population, has proven the most sensitive.

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The redeployment was to have occurred in March but was delayed--first by a series of deadly suicide bombings and then by Netanyahu’s election and his concerns that the Hebron plans did not provide enough safeguards for the Jewish settlers.

The Palestinians have argued against renegotiating the accord, saying that it includes more than adequate security measures for Jewish residents of Hebron, who number about 450 among the city’s 100,000 Arabs.

The main sticking point involves Israel’s demand that its troops be allowed to reenter the 80% of Hebron that will be turned over to Palestinian control when Israeli troops withdraw.

Israel has demanded that, under certain conditions--when it has information about an imminent terrorist attack, for instance--its security forces be allowed virtually unrestricted access to the Palestinian areas.

But Palestinians argue that, if Israel retains the right to operate freely within Hebron, there is no point to the transfer of sovereignty.

Erekat and Israeli negotiator Yitzhak Molcho, Netanyahu’s personal attorney, have been struggling for several days to draft a formula acceptable to both sides.

“There’s a formula of about 60 words that they keep fiddling with,” said a U.S. official close to the talks. “They haven’t been able to come up with an ambiguous enough formula on reentry that both sides can defend.”

But the broader issue is trust.

Five months into the Netanyahu administration, and two months after deadly confrontations between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, each side remains deeply suspicious of the other’s intentions.

The Palestinians fear that, if Israel is allowed limited access to Hebron, it will reenter at will. They also worry that Israel will view any concession on the issue as a precedent for other areas still to be turned over to the Palestinians, the official said.

Israel, in turn, does not trust the ability of the Palestinian security forces to preempt terrorist activity and wants to retain the freedom to take action in the area.

Finally, for the two leaders to sell the agreement to their constituents, each must be able to say he has wrung concessions from the other, the U.S. official said.

Arafat must show the Palestinians that he has stood firm against the new Israeli government by allowing only minor revisions to the agreement negotiated with the previous Labor Party-led government.

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Netanyahu, who insisted on reopening the negotiations in the interest of strengthening security arrangements for the settlers, must be able to show that he has emerged from them with a stronger accord.

On Thursday, Palestinian negotiator and Palestinian Authority member Yasser Abed-Rabbo warned that the Netanyahu government’s delays in withdrawing from Hebron, along with its policy of expanding Jewish settlements on the West Bank, could lead to renewed confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians.

“These policies will lead only to the destruction of all that was achieved by the two sides,” he said.