Arafat Invites Peace Backers to Crisis Meeting

Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat tried to rally international support Tuesday to stem a crisis in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process that has ballooned since Israel announced plans two weeks ago to build a new Jewish neighborhood in disputed East Jerusalem.

Arafat called on American, European and other backers of the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian interim peace agreement to attend an urgent conference in the Gaza Strip on Saturday to discuss what he insists are Israeli violations of the accord.

Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy was furious in his response, warning that any attempt to bring international pressure to bear on Israel could work against the Palestinians and freeze the peace process altogether.

“I call upon all international parties to whom the Palestinians are appealing not to be dragged into this course of action and not to drive sticks into the wheels of the peace negotiations,” Levy said. “Israel will not surrender to pressure.”

Arafat extended the invitation to envoys from the United States, Russia, Japan, Norway, the European Union, Jordan and Egypt. The United States, which opposes the proposed Israeli construction but vetoed a U.N. condemnation of the project Friday, said it will send a representative.

“We do understand the frustration of the Palestinian leadership,” State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said. “They’ve been buffeted by some fairly significant Israeli government decisions over the last couple of weeks. Chairman Arafat obviously feels the need to talk to friendly countries around the world, and that’s appropriate.”

A U.S. official in Israel said the international meeting was not expected to produce either a unified statement or a positive response from Israel.

Israel approved plans last month to build 6,500 Jewish apartments on a hill in southeastern Jerusalem that Israelis call Har Homa and Palestinians call Jabal Abu Ghneim.

The Israeli government says it has the right to build anywhere in Jerusalem. Palestinians, who hope to establish a capital in East Jerusalem, say the project is an attempt to preempt “final status” negotiations called for in the accord and therefore violates that agreement.

Tensions between the two sides worsened last week when the Israeli Cabinet voted to pull troops out of 9% of the West Bank during the first of three scheduled redeployments. Palestinian leaders wanted 30% of the West Bank handed over in the first redeployment.

Palestinian leaders charge that Israel is “negotiating with itself” and dictating terms to them. The Palestinians’ chief negotiator, Mahmoud Abbas, and his team have offered to resign, although Arafat has not accepted their letters of resignation.

Israeli officials respond that Arafat is trying to create an atmosphere of crisis to press for greater territorial concessions from Israel.

“There is, of course, no place for that,” Israeli Cabinet Secretary Danny Naveh said. “Any attempt to involve international parties is doomed to fail.”

Political and diplomatic observers say that Arafat is arranging the meeting in an effort to relieve the political pressure he faces from Palestinians who feel the peace process is not producing adequate results.

“He is trying to show that he is doing something to put pressure on the Israelis,” one U.S. official said. “But I think he is realistic and knows he can accomplish relatively little in the way of movement from the Israelis.”

Nonetheless, Arafat does have regional support. Israel’s closest Arab ally, Jordan’s King Hussein, sent a harshly worded letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week criticizing his policy and warning that the peace process may collapse if Israel builds the Jerusalem project.

“The path that you have pursued appears to lead to the destruction of everything I have believed in,” the king said in the letter, which was reprinted by the official Jordan News Agency.

And Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, in Washington for meetings with U.S. officials, warned of an escalation of violence in the Middle East and terrorism against the United States if the peace process unravels.

The Egyptian president also revealed that Arafat had been so despondent about the course of the peace process that he recently considered quitting office and leaving the Palestinian Authority, which now governs the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.

During tense negotiations late last year over Israeli troop redeployment from the West Bank city of Hebron, “Arafat reached the point to quit the West Bank and Gaza. He was about to leave. He told me personally,” Mubarak said. “If he left, no one will be able to become the leader.”

Arafat has long used theatrical tactics for emphasis, but Egyptian officials said his despair was real.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials reportedly have urged Israel to take “confidence-building measures” to ease tensions with the Palestinians, such as approving Palestinian plans for an airport and seaport in the Gaza Strip; opening a route for Palestinians to travel across Israel between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank; and waiting to break ground in the East Jerusalem project.

Times staff writer Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this report.