Israel Rejects Arafat Troop Plan for West Bank

Israel on Saturday rejected a plan Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat intends to propose in forthcoming talks with President Clinton that international troops be deployed in the West Bank.

Arafat’s plan, which was unveiled at his weekly Cabinet meeting Friday, is to have the soldiers patrol areas of the West Bank that Israel views as vital for its security, allowing the Jewish state to withdraw its troops.

“President [Arafat] had already offered [Secretary of State Madeleine] Albright the concept of international presence on those boundaries, and he intends to do so with President Clinton,” Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said.

Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will hold separate talks with Clinton in Washington next month. The United States has pressed both sides to honor promises made in interim peace deals since 1993.

“This is not a new plan. Arafat has suggested that international forces be stationed in Israel for several years now. As far as we are concerned, it is a nonstarter,” said David Bar-Illan, Netanyahu’s communications chief.

Erekat said the idea was part of a larger plan Arafat is drafting to break a nearly 10-month-old deadlock in Israeli-Palestinian talks.

Arafat wants to establish an independent Palestinian state in all of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, with traditionally Arab East Jerusalem as its capital.

Two maps reflecting Israel’s “strategic interests” in the West Bank were brought before the Israeli Cabinet ahead of Netanyahu’s meeting with Albright earlier this month.

Both called for leaving large parts of the area in Israeli hands.