Arafat Gaining on Terrorism, U.S. Official Says

Signaling a new U.S. tilt toward the Palestinians in the deadlocked Middle East peace negotiations, a senior Clinton administration official said Friday that Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat has cracked down on terrorism and deserves to get more credit for it from Israel.

“Arafat is now taking action against the Hamas terrorists--very much in the way we have been urging him to do,” the official told reporters. “It needs to be recognized and acknowledged.”

The assessment appears to put Washington on the side of the Palestinians in one of the most emotional issues bedeviling the Middle East peace process, which has been stalled for 14 months.

Israel accuses the Palestinian Authority of failing to live up to its promise to exert maximum effort to prevent Arab terrorists from using Palestinian-controlled territory to launch attacks on Israelis.

The pledge is contained in the Israel-Palestinian peace agreement negotiated in Oslo and signed on the White House lawn in 1993.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argues that the Palestinian record on terrorism amounts to a default in the peace agreement.

For this reason, Netanyahu says, Israel is not required to keep its side of the bargain: to turn over to Palestinian control more land in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In the past, U.S. officials have been careful to avoid taking sides in the dispute, hoping to broker an agreement that would restart the stalled process.

Earlier this year, President Clinton suggested a gradual approach in which each side would take frequent--but small--steps toward compliance to overcome the corrosive atmosphere of distrust.

But the comments by the senior official, crediting the Palestinians with a bona fide effort to keep their part of the Oslo accords, seemed to move Washington away from its neutral position.

The official spoke just hours before the administration’s peace envoy, Dennis B. Ross, and Martin Indyk, the State Department’s assistant secretary for the Middle East, left for the region and a new round of talks with Arafat and Netanyahu.

Ross and Indyk hope to prepare the ground for Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s meetings with Netanyahu and Arafat in London on May 4.

U.S. officials have suggested that the talks, in which Albright will meet separately with the two leaders but would be in a position to shuttle between Netanyahu and Arafat if there were signs of progress, could prove to be a “make or break” event for U.S. participation in the Middle East negotiations.

“It is very important to understand that our basic purpose is to reach an agreement,” the senior official said. “We don’t think we can drag it out forever, but we want to get to the point where both sides can say ‘yes.’ As long as we feel we have a chance to reach agreement, we are going to go on doing it.”

But another senior State Department official said the Israelis and the Palestinians must be reminded that “there is a consequence to a stalemate.”

He noted that Albright’s meeting will come just a year before the May 4, 1999, expiration of the current interim peace accords.

If the Israelis and the Palestinians have not agreed upon a final peace settlement by that date, the rules they have been operating under will expire.

Although the two sides could--and probably will--agree to an extension of the deadlock, it is also possible that one or the other will choose to take unilateral action that could lead to armed conflict.

“This is a pretty strong reminder that time is running out,” the official said.

In a related event, Vice President Al Gore will visit Israel next week to participate in ceremonies marking Israel’s 50th anniversary.

Officials say he will take advantage of the trip to meet separately with Netanyahu and Arafat.