Israel Stance on Pullback Puts Albright Talks at Risk

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s efforts to break a 14-month deadlock in Mideast peacemaking appeared headed for failure before they even began when Israel on Sunday rejected a U.S. proposal for a transfer of an additional 13% of the West Bank to the Palestinians.

As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left for London, where he is scheduled to meet with Albright today, his spokesman publicly acknowledged for the first time that the United States sought a 13% pullback, and then he dismissed it unconditionally.

“Israel will not agree to the U.S. proposal for a 13% redeployment,” David Bar-Illan said on Israeli radio.

Bar-Illan predicted that there will be “no dramatic breakthrough” today in the separate talks that Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat are to hold with Albright.

Arafat, who initially demanded 30% more of the West Bank land that Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War, has accepted the U.S. proposal for a phased 13% pullback linked to a Palestinian crackdown on violent extremists and to other security measures. By doing so, he apparently intends to make sure that a collapse of the peace process is blamed on Israel.

Israel had been trying to avoid an official U.S. announcement of its proposal but suddenly preempted one, apparently trying to lessen the impact of an American-Palestinian stance in London against the Israeli government.

Netanyahu has agreed publicly to hand over an additional 9% of the West Bank, and, once Arafat agreed to the U.S. proposal, the prime minister hinted that he might be willing to go up to 11%. He says that anything more would put Israel’s national security at risk.

U.S. Vice President Al Gore, in the Middle East to attend Israel’s 50th anniversary celebrations, shuttled between meetings with Netanyahu and Arafat over the weekend and urged the two sides to “make the difficult decisions” to reach the next step in peace negotiations.

After meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo on Sunday, Gore tried to lower expectations for the London talks and suggested that negotiations will continue beyond the meetings hosted by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

“There is a long way to go in the peace process regardless of the outcome of the London meeting,” Gore told reporters.

But the State Department repeatedly has warned that it may abandon its mediation role if the stalemate continues, and this weekend it again pressed Netanyahu to accept the American proposal.

Arafat has said that he will declare statehood in May 1999 regardless of whether he has a deal with Israel. The London meetings are to take place exactly a year before the May 4, 1999, deadline for the completion of Middle East peace negotiations that was set in the Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement signed on the White House lawn in September 1993.

Under the accord, Israel turned over the Gaza Strip, West Bank cities and hundreds of villages to Palestinian rule. This and subsequent agreements called for Israel to undertake three further redeployments before final peace talks.

The current stalemate began in March 1997, when Israel announced that it would go forward with construction of a new Jewish neighborhood on Har Homa, a hill known to the Palestinians as Jabal Abu Ghneim between traditionally Arab East Jerusalem and Palestinian-ruled Bethlehem. The Palestinians, who want an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital, argue that Israel is trying to settle as much land as possible before final negotiations.

The two sides have remained at odds over Israel’s refusal to carry out the further redeployments. Furthermore, the Netanyahu government charges that the Palestinians have failed to keep their commitments on security issues, including cracking down on terrorism, cooperating in intelligence work, limiting the size of their police force and confiscating illegal arms.

“The Palestinians are not willing to go forward on any commitments until they are certain how much land they are going to get from Israel,” said a U.S. official who asked not to be identified.

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The United States clearly is growing frustrated with the Netanyahu administration over redeployments. Asked what might come out of the London talks, the U.S. official put the onus squarely on Netanyahu. “It depends on Bibi,” he said, using the prime minister’s nickname. “It depends what he believes he can do. People are deathly afraid to be optimistic about anything until he sits down with the secretary.”

He noted that Netanyahu did not seek Cabinet approval to go beyond 9% to the 11% that has been bandied about. Asked if Arafat would accept 11%, he said, “Explain how it would be in his interest to do so.”

While Netanyahu views 11% as a concession, Arafat feels he already has made greater concessions by accepting 13% and can do no more. The United States also is unlikely to back away from its 13% proposal, the official said.

Palestinian leaders have suggested that anything short of a breakthrough in London will lead to an explosion of violence among Palestinians who have lost hope in the 5-year-old peace process.

Over the weekend, Albright’s spokesman warned of “grave dangers if we do not put the process back on track,” although he offered little hope of that.

And Mubarak, at a news conference with Gore in Cairo, said he feared “complications” for the region if the talks fail.

Bar-Illan seemed to acknowledge these concerns when he said that it is “essential to make progress” in London. He said Israel is hoping for “incremental progress” on issues such as the construction of a Palestinian airport in the Gaza Strip and an industrial park on the Israel-Gaza border. But it is unlikely that the Palestinians will let Netanyahu claim any minor advances in lieu of progress on the redeployment.

Netanyahu and Arafat have no plans for face-to-face talks.

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Times Cairo Bureau Chief John Daniszewski contributed to this report.