Israeli Premier Hints at New Peace Approach

Asserting that the Clinton administration misunderstands the requirements of peace in the Middle East, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that a U.S. plan for territorial compromise with the Palestinians would cause unacceptable damage to Israel’s security.

Netanyahu, who held a second day of inconclusive talks with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, hinted that his government may soon suggest a new approach to break the stalemate. At issue is a U.S. proposal to settle a long-festering dispute over the amount of additional West Bank territory that Israel should turn over to Palestinians under their 1993 peace accords.

After a meeting that lasted just more than an hour, U.S. and Israeli officials said there was no breakthrough and there would be no announcements.

State Department spokesman James P. Rubin and Netanyahu spokesman David Bar-Illan told reporters that no additional Netanyahu-Albright meetings are planned.

At a Capitol Hill news conference, Netanyahu said, “We will make a real effort to come up with a substantive resolution of our differences . . . or find an elegant way to do something entirely different.” He offered no details.

But he made it clear that he is not attracted to the administration’s plan.

“If we are asked to sign a peace treaty or peace agreement in which we have to sacrifice our security . . . that is a peace we should not sign,” he said in a speech at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Later, following his meeting with Albright, Netanyahu told the American Jewish Committee: “We’re prepared to make concessions, and I gather we probably will, but not those that endanger our security.” He did not elaborate.

Netanyahu shoehorned his meeting with Albright into a day crowded with speeches to friendly, predominantly Jewish, audiences and meetings with pro-Israel Congress members. He said he was “heartened” to find a strong level of support for his side in a face-off with the U.S. administration.

“You know, you really have to get out of the [Washington] Beltway . . . to discover the depth and width of the support of the American people for the state of Israel,” Netanyahu said. “They identify with us. If you ask them who do they trust, between the various parties, they’ll say Israel. If you ask them, ‘Should Israel have security,’ they’ll say yes. If you ask them, ‘Who should decide Israel’s security?’ they’ll say Israel should decide Israel’s security.”

Netanyahu likened the dispute with the U.S. to a family argument and said the two governments will remain friendly.

But the exchanges had an edge to them Thursday.

For instance, Rubin deplored the deaths of at least eight Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces during West Bank and Gaza Strip demonstrations Thursday. Although he said both sides share responsibility for the incident, he asserted: “Clearly, to the maximum extent possible, we believe the use of lethal force against demonstrators must be avoided.”

Netanyahu said the Palestinian Authority was responsible for the killings because it had “fomented bloody riots” with anti-Israel rhetoric marking the 50th anniversary of Israeli statehood, which Palestinians call “the catastrophe.”

Responding to Netanyahu’s assertion that the U.S. plan would threaten Israeli security, Rubin said, “The absence of peace creates insecurity.”

But Netanyahu heaped scorn on that argument, insisting that the administration did not understand the realities of the Middle East.

“In the Middle East, in the unreformed, undemocratized Middle East that we live in, the only peace that can endure is a peace that can be defended,” he said. “In the Middle East, peace is based on security,” and not the other way around.

Frustrated by its inability to mediate an agreement over the amount of West Bank territory that Israel will cede to the Palestinians, the U.S. recently suggested its own compromise proposal. Under the U.S. plan, Israel would turn over an additional 13% of the territory. The Palestinians accepted the proposal in principle, but Israel said that anything more than 9% would hurt its security.