Arafat ‘Retracts’ Remark; Israel OKs Pact

Israeli officials Tuesday accepted Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s “retraction” of an apparent call to arms, and their U.S.-brokered peace agreement veered back on course--for the moment, at least.

Legislators in the Israeli parliament, meanwhile, yelled and pointed their fingers at each other before approving the land-for-security accord after a two-day debate. As expected and despite the heat of the arguing, the deal passed by an overwhelming margin.

“This is the hardest decision the Knesset [parliament] has been asked to make in perhaps 50 years,” said Knesset Chairman Dan Tichon of the ruling Likud Party.

Although most Israelis favor the agreement signed Oct. 23 at the White House, a vocal faction within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s center-right coalition government opposes ceding land to Palestinian control.

Even as the decibel level at the Knesset reached a peak, Israeli and Palestinian leaders settled into a more conciliatory exchange after spending two days trading accusations and posturing for their disgruntled home crowds.

Defusing the latest crisis that threatened the peace accord, Arafat made a point of offering public assurances that he is committed to peace. He said he will join “amicably” the next phase of negotiations, which is aimed at resolving the most difficult “final status” issues such as the fate of Jerusalem and what the Palestinian entity will look like.

“I stress . . . that we are protective of the peace process in the Middle East and all the peace agreements we signed with the Israelis,” Arafat said.

The carefully crafted comments were the result of back-channel consultations involving the Israelis and U.S. officials. Netanyahu said Tuesday afternoon that he viewed Arafat’s latest remarks in a “positive light” that “rectified” the Palestinian leader’s weekend threat to wage an armed uprising with “guns ready” to claim Jerusalem.

“Yesterday he delivered his guns speech; he hasn’t exactly switched to roses today, but it is progress,” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu spokesman David Bar-Illan said later that Israel considered Arafat’s statement on Tuesday a “retraction.” By committing himself again to solving outstanding issues through negotiations and, as he put it, “not in any other way,” Arafat was disavowing violence and backing away from his insistence on a unilateral declaration of an independent Palestinian state, Bar-Illan said.

Arafat’s weekend comments prompted Netanyahu on Monday to suspend implementation of the peace agreement, which calls for Israel to begin handing parts of the West Bank to the Palestinians this week in exchange for a crackdown on Islamic terrorists and other moves.

The timetable is now uncertain, but the withdrawal of Israeli troops from an initial 2% of the West Bank area could begin by Friday. In addition, a Palestinian airport is to open and Israel is to free 250 Palestinian prisoners.

The patina of cooperation that appeared Tuesday between Israelis and Palestinians contrasted with the shrill rhetoric of the previous days. Analysts say the repeated blips of mini-crises and near-breakdowns in the peace process are entirely predictable. Both Netanyahu and Arafat have domestic audiences to play to and appease, despite what U.S. officials call the two leaders’ basic determination to carry out the terms of the agreement.

Arafat’s startling revival of talk of gunplay, after he had invested considerable time casting himself as a peacemaker, had multiple goals, Palestinian analysts said Tuesday. He has to unite his increasingly disaffected wider public while also putting down leftist Palestinian organizations that gathered in Damascus, the Syrian capital, last week, reportedly to plot a challenge to his authority.

Netanyahu must confront politicians on his right, as the debate at the Knesset proved. Five Cabinet ministers from his own party did not attend the vote, which passed 75-19 in the 120-member Knesset. The opposition Labor Party and most of the left lent their support to the agreement.

Former Prime Minister Shimon Peres, a Labor member of the Knesset, noted the irony that a Likud Party government which steadfastly opposed ceding land was now the author of an agreement that did just that. Labor, under the late leader Yitzhak Rabin, initiated the peace process that produced the landmark Oslo accords in 1993.

“Time does what ideology keeps one from doing,” Peres said.

Netanyahu and his supporters in the Knesset, notably Foreign Minister Ariel Sharon and Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai, defended the latest agreement as one that “minimized the damage” to Israeli interests.

“I do not believe there is any other way to peace with our neighbors,” Netanyahu said at the end of the debate, “and I do not know of any other way to make peace at all.”

Netanyahu’s Cabinet will again meet, probably Thursday, to decide when to take the next steps. Israeli officials said Tuesday night that they also want to see the Palestinians publish an anti-incitement law and submit a plan for collecting illegal weapons before Israel moves ahead with its end of the deal. Both elements are contained in the agreement but not scheduled to be completed until the week after troop withdrawal begins.