Arafat, Netanyahu Sign Pact Outlining Next Steps to Peace

With photogenic grins and televised handshakes contrasting with years of animosity and 19 months of stalemate, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat signed a new Mideast agreement Friday clearing the way for negotiations on a permanent division of the Holy Land.

The accord, which will place more of the West Bank under Palestinian supervision in return for renewed efforts to protect the security of Israelis, was hammered out during nine days of virtually nonstop bargaining. It culminated with a marathon 20-hour session that produced a final agreement shortly after the sun rose Friday on Maryland’s secluded Wye Plantation.

The agreement covers immediate goals set by the interim Israeli-Palestinian peace framework negotiated in Oslo in 1993 and signed on the White House lawn. The framework included a timetable for various issues to be resolved on the way toward a final settlement. But terrorist bombings against Israelis and the advent of the Netanyahu government in 1996 soon put the peace process behind schedule, and then into prolonged stalemate.

Implementation of the Wye pact would belatedly carry the process past these way stations, removing blockages and allowing resumption of the journey toward full peace.

On Friday, typical of how rocky and winding that journey can be, the summit hit a snag even after an agreement was reached.

But even as Netanyahu and Arafat, with Jordan’s ailing King Hussein looking on, approved what the Palestinian leader called “a peace treaty among the cousins”--a reference to the common Semitic roots of Jews and Arabs--the summit was unexpectedly snagged by an argument between Israel and its closest ally, the United States, over the fate of convicted spy Jonathan Jay Pollard.

Israeli sources claimed that President Clinton had agreed to release Pollard, a former Navy intelligence analyst imprisoned for life 11 years ago on charges of spying for Israel. The Israelis characterized the release as a sweetener for Netanyahu, who must defend the peace pact against determined opposition from right-wing Israelis who claim that the agreement gives too much to the Palestinians.

Shortly after White House Press Secretary Joseph Lockhart announced that the land-for-peace deal was complete, U.S. officials informed the Israeli delegation that Washington had not agreed to free Pollard. Netanyahu then balked at signing the entire pact, touching off several hours of face-to-face bargaining with Clinton.

In the end, the president agreed to “review” the Pollard case without providing assurances of how the evaluation would come out.

David Bar-Illan, a senior advisor to Netanyahu, conceded later that Israel had received no guarantees about the Pollard case. Nevertheless, he said the Israeli delegation was ready to go ahead and sign the pact with the Palestinians.

“With respect to Mr. Pollard, I have agreed to review this matter seriously, at the prime minister’s request,” Clinton said during the signing ceremony at the White House. “I have made no commitment as to the outcome of the review.” The Pollard case already has been reviewed three times: Former President Bush rejected clemency once, and Clinton turned it down twice.

At the heart of Friday’s agreement is a land-for-peace bargain requiring Israel to give the Palestinians partial control of an additional 13% of the West Bank in exchange for a Palestinian pledge--backed up by a vigorous verification regime--to try to prevent terrorist attacks on Israelis.

Under the current agreement, Palestinians would gain full or partial control of about 40% of the West Bank.

The accord also calls for Israel and the Palestinians to promptly begin negotiations over the final status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where the Palestinians hope to establish an independent state. The “final status” talks, which were supposed to have begun more than two years ago, will address the most difficult issues dividing the two sides: the status of Jerusalem, location of borders, access to water, return of Palestinian refugees and other matters.

Clinton said the United States will host the talks, as it did the summit that led to them.

The agreement contains a vaguely worded pledge by both sides to avoid “unilateral” actions that could return the relationship to the frozen state that the Wye Plantation summit was intended to thaw. If read literally, the pledge would ban new Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and block the Palestinians from declaring an independent state on May 4, when the interim agreement expires.

U.S. peace envoy Dennis B. Ross said the provision is intended to “avoid steps that would undercut the [peace] process.” But he declined to spell out the actions that would be banned.

Clinton agreed to increase U.S. economic aid to Israel to help defray the cost of the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the 13% of the West Bank where the Palestinians will be given partial control. He pledged to increase U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority and to encourage other countries to do the same.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, briefing reporters after the signing ceremony, said no decisions have been made yet on the size of the aid package. The United States promised Israel and Egypt a combined total of about $5 billion annually after the 1978 Camp David conference, which led to the Israel-Egypt peace treaty.

Arafat pledged enhanced security cooperation with Israel and promised firm action against residents of Palestinian-ruled territory who commit terrorist offenses against Israel. He agreed to accept the CIA as the official arbiter of his compliance. The Palestinians also agreed to turn over to Israel for trial 30 of 31 Palestinians accused of murdering Israelis. Some of the suspects have been arrested by the Palestinian Authority but most remain at large.

In return, Israel agreed to free several hundred of an estimated 3,000 Palestinian “political prisoners” held in Israeli jails.

In another agreement of extreme symbolic importance to Israel, Arafat approved a complex procedure for repealing articles of the 1964 Palestine Liberation Organization charter calling for the destruction of Israel.

Netanyahu had demanded that Arafat summon the Palestine National Congress, the PLO’s “parliament in exile,” to remove the language from the charter.

In the end, Arafat agreed to schedule a large Palestinian convention in the Gaza Strip to repeal the anti-Israel language. Although all members of the PLO’s congress would be invited, so would members of all Palestinian organizations, as well as the official legislative assembly of the Palestinian Authority, in effect diluting the influence of the radicals. Clinton agreed to attend the meeting.

Other elements of the peace pact provide that:

* A Palestinian airport will open in Gaza.

* Israel will ensure safe passage to Palestinians moving between Gaza and other Palestinian areas.

* Israel and the Palestinians will discuss an additional Israeli pullback following the 13% withdrawal.

In the immediate aftermath of the sleep-robbing negotiations, which spanned nine days and routinely continued well beyond midnight, the summit’s leading actors waxed poetic in their pledges of future cooperation and good relations.

“We will never leave the peace process, and we will never go back to violence and confrontation--no more confrontation and violence,” declared Arafat, who has made creation of a Palestinian state his life’s work. “No Israeli mother will have to be worried when her son or daughter is late coming home.”

“Today,” intoned Netanyahu, who entered office as a leading critic of the Oslo peace framework, “is a day when Israel and the entire region are more secure. . . . This is an important moment to give a secure and peaceful future for our children and the children of our neighbors, the Palestinians. We have seized the moment.”

Video clips of the interim Mideast peace accord’s signing ceremony are on The Times’ Web site: https://www.latimes.com/mideast

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A Scorecard on Past Accords

Key Israeli obligations under interim peace accords, including the September 28, 1995 “Oslo 2” agreement and the Jan. 15, 1997 Hebron agreement:

* Withdrawal of Israeli troops from most of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank cities of Jericho, Jenin, Tulkarm, Qalqilya, Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem and Hebron. All but Hebron were completed by December 1995.

* Phased release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, which was to begin immediately with signing of the September 1995 accord. Women prisoners were to have been released in the first phase, along with the elderly, the ill and prisoners who had served more than 10 years of their sentences. Only the women have been released, in Feb. 1997.

* Withdrawal from 80% of Hebron within 10 days of the Hebron agreement signing. Completed two days later.

* The first of three Israeli “further redeployments” from the West Bank was to be completed in March, 1997. The Palestinians rejected an Israeli offer of just over 2% of Israeli-controlled territory as insufficient. The withdrawal was never carried out. Under the Hebron agreement, the United States suggested that all three redeployments should be completed “not later than mid-1998.”

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Key Palestinian obligations under interim peace accords:

* Democratic elections for the offices of president and representatives to a newly-founded legislature, the Palestinian Legislative Council. Held Jan. 20, 1996.

* Complete the process of revising the Palestinian National Charter, the covenant adopted by the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1965, which called for the destruction of Israel. Palestinians say a vote by the Palestine National Council already abrogated the clauses at issue but Israel insists that the 700-member council be reconvened and vote to cancel each clause specifically.

* Strengthen security cooperation with Israel; prevent incitement against Israel; conduct a systematic campaign against terrorist organizations; arrest, prosecute and punish terrorists; confiscate illegal firearms. None has been carried out to the satisfaction of Israel, or the United States.

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Joint obligations:

* On the signing of the Hebron agreement, resumption of talks on a permanent peace agreement. This has not occurred.

* Resumption of work on other outstanding interim issues, including a Palestinian airport and sea port in Gaza, creation of an industrial zone on the Gaza-Israel border and “safe passage” routes for Palestinians traversing Israel between Gaza and the West Bank. Under the current agreement, an airport and industrial zone will soon be opened, and safe passage routes will be established. The issue of the port will be negotiated further.

Source: Times Jerusalem Bureau

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The Agreement (A10)

* An Israeli troop pullback from an additional 13% of the West Bank.

* Israeli release of several hundred of 3,000 jailed Palestinians, whom Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat calls political prisoners.

* A security plan, under CIA supervision, with a timetable for Palestinians to arrest alleged terrorists and confiscate weapons.

* Establishment of an Israeli-Palestinian committee to discuss a third troop withdrawal.

* The opening of a Palestinian airport in the Gaza Strip.

* Safe passage for Palestinians moving between Gaza and other Palestinian-ruled areas.

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Timetable for Withdrawal

WEEKS 1-2: Israel withdraws from 2% of West Bank

WEEK 3: Israel withdraws from 5% of West Bank

WEEKS 6-12: Israel completes withdrawal

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The Land Deal

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Current control After of West Bank implementation Full Palestinian control 3% 14% Palestinian-Israeli 24% 26% Full Israeli control 73% 60%

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Sources: Times staff and wire reports