Deep Divisions Remain as Pact Comes Together

The marathon Middle East summit that ended Friday succeeded in breaking a deadlock of more than 19 months and revived, for the moment, a moribund peace process.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu got the security plan he wanted. Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat got an additional 208 square miles of West Bank desert and hills, less than what he wants, and only on an installment plan.

Yet, as hard-fought as the Wye Plantation Memorandum may appear, it in fact lays out steps that should have been taken months or years ago, reaffirms points already agreed upon and defers the most contentious issues.

The considerable weight of the American president, his secretary of State, his CIA director and his formidable negotiating team failed to overcome the deep mistrust and animosity with which Netanyahu and Arafat regard each other.

In the end, a great deal of high-level energy was expended to achieve an agreement that, although important, is more technical than landmark.

That it took nine days to accomplish is the most telling indicator of the inability of the two parties to talk to each other--and, despite an emotional and respectful signing ceremony at the White House, there is nothing concrete out of Wye Plantation to suggest this estrangement will improve in the very difficult negotiations that lie ahead nor in the step-by-step implementation.

The bitter tone of the talks at Wye confirms that relations between the current Israeli and Palestinian regimes are steeped in hostility and disdain. The “new era” of “peaceful co-existence, historic reconciliation and mutual dignity” envisioned in the 1993 Oslo accords that formally ended Israeli-Palestinian hostilities is clearly a thing of the past.

Uri Savir, a principal negotiator of the Oslo accords who now heads the Peres Institute for Peace in Tel Aviv, welcomed Friday’s agreement but worried about whether it will form a foundation.

“The sense of partnership that opened up a new spirit in the region [with Oslo] is gone, and these negotiations did not create the impression that there is a basic empathy or mutual understanding or an eagerness to move forward,” Savir said. “This does not set the peace process on very constructive footing.”

Netanyahu, whose Likud Party came to power in 1996, reluctantly inherited the Oslo accords from his Labor Party predecessors. He first relinquished land in January 1997, when Israel withdrew troops from most of the West Bank city of Hebron. But two months later, the peace process was plunged into crisis: Israel broke ground on a 6,500-unit housing project in disputed East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians considered to be a violation of Oslo. The crisis deepened with suicide bombings by Palestinian militants that killed dozen of Israelis.

Ever since, attempts at negotiation went nowhere, and relations between Netanyahu and Arafat grew colder.

On Friday, symbolically, there were small gestures and hinted overtures in the concluding public appearances of the two men. With a beaming, gaunt Jordanian King Hussein watching like a proud, worried father, the Israeli prime minister and the Palestinian Authority president referred to each other as “partners” and were careful to acknowledge each other during the White House ceremony. Netanyahu thanked Arafat for flowers he sent on Netanyahu’s 49th birthday Wednesday.

Still, the glimpses of warmth fade quickly against the stark backdrop of an agreement more noteworthy for what it did not include than what it did.

Left untouched were fundamental issues that will define the permanent relationship between Israel and the Palestinian community: status of the disputed city of Jerusalem; Palestinian statehood; Jewish settlements; Palestinian refugees; Israeli withdrawal from a final, yet-to-be determined swath of West Bank territory.

This third phase of troop withdrawal is critical because the land ceded then cements the borders of the future Palestinian entity, whatever legal form it takes.

If round-the-clock presidential intervention was required to end months of delay and secure a minor interim agreement, then the prospects seem dim for resolving such complex pending matters.

Originally, these issues were to be negotiated over the three years ending on the Oslo-expiration date of May 4, 1999. Now they must be crammed into a seven-month period, a nearly impossible feat.

President Clinton announced Friday that he will convene the two leaders for these so-called final-status talks at an unspecified date. Arafat has threatened in the past to declare an independent Palestinian state on May 4 if the issues are not resolved by the deadline.

“I don’t see any likelihood that the Netanyahu government and the Palestinian government under Arafat can hold constructive negotiations on final status,” said Joseph Alpher, head of the Jeruslaem office of the American Jewish Committee.

“When the smoke clears, we’ll have deadlocked final-status talks, which bring us back to the really big problem, and that’s May 4. . . . In different circumstances, this [interim agreement] could have been a confidence-building measure. In these circumstances, it’s likely to be exactly the opposite.”

Implementation of the deal agreed upon this week depends on a fortified American role of checking and verifying and on whether extremists of either side can wreck the process.

Both Netanyahu and Arafat face challenges at home over the document they signed. Jewish settlers oppose giving up any land, while Islamic fundamentalists oppose Israel’s presence in the Mideast.

Settlers have threatened to work to topple Netanyahu’s coalition over withdrawal from the West Bank, holding angry demonstrations for the last several days.

“We are not going to give up and sit quiet,” said Benny Kashriel, the mayor of Maale Adumim, a settlement in the West Bank just east of Jerusalem. “Netanyahu told us he would stand strong against American pressure, and he did not.”

Aharon Domb, a settler leader, was even angrier, using language reminiscent of rhetoric used against then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin before his 1995 assassination by a Jewish extremist. “The agreement emerging in Washington is an agreement of betrayal of the ideal and the people who sent Netanyahu to the head of the government,” he told Israel Radio. Domb later softened the word “betrayal” to “surrender.”

For Netanyahu, the political risks seem great, especially with right-wing politicians already planning a no-confidence vote; in fact, his calculation is shrewd and made with an eye on polls that show overwhelming Israeli support for a peace deal.

Arafat, on the other hand, has little choice but to go along with any deal he can get.

Opinion polls show continued support for the Oslo accords among Israelis and Palestinians.

A Gallup Poll conducted as the summit began showed that 82% of Israelis favored a peace deal, with the majority, 57%, willing to cede 13% of the West Bank to Palestinian control.

The prime minister’s own polling convinced him that, armed with a peace deal, he could go to new elections confident of victory, his aides said. And leaders of the opposition Labor Party, which signed the original Oslo peace accords under Rabin, have pledged their support, at least in the short term.

The stiffest and most vocal opposition is already coming from religious nationalists and the right. Netanyahu took steps to appease them, first by recruiting hawkish hard-liner Ariel Sharon as new foreign minister and chief negotiator. Second, at a crucial juncture in the talks, he dramatically threatened to pull out of the summit, showing he could be tough before both the Palestinians and the U.S. mediators. The ultimatum was carefully timed to make evening news broadcasts in Israel.

And finally, he could point to his having secured a promise from Clinton to review the case of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard, an American whose espionage on behalf of the Israeli government transformed him into a cause celebre within the Israeli right.

As for his gains, Arafat can show a couple of additional building blocks of the state he hopes to create and an apparently enhanced relationship with Washington.

The most emotional demand for the Palestinians was the release of more than 3,000 prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Under the new agreement, 750 prisoners will be freed gradually.

Israeli officials said Friday that this will not include any Palestinian accused of killing an Israeli.

The Palestinians will be allowed to open an airport that has stood ready but empty for months, and two routes of safe passage will be established that will allow Palestinians to drive between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

As members of the Islamic Jihad protested Friday in Gaza, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, spiritual founder of the fast-growing Hamas movement, attacked Arafat’s deal.

“Any agreement that does not put an end to the occupation and give the Palestinians back their rights and independence is worthless,” Yassin said. “Hamas will continue in its holy war. It will continue to lead the struggle until the liberation of Palestine.”

Among ordinary Israelis and Palestinians, glimmers of hope mixed with skepticism.

“To get something is better than nothing,” said Abbas Nimr, a Muslim cleric living in the West Bank city of Ramallah. “A little water is better for a thirsty person than no water.”

“Better an agreement full of holes,” said Yossi Sarid, an Israeli opposition Knesset member, “than one big black hole.”

* ISRAEL’S PLEA FOR POLLARD: Netanyahu’s attempt to link spy’s release to Mideast peace deal elicits strong feelings. A9

* ACCORD SCORECARD: Both sides made vows under past interim agreements. Some were kept, others weren’t. A6