Clinton, Barak Discuss Stymied Peace Process

With the peace process deadlocked and the Arab-Israeli mood growing increasingly sour, President Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak met at the White House on Tuesday to discuss ways to rejuvenate talks that hold the key to Barak’s political future and to Clinton’s peacemaking legacy.

Barak and his aides made the 11,700-mile round trip from Tel Aviv to Washington for an 18-hour visit, a hectic schedule that dramatized growing anxiety over the impasse in Israel’s negotiations with the Palestinians and with Syria.

The White House meeting also came at a time of unusual tension in U.S.-Israeli relations over the Barak government’s decision to sell a sophisticated airborne radar system to China, a move the United States complains would greatly enhance Beijing’s offensive capability.

Barak, who usually manages to squeeze in meetings with friendly legislators, Jewish leaders and other allies during his frequent trips to the United States, had time only for his talks with Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and National Security Advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger this time. He is scheduled to meet in Jerusalem today with Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

While Clinton and Barak huddled at the White House, senior Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met at nearby Bolling Air Force Base as they have been, off and on, for almost a month. The Bolling talks are meant to lay the groundwork for a summit by Clinton, Barak and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to approve a final peace treaty.

Although Israeli and U.S. officials have been reluctant to discuss the Bolling talks, Arafat and his aides insist that there has been no progress. In a remarkable outburst Sunday, Arafat said Barak is “much worse” than his hard-line predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, at negotiating peace.

About the same time, Barak was briefing his Cabinet on plans for a Palestinian entity much more favorable to Arafat’s aspirations than anything Netanyahu ever contemplated. The Maariv newspaper said Barak is willing to accept a Palestinian state on 60% of the West Bank, including some Arab villages on the outskirts of Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority now has full or partial control of 40% of the West Bank.

But even if Arafat’s assessment was hyperbole, it demonstrated the growing animosity between the two leaders.

An aide to Barak told reporters Tuesday: “These expressions are unnecessary and do not add to the atmosphere that will make the negotiations a success. Prime Minister Barak has already proven his determination to advance the peace process and does not need a seal of approval. Instead of slander, we need a businesslike atmosphere.”

But at least the Israelis and the Palestinians are talking to each other. Israel’s negotiations with Syria broke down in January, and only Syrian President Hafez Assad knows for sure when or if they will resume--and he is not telling.

During summit talks with mediator Clinton last month in Geneva, Assad took such a hard-line position that Clinton, in effect, told him that no deal was possible without a little softening. Assad responded to U.S. concerns last week but, according to State Department officials, did not offer anything that would close the gap between the two sides.

U.S. officials are becoming increasingly frustrated. Some have said privately that they are resigned to a continuing deadlock, although they concede that Assad holds the key to the impasse and can use it any time he wants.

“He’s a stubborn old man who has an ideological attachment to Baathism and his own place in history,” one senior U.S. official said of the Syrian president’s support for pan-Arab nationalism. “He sees himself as the steadfast hero of Arabism.”

In Jerusalem, a Cabinet member considered close to Barak said there is “no point” in talking to the Syrians unless they change course.

Haim Ramon said in a radio interview that the Barak government will allow new houses to be built in Jewish settlements in the Golan Heights, the strategic plateau that Israel captured from Syria during the 1967 Middle East War. Syria demands the return of every inch of the territory as part of a land-for-peace settlement. The Israeli government had observed a de facto freeze on construction in the Golan.

“The negotiations with Syria do not seem to be on the agenda at the moment, and I believe that we should allow natural growth in the Golan to take its course,” Ramon said.

The Israeli Housing Ministry confirmed that it recently broke ground on the infrastructure for 200 new homes in the town of Katzrin, the largest Israeli settlement in the Golan Heights. About 17,000 Jewish settlers live in the Golan.

Meanwhile, Israel is proceeding with plans to pull its remaining forces out of Lebanon by July. Although Israel and the United States have said it would be preferable to conduct the withdrawal in accordance with an Israel-Syria peace agreement, Barak says he will go ahead regardless. Syria, the dominant power broker in Lebanon, has suggested that a unilateral Israeli withdrawal would be destabilizing.

At a news conference with Colombian President Andres Pastrana before her talks with Barak, Albright said Israel has pledged to conduct the withdrawal in conformance with existing U.N. Security Council resolutions.

“It’s kind of strange that countries are criticized for withdrawing from [occupied] territory,” she said.

Israeli political observers say Barak, who has focused on the peace process to the exclusion of almost everything else, must show some progress soon with either the Palestinians or the Syrians if he hopes to keep his government afloat.

Times staff writers Rebecca Trounson in Jerusalem and Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this report.