Israel and Palestinians Agree to Send Negotiators to Washington

Despite another day of violence and death, Israel and the Palestinians moved closer to renewed peace talks Sunday as both sides announced that they will dispatch senior-level negotiating teams to Washington.

Israeli and Palestinian representatives will arrive in Washington on Tuesday, spokesmen said, for separate meetings with U.S. officials. Trilateral talks are not yet planned but seem likely.

Efforts to reach a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians collapsed in the wake of last summer’s failed Camp David summit and have been buried by 11 1/2 weeks of deadly clashes that have so far claimed more than 325 lives, about 85% of them Palestinian.

But new urgency has suddenly propelled a flurry of activity: President Clinton is eager to salvage his most important diplomatic endeavor before leaving office Jan. 20, and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak faces an uphill reelection battle in which his only chance for victory is tied to making peace.

Given the heightened levels of hostility, it was significant that the two sides agreed to meet in Washington. Israeli state radio called this the most serious attempt at reviving the peace process since July’s Camp David meetings in Maryland. At the same time, however, no one held out hope that a breakthrough can be achieved easily.

“Both sides are trying to evaluate each other’s ideas and views and ‘red lines,’ ” said an official with the Israeli Foreign Ministry. “But the main idea is we have to move forward.”

The decision to open talks in Washington came even as five Palestinians were killed and as one Israeli was wounded when he was shot in the head while driving near the Jewish settlement of Mevo Dotan in the West Bank. A local leader of the Palestinian Fatah movement was killed in an explosion that Palestinians initially blamed on an Israeli army assassination campaign that has already claimed more than half a dozen targeted victims. But the army said the man, Sameh Malabee, 28, from the Kalandiyeh refugee camp, may have been killed as he attempted to assemble a bomb.

Two other Palestinians were shot to death by Israeli troops near the Gaza Strip’s border with Egypt, and a fourth was killed apparently by other Palestinians who suspected him of collaborating with the Israelis.

The fifth Palestinian death occurred near the West Bank city of Ramallah when an 18-year-old was shot in the head by settlers after he threw rocks at Israelis, the Palestinian news service, WAFA, reported.

Barak, trailing badly in polls before a likely Feb. 6 election, said Sunday that he was hopeful peace talks will resume “at the appropriate time based on a reduction in the level of violence and on goodwill in negotiations and good faith on both sides.”

And Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, who not so long ago was telling Barak to “go to hell,” expressed a willingness to sit down with the Israeli prime minister.

“If it is needed, why not?” Arafat told reporters after a rare meeting with a group of Israeli legislators from three leftist parties. A Barak-Arafat summit with Clinton would come only after significant progress, all sides said.

The Israeli team heading to Washington will be led by Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, who on Sunday hinted at a new flexibility over the control of the sacred corner of Jerusalem’s Old City known as the Temple Mount to Jews and containing the Al Aqsa mosque. This is the issue that decisively doomed the Camp David summit and became the rallying cry of the new Palestinian intifada.

The Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest shrine, is built on the ruins of the biblical temples. Known to Muslims as Haram al Sharif, or “noble sanctuary,” it is currently run by the Palestinian-led Islamic Trust, though Israel claims sovereignty over it.

“We need to find a solution for the Temple Mount that fits with the current situation,” Ben-Ami told Israel’s Army Radio. “More than us being the sovereign power on the Temple Mount, we are hostages there. Palestinians pray there. Jews don’t because Jewish law forbids it.”

He did not elaborate on what concessions might be in play. Barak earlier denied reports in a London-based Arab newspaper that Israel would give up sovereignty over the Temple Mount in exchange for the Palestinians’ agreement to relinquish their demand that refugees be allowed to return to what is today Israel.

Most Israeli Jews adamantly oppose the “right to return” of Palestinian refugees who fled or were forced to abandon their land in Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. The Israelis see such a return as the death of the Jewish state. But the issue is highly emotional for Palestinians, especially in the current intifada, in which so many of the demonstrations originate in Palestinian refugee camps.

Palestinian officials said they are skeptical about Barak’s motives. Many see his overtures as part of a desperate election ploy. And the two sides remain far apart on core issues.

Several Palestinian militant leaders who have been at the forefront of the violent demonstrations, such as West Bank Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, demanded Sunday that Arafat stay away from negotiations with the Israelis.

And Mohammed Dahlan, head of preventive security in Gaza Strip, told the Palestinian newspaper Al Quds on Sunday that the intifada will live on, negotiations or no. Dahlan, who has been both praised and damned by the Israelis, is part of the negotiating team that will go to Washington.

Although the violence has dropped off from its highest level of intensity, no one is predicting that it will end any time soon. Still, senior officials from the two sides resumed contacts in the last several days, leading to this week’s more formal exchange.

And just as Arafat faces internal dissent for renewing talks with the Israelis, Barak has an array of challengers questioning his actions. Even the president of the country, Moshe Katzav, cautioned Barak that as a caretaker prime minister, he has no mandate to enter into a far-reaching peace deal with the Palestinians. Barak resigned Dec. 9 to force a new election.

“I am confident the government understands that it cannot commit itself on behalf of the state on the eve of an election,” Katzav said.

By tradition and practice, the president--who occupies a largely ceremonial post--is supposed to refrain from political statements. But Katzav is also from the opposition Likud Party, whose candidate is expected to unseat Barak in February’s voting.

Just who that candidate is should become clear this week. Israel’s Knesset, or parliament, will vote as early as today either to dissolve itself or amend a law to allow nonmembers of the Knesset to run for prime minister. Both moves are designed to clear the way for former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud to run against Barak.