Mideast Leaders Grapple With Proposals

Bomb blasts killed two Israelis and wounded more than a dozen others Thursday, as Palestinian and Israeli leaders struggled with peace proposals put forward by President Clinton that would require painful concessions on both sides.

Caretaker Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak made good on his threat not to attend a planned summit in Egypt with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, opting out after the Palestinians detailed two dozen reservations to Clinton’s plan. Instead, Arafat met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and said he will continue to go over the U.S. proposals with other Arab governments.

In Washington, Clinton bluntly warned Arafat that unless he accepts the “parameters” of his plan, the U.S.-mediated peace process will come to an end--perhaps for years to come.

“There is no point in our talking further unless both sides agree to accept the parameters that I’ve laid out,” Clinton told a White House news conference.

Asked if the steps he outlined in a White House meeting Saturday with Israeli and Palestinian envoys were open to further negotiations, Clinton said: “No. They’re the parameters. The negotiations, in other words, have to occur within them.”

As diplomatic efforts faltered, two pipe bombs exploded on a Tel Aviv bus at midday. News reports said 14 Israelis were wounded in the seaside city, which has been largely untouched by three months of violent unrest that has claimed more than 350 lives, most of them Palestinian.

A few hours after the Tel Aviv blast, a bomb blew up by the side of a road in the southern Gaza Strip, killing two Israelis and injuring two. Few details were immediately available, but police said that one of the Israelis was trying to dismantle the device when it exploded. No organization claimed responsibility for the attacks, but a spokesman for the militant Islamic movement Hamas praised the incidents. Hamas rejects peace negotiations with Israel.

“This reprehensible attack against innocent civilians will not deter us,” Barak said in a statement issued after the Tel Aviv bus bombing. Vowing to hunt down the perpetrators, Barak said the attack “will not dampen our wish for peace and attempts to achieve it and end the conflict between ourselves and the Palestinians.” He later reimposed a military closure in the West Bank and Gaza to keep Palestinians from entering Israel.

In Cairo, Arafat met with Mubarak, who U.S. officials say has expressed support for Clinton’s proposed framework for a final Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. Saudi Arabia, whose moderate regime is a key U.S. ally in the region, also voiced support for Clinton’s proposals for Israel to share sovereignty in Jerusalem with the Palestinians and cede 95% of the West Bank toward a Palestinian state, according to Clinton administration officials.

But Jordan, the only Arab state other than Egypt that is formally at peace with Israel, remained silent. And the governments of Lebanon and Syria--two Arab states still officially at war with Israel that host large populations of Palestinian refugees--have rejected the U.S. effort.

A U.S. official in the region said the administration is applying “a full-court press” on the Palestinians to persuade them to attend a summit with the Israelis in Washington.

“The Palestinians are being told that if they want to talk it to death, fine, but the best way to get clarification is to move forward,” said the U.S. official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the diplomatic situation.

Although President-elect George W. Bush has given no indication of how deeply he would become involved in the negotiations, Clinton suggested Thursday that unless a deal can be reached before he leaves office Jan. 20, there is unlikely to be an agreement soon.

“The last several months have shown us this is not going to get any easier, and prolonging it is only going to make it worse,” Clinton said. “I think that if it can be resolved at all, it can be resolved in the next three weeks.”

The administration and Barak’s government have also warned Arafat that time is running out for him to cut a deal before Israeli elections are held Feb. 6.

Barak is running against Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon, a hawk who has denounced Barak’s willingness to give large chunks of the West Bank to the Palestinians and surrender at least some Israeli control over Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site. The site, known as Haram al Sharif, or “noble sanctuary,” to Muslims, is considered the third-holiest in Islam.

Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, another Likud leader, symbolically moved his office Thursday to a yeshiva overlooking the Western Wall, a remnant of the Second Temple of antiquity that now serves as a massive retaining wall for the Temple Mount compound.

Palestinians have warned that Olmert’s presence there could spark violence, just as Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount on Sept. 28 touched off riots that the Palestinians say triggered the unrest that has roiled the West Bank and Gaza Strip since.

Olmert said his one-week move to the Old City was meant to “emphasize the deep connection of the city of Jerusalem to the Jewish people.” He expressed confidence that Barak will be defeated in upcoming elections and that Sharon will reject any division of sovereignty over the Temple Mount.

Barak’s political prospects do indeed look grim. He trails Sharon in opinion polls, and his hopes of concluding a framework accord with the Palestinians that might persuade voters to give him a second chance are fading.

Barak is being criticized not only by opposition figures but also by members of his own Cabinet for his willingness to accept the U.S. peace proposals. Ministers complained that Barak told them Wednesday that he would never sign a deal that involved surrendering sovereignty over the Temple Mount, which Israel captured from Jordan during the 1967 Middle East War. But his foreign minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami, said Israel is willing to relinquish sovereignty over at least the mosques atop it to secure a peace agreement.

“You can say yes, you can say no, but you can’t say yes and no,” Interior Minister Haim Ramon reportedly told Barak.

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Times staff writer Norman Kempster in Washington contributed to this report.

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U.S. Peace Plan

The main proposals of the U.S.-authored framework for a Mideast peace plan, according to Palestinian and Israeli sources:

* Territory: Palestinians get 95% of the West Bank. For 20 years, Israel rents 3% of that area and 1% of the Gaza Strip. Palestinians gain land just outside Gaza. Israel keeps major Jewish settlements around Jerusalem but gives up about 60 settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. The West Bank is bisected by an Israeli-controlled corridor 6 to 10 miles wide.

* Security: Israeli forces remain in the Jordan Valley for up to six years, controlling the borders; after that, an international force patrols the area.

* Jerusalem: Palestinians gain sovereignty over the Old City’s Al Aqsa mosque compound, the third-holiest shrine in Islam that is known to Jews as the Temple Mount, but Israel controls archeological sites beneath it. Israeli sovereignty over the Western Wall is uncontested. Palestinians gain control of some East Jerusalem neighborhoods.

* Refugees: The biggest sticking point. The Palestinians must relax demands that refugees be allowed to return to what is today Israel. The nearly 4 million Palestinian refugees have the right to settle in the new Palestinian state or stay in refugee camps. Several thousand Palestinians are allowed to live in Israel for family reunification.

Source: Times staff and wire reports