Clinton Trip Puts Arafat, Barak Under Pressure

With President Clinton’s planned departure in effect setting a midweek deadline, U.S., Israeli and Palestinian negotiators tried Sunday to refine their earlier talks into a peace agreement acceptable to both of the adversaries.

In a role reversal, Palestinian sources expressed optimism, while Israeli officials said a breakthrough seemed well out of reach. When the summit began Tuesday, Israel took by far the more upbeat tone.

Clinton expressed guarded optimism in an interview with the New York Daily News that focused primarily on the senatorial campaign of his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Late Sunday, White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart relayed to reporters the president’s answers about the summit: “I’m more optimistic than I was when they got here. . . . We might make it. I don’t know. God, it is hard. . . . But I would be totally misleading if I said I had an inkling that a deal is at hand. That’s just not true. But we’re slogging.”

Earlier, Lockhart repeated Clinton’s determination to leave Wednesday morning for a summit in Japan of the world’s leading industrial nations plus Russia, the so-called Group of 8. That in essence fixes a Tuesday night deadline for completion of the Israeli-Palestinian summit.

“When the president goes to Japan, you will have an assessment of what happened at the talks,” Lockhart said. Asked if progress was enough to ensure an agreement by Tuesday night, Lockhart said, “Ask me Tuesday.”

But he asserted that the president’s scheduled departure is having an impact on the talks.

“I think everyone understands the calendar,” Lockhart said. “Everybody understands what the issues are and what the schedule is. So I think they understand that an intense effort is needed.”

Lockhart brushed aside suggestions that Clinton might change his travel plans. If Tuesday night comes without agreement, however, there are only a few possibilities: Clinton could change his mind and stay, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat could continue negotiating without him, or the talks could break down. Analysts have said a breakdown could lead to renewed violence in the volatile Middle East.

Premier’s Phone Calls Reportedly Downbeat

But while the U.S. delegation continued its determined refusal to discuss the substance of the talks, Barak telephoned an apparently pessimistic assessment to officials of his government in Israel. At the same time, a Palestinian source who declined to be identified told reporters in Thurmont, “Progress has been made.”

However, Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy, who spoke by telephone with Barak, told reporters Sunday in Jerusalem that little progress had been made.

“The situation there is far from being easy or indicative of narrowing the gaps,” Levy said. “Our proposals in the various channels do not satisfy the other side. . . . If the Palestinians fail to understand that they too have to compromise, an agreement will be less likely. It is no easy matter. We are talking about the future of Israeli society and the state of Israel.”

Levy refused to accompany Barak to Camp David, in protest of what he considered the prime minister’s willingness to compromise with the Palestinians without getting enough in return.

Tommy Lapid, a member of parliament, also received a briefing call from Barak. He said Sunday that he was not at liberty to discuss it but, when pressed, said Barak did not seem optimistic.

Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, an architect of the landmark 1993 Oslo accords--the first interim peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians--told Israel’s Army Radio that the talks were at a crossroads.

“It is hard at this point to give some kind of impression of optimism more than yesterday or the day before yesterday, because there has not been a breakthrough,” Beilin said.

In Los Angeles, Rabbi Michael Melchior, minister for diaspora affairs in Barak’s Cabinet, said he had been told that the summit delegates had not yet started to deal with “the real tough issues.”

Melchior, who has spoken regularly with members of the Camp David delegation, said that when Barak and Arafat tackle the toughest issues, a crisis at the talks is almost certain.

There appeared to be some elements of end-game maneuvering in the assessments of the Israeli and Palestinian sides. During all previous Middle East summits, there were threats of walkouts just before an agreement was reached.

Lockhart brushed off Levy’s assessment.

“I’m not going to get into handicapping the comments of those who aren’t here,” he said. “They are free to make them. . . . But their existential meaning on these talks is debatable.”

Lockhart said Clinton met Sunday with Israeli and Palestinian negotiators. Later, he met separately with Arafat.

When he called the summit, Clinton said that only Barak and Arafat could break a deadlock between lower-level negotiators who had been debating the issues for months. But at the summit, those negotiators have talked to each other far more often than have Barak and Arafat. So far, there have been only two meetings of Clinton, Barak and Arafat, and one meeting of Barak and Arafat without Clinton.

Asked why Clinton seemed to be spending more time with the negotiators than with Barak and Arafat, Lockhart said, “We believe that what has to be done to get the agreement has to be done at various levels.”

Senate Leader Says Some Funding Likely

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said that Congress probably will agree to appropriate money to seal the deal but that lawmakers are unlikely to approve funds to resettle Palestinian refugees. Israel is seeking substantial contributions from the United States and other industrialized countries to compensate about 3 million Palestinian refugees if they abandon their claims to return to their former homes in Israel.

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Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

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OPPOSITION AT HOME

Tens of thousands of protesters in Tel Aviv demanded that Barak quit the summit. A8