Amid Rioting in Palestinian Areas, Israel Halts Sweden Peace Talks

Reacting to more than a week of deadly riots in Palestinian territories, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday ordered an abrupt halt to a new and promising round of peace talks being held in Sweden.

Barak recalled the Israeli delegation from Stockholm “in light of the situation in the West Bank and Gaza,” where clashes between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli troops have killed six Palestinians and injured hundreds of people from both sides in the past week and a half. A spokesman for Barak described the break as more of an interruption than a collapse.

Barak’s move, announced in a weekly Cabinet meeting, followed an overnight firebombing attack on an Israeli car in the Palestinian-ruled town of Jericho. A 2-year-old Israeli girl was critically injured. The Israeli military reported a rash of such attacks over the weekend.

The Israeli government responded with an unusual order banning all Israelis and foreign tourists from Palestinian areas, including Bethlehem, a closure meant to hurt a Palestinian economy that relies on visitors for commerce and tourism.

Barak demanded that Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat answer for the violence and put a stop to it. Failure to do so will jeopardize the peace process, Barak warned, just as it enters final-stretch negotiations aimed at a comprehensive settlement.

Coupled with an escalation in fighting in southern Lebanon, the Palestinian unrest forced Barak to cancel a meeting with President Clinton in Washington. Barak also delayed handing over to the Palestinians three Arab villages on the outskirts of Jerusalem, land that Arafat wants but that the Israeli right wing wants to keep.

Sometimes outbreaks of violence here end up serving as a catalyst for progress in the pursuit of peace. But the recent flare-up, marked by some of the fiercest fighting between Israeli and Palestinian forces in years--including rare gun battles--has undoubtedly soured the Israeli public on negotiations and will make it more difficult for Barak to gain support for any treaties he may reach.

“If there were any bridges of trust, understanding or optimism vis-a-vis the relations with the Palestinians,” columnist Roni Shaked wrote in Sunday’s top-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper, “the incidents of the past few days came along and demolished them.”

The turmoil began with demonstrations against Israel’s continued detention of 1,650 Palestinian prisoners--an extremely emotional issue for most Palestinians--and escalated into full-scale rioting.

By Sunday, the clashes seemed to subside, and Arafat’s police blocked some demonstrations, but not before Barak cut short his team’s participation in the “back-channel” talks in Sweden.

The talks began in secret, a rarity in this gossipy region of the world, and quickly generated excitement once word of them leaked in the Israeli press. Barak sent one of his most trusted advisors, attorney Gilead Sher, to represent him, and the speculation here was that the meetings might lead to a breakthrough the way super-secret talks in Oslo in 1993 resulted in the first major Israeli-Palestinian accord.

Barak and Arafat had earlier set Sept. 13 as the target date for reaching a final, comprehensive treaty.

By stopping this channel of talks for now, Barak seemed keen to send a message to Arafat, though the prime minister’s aides were quick to reassure reporters that Barak was not breaking off contacts indefinitely.

“They will go back [to the talks] unless something dramatic happens,” Barak spokesman Gadi Baltiansky said. “There is no decision whatsoever to suspend or freeze the negotiations. Barak wants Arafat to control his people. Hopefully, we will see some tranquillity on the ground.”

Senior Palestinian officials labeled the move an irresponsible action that would cause further deterioration in the atmosphere for talks.

The conventional wisdom has always been that Arafat controlled his people and could turn demonstrations on and off like a light switch. Analysts say Arafat frequently uses contained violence to make a point, to get the Israelis’ attention or to allow frustrated Palestinians an outlet for venting their anger, especially in place of directing their ire at him. There has been some suggestion now, however, that the most extreme demonstrations by armed militants of Arafat’s Fatah movement exploded beyond his intentions.

In southern Lebanon, meanwhile, where Israel has begun withdrawing its troops after more than two decades of occupation, the Islamic Hezbollah guerrilla force said it attacked an Israeli army post near the Golan Heights, not the usual theater of Israel’s war of attrition with Hezbollah. This was seen here as an attempt to draw a disputed border region into the fight to further complicate Israel’s pullout.

Barak has promised that Israel will be out of Lebanon by July 7.