Barak Calls on Clinton to Pressure Arafat

With the bloody cycle of violence in the Middle East continuing unabated, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak met with President Clinton at the White House on Sunday evening in an urgent attempt to find an end to the fighting.

Meeting three days after Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat visited Clinton, Barak told the president in a meeting that stretched for more than two hours that if Arafat took steps to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state, Israel could be forced to respond by ensuring that Jewish settlements in occupied territories are incorporated into Israel.

Senior Israeli officials placed the blame for the violence squarely on Arafat’s shoulders and said any hope of jump-starting peace negotiations is in his hands, requiring an end to the Palestinian attacks against Israelis. They said Barak also asked Clinton to consider strengthening Israel’s hand with further transfers of military technology from the U.S.

In brief remarks to reporters afterward, Barak called for a negotiated settlement.

Israel expects other governments and peoples “to make their own judgment about whether a jihad or a negotiated agreement is the right way to solve conflict,” Barak said.

In the meeting, he asked Clinton to pressure Arafat to condemn Palestinian attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians.

But Arafat was defiant at an Islamic summit in Qatar, where Saudi Arabia, considered moderate by the United States, joined in a call on Muslim nations to cut any ties with Israel.

Arafat said the Palestinians “are determined more than ever to continue their jihad and the resistance of the occupation.”

At least 206 people, nearly all Palestinians or Israeli Arabs, have died in the clashes during the last 45 days--leaving in tatters Clinton’s hope for a peace deal on his watch.

Eight Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed Saturday. On Sunday, a Palestinian youth was killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers at the Erez crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Barak nearly canceled the meeting early Sunday, ordering his U.S.-bound plane to turn back toward home as a hijacked Russian airliner headed for a landing in Israel’s southern desert. But when the hostage crisis was resolved peacefully, he resumed his trip to Washington as originally planned, arriving after nightfall.

In the Oval Office meeting, Clinton was joined by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, National Security Advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger and Dennis B. Ross, the mediator who recently announced his departure after 12 years of attempts at Mideast peace. Joining Barak were aides Gilad Sher and Danny Yatom, and David Ivry, the Israeli ambassador to Washington.

As Barak traveled, another day of bloodshed ravaged Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

Two roadside bombs exploded near Jewish settlements in the Gaza area. A radical Palestinian group claimed responsibility for the bombings, part of a tactic that is being used increasingly by Palestinian militants targeting Israeli patrols and settlers. No one was injured in the blasts.

The Jewish area of Gilo, south of Jerusalem, received heavy machine- gun fire in the middle of the day, forcing schoolchildren into basements, the Israeli army said, and Israeli troops fired missiles and machine guns on the nearest Palestinian village, Beit Jala. As it has on numerous such occasions, the army said the attack on Gilo came from Beit Jala.

In the village, at least seven people were injured by the Israeli rocketing, including several Christians who had emerged from Mass at the Holy Mary Greek Orthodox Church and were arriving at the home of the Araj family to offer condolences for a recent death.

“Nobody seems to respect mourners anymore,” scowled Simon Araj, a 45-year-old university professor who was injured in the shoulder, waist and leg, apparently by shrapnel. He and other residents condemned both the Palestinian gunmen who shoot from their neighborhoods to draw Israeli retaliation and the Israelis who respond with what the residents deem excessive force.

Gun battles also were reported Sunday in the West Bank towns of Hebron and Ramallah, and gunfire was reported being directed from the village of El Khader toward passing Israeli motorists. Israeli army commanders again demanded that the Palestinians agree to a cease-fire, while the Palestinians again blamed the Israelis.

The upheaval has left Clinton’s seven-year peace effort in fractured disarray.

Meeting with Clinton in Washington on Thursday, Arafat said afterward that he would consider another Middle East summit only if it were preceded by an accord on Jerusalem and refugees, the very issues that broke up peace talks at Camp David this summer.

And even as Arafat and Clinton met, Israeli forces used helicopter gunships to assassinate a Palestinian militia chief from Arafat’s Fatah organization, killing two middle-age women as well.

The assault might have guaranteed a bloody weekend and changed the rules of engagement for both sides. Israeli generals made clear that more such killings could follow, and indeed two Fatah leaders were killed in rocket attacks Saturday in Ramallah. Israeli officials had said they hoped their new policy of targeting specific Palestinian militia commanders would reduce the clashes.

Thousands of Palestinians crowded a cemetery near Ramallah on Sunday to bury the two who were killed Saturday night. A senior leader of the Fatah movement, Marwan Barghouti, complained of “coldblooded murder” and rallied the mourners to redouble their intifada, or uprising.

An end to the violence any time soon appeared unlikely.

“The situation is one of warfare,” Israeli army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz said Sunday. “The alert is high. The army is prepared for confrontation on a higher level, but we are hoping that it won’t come to that.”

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Schrader reported from Washington and Wilkinson from Jerusalem.