Israel Halts Peace Effort After Censure by Arabs

Charging that Israel has “turned the peace process into a war process,” Arab leaders Sunday demanded that a U.N. war crimes tribunal try Israelis responsible for bloodshed that has claimed dozens of Palestinian lives, and they formally ended economic cooperation with the Jewish state.

The carefully crafted final declaration of the two-day emergency summit here of the Arab League stopped short, however, of severing all diplomatic relations with Israel.

In Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak reacted by suspending Israeli participation in the 7-year-old peace process, saying a “timeout” is necessary to decide whether negotiations can be salvaged. Barak’s announcement formalized the widely recognized reality that a pursuit once filled with hope is now all but dead.

Reacting to the announcement when he arrived home in the Gaza Strip, Arafat said, “Let him go to hell.”

Late Sunday, in the fiercest fighting yet in the Jerusalem area, Israeli tanks and helicopter gunships blasted the Palestinian town of Beit Jala after homes in a nearby Jewish neighborhood came under fire. Buildings in Beit Jala, near Bethlehem, were heavily damaged, and several injuries were reported.

The Arab League’s eight-page document, signed by 21 of 22 members, put the blame squarely on Israel for “barbaric” acts that have killed more than 120 people in the Palestinian-controlled West Bank and Gaza in the last three weeks.

It also called on the U.N. to “form a special international criminal court to try Israeli war criminals who committed the massacres against the Palestinians and Arabs . . . along the lines of the court formed by the assembly for war criminals in Rwanda and Yugoslavia.”

Libya did not sign, having walked out of the meeting Saturday, convinced that the final communique would be too soft. And Palestinian extremist groups that have been targeting Israeli forces condemned the final resolution, as did disappointed Palestinian protesters who have borne the brunt of the continuing violence.

In a Cabinet meeting Sunday, Barak praised the moderate role played by the Arab summit’s host, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. But later he told reporters, “Israel totally rejects the language of threats that came out of the summit and condemns the call, folded into the decisions, for continued violence.”

Over the objections of his closest allies, Barak informed his Cabinet that he was ordering a timeout “whose purpose is to reassess the peace process” that began with landmark accords in Oslo in 1993 and led to the creation of Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority in Gaza and parts of the West Bank.

The Israeli government has been furious at the Palestinian uprising that erupted Sept. 28 and has charged that Arafat is no longer a “partner” for peace. An aide to Barak said it is unlikely that senior Israeli and Palestinian negotiators will have contact in the foreseeable future.

The Arab reaction to Barak’s decision was swift and blunt.

“If they want a timeout, OK, we’ll take one too,” a visibly angered Amr Moussa, Egypt’s foreign minister, told a news conference after the summit. “We have witnessed not only the deterioration but the destruction of the peace process, and we saw the atrocities committed in the occupied territories.

“We mean business,” Moussa added. “Israel is not going to call the shots in the region.”

In the Arab leaders’ attempts to balance their stance yet seize the initiative after more than 110 Palestinian and Arab-Israeli deaths that have filled their cities with angry demonstrations, their declaration hinted at a graduated and escalating response if Israel maintains its aggressive posture in the Palestinian territories. Four more Palestinians were killed Sunday, and heavy exchanges of gunfire were reported late in the day on the southern outskirts of Jerusalem.

Apparently hoping that their final communique would compensate with words and money for what it appeared to lack in deeds, the group announced the creation of $1 billion in funding for families of the most recent Palestinian victims and for Palestinian projects that will protect Jerusalem’s Arab identity and promote Palestinian independence. Saudi Arabia pledged $250 million, and the communique called on all Arabs to give one day’s pay to make up the rest.

Beyond ordering a halt to Arab economic collaboration with Israel, the communique called on Arab nations to “reconsider” all of their ties with Israel.

Jordan and Egypt, which have signed peace treaties with Israel, maintain full diplomatic relations with their neighbor. Both nations have been effective negotiators and brokers during the peace effort, and Mubarak again played a key moderating role amid the rancor and calls for holy war that punctuated the weekend summit, which he had called in hopes of ending the violence. The final communique, in fact, restated the Arab commitment to the process of seeking a “just and comprehensive peace.”

But Mubarak and Jordan’s young King Abdullah II both face potentially potent fundamentalist Islamic forces at home. Egypt only recently put down a violent insurgent movement, and a large percentage of Jordan’s population is made up of Palestinian refugees.

Sunday’s communique seemed likely to increase the pressure on both leaders.

Within hours of the summit signing ceremony, militant Palestinian groups throughout the region predictably lashed out. Several radical Syrian-based factions vowed that the Palestinian uprising will continue, specifically citing the summit’s failure to break diplomatic ties with Israel.

The conclusion of many Palestinians was that the Arab leaders, by stopping short of fulfilling popular demands, were inviting an even more aggressive stance by Israel.

“We wanted decisions that can stop Israel, and we don’t want ink on paper and words in the air,” said 18-year-old Fayez Sabri, a university student on his way home from a violent demonstration in Gaza. “They should have sent us weapons. We don’t want their money. We need weapons and men.”

Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian spokeswoman, rebuked the summit leaders for issuing what she said was a “whimper and not a bang.”

There was bitter dissent within the Israeli camp Sunday after Barak, who has been under intense U.S. pressure not to unilaterally freeze the peace talks, announced his “timeout” decision.

Although the move appeared to clear the way for the politically beleaguered Israeli leader to bring hard-line hawks into a new “emergency government,” Barak acted against the vehement protests of much of what is left of his Cabinet. Forming a government with right-wing opposition leader Ariel Sharon may be the only way Barak has to stay in power after losing his parliamentary majority.

“It is a mistake to announce that Israel is stopping the political dialogue,” said Cabinet member and senior peace negotiator Amnon Lipkin-Shahak.

Yossi Sarid, Barak’s former education minister and head of the leftist Meretz Party, said a timeout in peace is like a timeout from breathing.

“The Arab summit said horrible things about Israel,” Sarid concluded. “But most of the speakers were wise enough or cunning enough to stress that their commitment to the peace process continued. So we, of all people, should be the ones to bid farewell to the peace process until further notice?”

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Fineman reported from Cairo and Wilkinson from Jerusalem.