Clinton Says Peace Pact Unlikely on His Watch

After a week of last-ditch talks with Palestinian and Israeli leaders, President Clinton said Sunday that he will push for peace until his last moment in office, but he signaled that he does not expect an agreement before his term ends, in less than two weeks.

Presenting for the first time in public his plan for a comprehensive agreement, Clinton noted that though leaders of both sides have accepted the basic framework, their remaining reservations make it unlikely that he will achieve his long-sought goal of bringing peace to the Middle East.

Instead, he said, “I am using my remaining time in office to narrow the differences between the parties to the greatest degree possible.”

Clinton capped a 90-minute speech here Sunday evening with a promise and a plea.

“Your land is also their land, it is the homeland of two peoples, and therefore there is no choice but to create two states and to make the best of it,” he said at a black-tie dinner given by the Israel Policy Forum, a nonpartisan group that promotes peace in the Middle East. “If it happens today, it will be better than if it happens tomorrow, because fewer people will die.”

To demonstrate his commitment to working for a resolution until his term ends Jan. 20, Clinton announced that he will send chief peace negotiator Dennis B. Ross back to the Middle East on Tuesday to urge Israeli and Palestinian leaders to move the peace process forward. Ross’ mandate is to bring an end to the violent clashes in which more than 350 people have been killed in the last three months and to explore any possibilities for a final peace pact.

After an Israeli envoy and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat met separately with Clinton at the White House last week, both Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak gave conditional assent to the outlines of the president’s peace plan. But as the deadline draws nearer, both sides seem to be pulling back, stuck on issues on which they say they cannot compromise, with each demanding an end to violence before talks continue.

Key clauses of Clinton’s peace blueprint call for the Palestinians to give up the right of millions of refugees and their descendants to return to former homes inside Israel in exchange for sovereignty over parts of Jerusalem. Arafat has said that the “right of return” is the one issue he cannot budge on, and Arab leaders reemphasized their resistance after Arafat returned to the region from his discussions Tuesday with Clinton.

Barak, in turn, rejected Clinton’s idea of split-level sovereignty over the holy site in Jerusalem’s Old City called the Temple Mount, or Haram al Sharif, as it is known to Muslims. On Sunday, Clinton did not offer any details of his proposals for the contested sacred compound--a sign that they may have to evolve. Under the original plan, Israel would keep the underground area, believed to hold the remains of the First and Second temples of the ancient Jews, as well as the adjacent Western Wall; the Palestinians would acquire sovereignty on top, where the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa mosque sit.

If diplomacy’s Holy Grail--peace in the Middle East--eludes Clinton as it has so many others who have sought it, he hopes to at least be the author of a map for future leaders to use in searching for it. While insisting that his plan is not a formal expression of U.S. policy and that the next administration is under no obligation to follow it, he clearly wants to leave his imprint.

“I believe that the parameters I outlined will serve as the basis for the solution that will come, whenever it comes,” he said Sunday night.

Clinton’s tone, however, was a concession to lowered expectations on all sides for a final peace agreement under his watch.

“I only have 13 days,” he joked. “I’ll do what I can.” But some critics say that even if he could manage a last-minute agreement, it would not outlast the lame duck leaders who made it, Clinton and Barak.

And though Clinton’s team has been giving constant briefings to officials of the incoming administration of George W. Bush, pursuing such a significant foreign policy issue so close to the transition could still pose problems for the Bush team--however the effort turns out.

Failure could intensify and spread the Israeli-Palestinian violence in the region, making it more difficult for the new Cabinet to address. But success could require Bush to embrace a controversial proposal containing elements that the incoming president may not like--for example, a U.S.-led international military force to monitor the implementation of the pact.

Republicans say that they would have to very carefully examine any agreement.

Lawrence S. Eagleburger, the secretary of State under former President Bush, told CNN: “If they reach an agreement now, I think it will be a flawed agreement and not one that can stand the test of time.”

In Israel, Barak is gambling that Israelis will back him and his peace efforts in a Feb. 6 vote in which he is seeking reelection, rather than back his right-wing archrival, Ariel Sharon. But it looks, increasingly, as if that is a gamble he will lose. Though polls show that a majority of voters support the concept of a peace accord, a Gallup Poll published Friday showed that Sharon is leading Barak and would garner 50% of the vote to Barak’s 22% if the election were held immediately.

And Sharon, a hawk who refuses even to shake Arafat’s hand, has said that if he wins the election he will not abide by any agreement made by Barak.

If Sharon wins, the fragile peace rests in the hands of the man who is blamed for reviving the violence that has claimed so many lives since he made a controversial visit to the Temple Mount on Sept. 28. He does, though, have his own peace plan. He supports nonbelligerency, he says, and has expectations for peace, but without a timetable.

In the meantime, the first step will be to quell the violence that has undermined any attempts at long-term peace. On Sunday, CIA Director George J. Tenet met in Cairo with Egyptian, Israeli and Palestinian security representatives to discuss ways to “diminish the level of violence.”

Having long contended that Arafat can turn the violence on or off, Israeli officials implicated his movement Sunday in the Dec. 28 bombing of a bus in Tel Aviv in which 14 people were injured.

Israeli radio, quoting a senior security official, said the bomber, now under arrest, was Abdallah abu Jaber, 25, a Jordanian-born Palestinian who worked as a night watchman at a restaurant near Tel Aviv and was recruited by Palestinian military intelligence in the West Bank. The radio said he boarded the bus, put down a duffel bag containing two pipe bombs, disembarked and detonated them by cellular phone. The head of Palestinian military intelligence, Moussa Arafat, called the report an Israeli fabrication.

On Sunday, the Israeli army moved several security checkpoints deeper into the West Bank to buffer Israeli settlements from Palestinian shooting attacks.

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Times staff writers Richard Boudreaux in Jerusalem and Robert A. Rosenblatt aboard Air Force One contributed to this report.

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* ISRAELI POLICE FAULTED

A Jewish-Arab report says Israeli police were unjustified in killing nine Arabs last fall, A6