Sharon, Arafat Envoys Meet Secretly as Election Nears

Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon, who has repeatedly criticized the government for negotiating with the Palestinians at a time of bloodshed, has reached out to Yasser Arafat, dispatching his son and a lawyer to a secret meeting Thursday in Vienna with the Palestinian leader’s money man.

Responding to persistent news reports, Sharon, the front-runner in Israel’s upcoming election for prime minister, confirmed that the Vienna meeting had taken place and said the Palestinians had requested it. The Palestinians insisted that Sharon had requested it.

Israeli-Palestinian peace talks resumed Thursday, only to be jarred by the slaying of the third Israeli in as many days. Caretaker Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak told an audience in Tel Aviv that there is little likelihood of a deal before the Feb. 6 election.

Sharon, whose campaign has been based on trying to soften his hawkish image, insisted that the Vienna meeting constituted “contacts,” not “negotiations.”

“They wanted to learn my positions,” Sharon said. “I do not negotiate under fire, as the Barak government is doing.”

Barak’s supporters attacked Sharon for what they called the height of hypocrisy, noting that the hard-liner was clearly trying to counter his image as someone capable only of waging war with the Arab enemy.

“Morally, this is very bothersome,” Barak said during a campaign appearance in Tel Aviv. “Going to discuss business in a foreign country without telling anyone. . . . I believe this is not done.”

Less than two weeks before the election, Barak trails Sharon by as many as 18 percentage points, according to polls released Thursday.

The meeting was facilitated by an Austrian firm that owns a luxurious casino in Palestinian-controlled Jericho, Israeli television reported, sparking speculation that the talks focused at least partly on potential business ventures. The casino was turning an enormous profit until the outbreak of fighting in the West Bank in late September forced it to close.

Participants, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials, included Sharon’s son Omri, his personal attorney, Dov Weisglas, and Eitan Bentsur, a former director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry who was dismissed by Barak. The Palestinian side was represented by Mohammed Rashid, Arafat’s financial advisor, who controls the millions of dollars that flow in and out of Palestinian Authority coffers.

Bentsur told reporters that the talks focused on “diplomatic issues” and not on the casino, while a Palestinian spokesman said the participants discussed financial matters, trade and the election.

In the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Taba, Barak’s envoys resumed talks with the Palestinians on Thursday afternoon in a last-ditch attempt to reach a peace agreement before the Israeli election.

The negotiations picked up again after a two-day suspension called by Israel to protest Tuesday’s killing of two Israeli restaurateurs who were visiting the West Bank town of Tulkarm. About four hours after Israeli and Palestinian negotiators formally sat down together again, an Israeli motorist was shot and killed as he drove on the northern edge of Jerusalem.

The Israeli negotiators broke up the meeting, telephoned Barak and then returned. Barak condemned the new killing as “despicable” but said peace talks had to continue. Progress was reported on the drawing of final borders and the contentious issue of Palestinian refugees.

Israeli authorities said the motorist was ambushed Thursday evening by suspected Palestinian gunmen firing from the Atarot industrial park, next to the main road leading from Jerusalem to the West Bank city of Ramallah. Atarot lies within the expanded boundaries of Jerusalem, which includes land Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East War and annexed shortly afterward. The Kalandia refugee camp is nearby.

Earlier Thursday, the two restaurateurs were buried in an emotional funeral attended by hundreds of the men’s friends and family. The victims co-owned the Yuppies sushi bar on Tel Aviv’s trendy, bohemian Sheinkin Street. They were killed by Palestinian gunmen in an act of revenge that shocked a community that until now had felt immune to the violence raging in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Mordechai Dayan, 27, and Etgar Zeituni, 34, had traveled against government warnings to Tulkarm with an Israeli Arab friend in search of a good deal on clay flowerpots. They stopped for lunch at the Abu Nidal restaurant, and as they were leaving, they were confronted by three or four gunmen who demanded to see their IDs.

Both men’s bullet-riddled bodies were found on the edge of town.

The Sheinkin Street section of Tel Aviv is considered a bastion of leftist, pro-peace sympathizers. Many of the slain men’s friends were reexamining their thinking and especially their nonchalance at the Palestinian uprising that has claimed about 375 lives in nearly four months.

Fuaz abu Hussein, the Israeli Arab friend of the two men, was held for questioning by Israeli authorities to determine whether he was involved in the killing. He was later cleared and freed and told reporters that he had tried to save his friends.

“Motti [Mordechai] and Etgar got up and went to pay and began to leave the restaurant,” said Hussein, his eyes puffy and red from crying. “And then suddenly, they were surrounded by masked men. . . .

“I realized that these were not policemen and asked them to leave them alone because I was their friend,” he said. “I started to talk to them and to beg, but they did not agree. I said, ‘Don’t kill my friends.’ I tried to struggle with them, and then they shot a bullet in my direction . . . and they left.”

Palestinian police said they arrested four members of Arafat’s Fatah movement as suspects in the killings. A cousin of Thabet Thabet, a senior Fatah activist assassinated by Israeli forces Dec. 31, was among the suspects.

In the Gaza Strip, meanwhile, Palestinians buried two men who were killed in an overnight battle between Palestinian gunmen and Israeli troops.