Barak Suspends Peace Talks Until After Election

The once-promising era of Middle East peacemaking under the auspices of Ehud Barak’s current government came to a formal end Sunday night when Israel’s caretaker prime minister suspended diplomatic contacts with the Palestinians.

Barak halted contacts until after next week’s election in Israel--a vote that all polls suggest Barak will lose to right-wing hawk Ariel Sharon. Sharon has rejected offering significant concessions to make peace with the Palestinians, who have in turn predicted regionwide disaster if he comes to power.

Barak’s decision, announced in a statement from his office, came after a week of intensive talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in the Egyptian resort of Taba failed to produce an agreement. Although the two sides claimed to be “closer than ever” to a comprehensive settlement when the talks ended Saturday night, no substantive breakthroughs were reported. Sharon denounced the Taba talks as an election ploy.

In brief remarks to Israeli television Sunday night, Barak said he realized that “the chances are low” for an agreement. “I have to focus on elections now,” he said.

Suspending diplomatic contacts with the Palestinians also scotches a proposed last-ditch summit between Barak and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, which the United Nations and European Union had hoped to organize for early this week in Sweden.

Barak’s advisors, along with a number of Israeli political commentators, had cautioned against further contact with Arafat, saying it would cause only more damage to Barak’s already dismal reelection prospects.

Barak “needs a miracle,” commentator Shalom Yerushalmi wrote in Sunday’s Maariv newspaper. “Even the planned summit with Arafat will not help him. Arafat played a big part in Barak’s downfall, and he’s the last person who’s going to throw him a lifeline.”

Indeed, Arafat seemed to underscore this by delivering a scorching commentary Sunday at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. he accused Barak’s government of “waging . . . for the past four months a savage and barbaric war, as well as a blatant and fascist military aggression, against our Palestinian people.”

Arafat spoke to an audience that included U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and he shared the stage with former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who seemed stunned by the Palestinian leader’s hostile tone and who was much more conciliatory in his own remarks.

Barak’s spokesman, Gadi Baltiansky, said Barak suspended contacts with Arafat because of the “logic” of the election being just a week away, but at the same time, he said, “Arafat’s speech didn’t help.”

Speaking earlier in the day to his Cabinet, Barak said the Taba talks were significant because Palestinians for the first time agreed to blocs of Jewish settlement in the West Bank--though the two sides continue to disagree on how many settlers should be allowed to remain. The outlines of a final agreement, Barak said, “are waiting just outside the door.”

None of this seems to be helping Barak. Sharon is so confident of winning the Feb. 6 election that his team of advisors Sunday turned its attention to what would be his government’s first moves.

Hoping to allay international concerns about his bellicose past, the 72-year-old architect of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon insisted that he would form a unity government with Barak’s Labor Party within hours of his victory.

Israeli analysts said Sharon is promising to include other parties in his government as a way to dilute the bad publicity he has received after comments from some of his more extreme allies. Sharon’s aides are worried that moderate voters will be scared away.

Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the Israel With Immigration Party of Russian emigres and a staunch supporter of Sharon, said last week that Palestinian attacks should be countered by the bombing of Iran and Egypt. (Egypt is one of only two Arab countries that have peace treaties with Israel.)

Despite the freezing of Israeli-Palestinian diplomatic contacts, negotiations on specific security-related issues and on how to halt ongoing violence will continue, Barak’s office said.