Proposal Offers a Slim Hope of Way Out

If there is a chance to pull Israelis and Palestinians out of their downward spiral of violence, it lies in the road map outlined by the international commission headed by former U.S. Sen. George J. Mitchell and strongly endorsed Monday by the Bush administration.

But in the caldron of hatred that is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict today, few see much hope of success in the commission’s coolheaded prescription for ending the fighting and returning to negotiations.

Much depends on how aggressively the U.S. administration plunges into the daunting task of turning the report’s recommendations into the “framework and timeline” that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said he wants to develop, analysts here said.

Locked in an escalating cycle of attacks and counterattacks, Israelis and Palestinians are unlikely to achieve the “immediate cease-fire” that the commission and the administration call for so passionately, let alone find a way back to negotiations.

One of the toughest tasks is rebuilding the trust shattered by eight months of bloody fighting.

Israelis no longer believe that the Palestinian Authority is interested in making peace. More and more Palestinian officials are convinced that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon intends to oust the Palestinian Authority and perhaps even reoccupy land handed over under terms of the 1993 Oslo accords.

Israel Radio reported Monday that the Jewish state’s security establishment is prepared for the possibility that the Palestinian Authority may collapse and that its president, Yasser Arafat, may return to exile in Tunisia. Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Dalia Rabin-Pelossof said some members of the defense establishment view such a possibility as “better for Israel” than Arafat’s continued presence here, because the younger generation of Palestinian leaders is regarded as more pragmatic.

In such an environment, the Mitchell report offers a slim hope for both sides to find a way out before they cross the point of no return.

Yossi Sarid, leader of the left-wing opposition in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, painted the choice now facing Israelis and Palestinians in stark terms when he endorsed the Mitchell report Monday.

The opposition’s duty is “to keep urging the government to return to the road of sanity, which necessarily leads back to the negotiating table, which should now be called the Mitchell table,” Sarid said. “It seems to me that today, tomorrow or the next few days will give us the last opportunity before the region escalates toward war.”

The commission’s report calls for an immediate cease-fire, followed by a cooling-off period during which both sides would implement confidence-building measures that would lead them back to peace talks.

The Palestinian Authority accepted the report days before its formal unveiling, provided that Israel also accepted all of it.

Israel rejected what Palestinians view as the report’s central element: a freeze on construction within existing Jewish settlements. It also objected to the report’s criticism of the harsh measures Israeli troops have used against Palestinians.

But the government praised the report as positive overall, because it emphasizes the need for the Palestinians to combat terrorism and rejects the Palestinian call for an international peacekeeping force in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

“Our purpose is to talk, not to shoot,” Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told reporters Monday in Moscow, where he met with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin. “We don’t think that the conflict can be stopped by bullets. There is now a very good occasion to restart peace negotiations with the Mitchell document.”

Still, the myriad obstacles that lie between the commission’s recommendations and a return to the negotiating table seem likely to be removed only with a sustained effort by the Bush administration, an effort with no guarantee of success.

“This is going to be a dicey business no matter who goes into it, no matter how much clout they have, no matter how good their ideas are,” said Joseph Alpher, a veteran strategic analyst and advisor to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak on the peace process. “It comes down to just how ready the administration is to dirty its hands in the Middle East.”

If the administration becomes deeply involved, it will quickly run into confrontations with both sides.

It will have to pressure Arafat to rein in gunmen and round up Islamic militants who are bent on carrying out attacks inside Israel. Such moves, if not explicitly linked to a settlement freeze, could cost Arafat the support of a grieving and enraged public that wants some tangible benefit for the suffering it has endured.

The U.S. also will have to pressure Sharon to agree to some sort of freeze on settlement construction, Alpher said. Such a move is both contrary to Sharon’s nationalist ideology and politically risky for him.

In a poll published Monday by the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot, 61% of Israelis surveyed said they would support a freeze in return for a halt to Palestinian violence. But the right-wing parties that are the backbone of Sharon’s coalition say they will quit the government if he yields to the U.S. pressure.

Although Sharon and Peres have said that Israel is not building new settlements, the Israeli organization Peace Now recently published figures showing that 15 new “settlement outposts” have been built in the West Bank since the Israeli elections in February.

The government says it considers those to be part of the “natural increase” in settlements, arguing that they have been established within the boundaries of existing settlements. But Palestinians see them as evidence that Israel will never give back more than the 40% of the occupied territories now in Palestinian hands.

Given the difficulties, some Israeli analysts are skeptical that the Bush administration will follow up its endorsement of the Mitchell report with strong diplomatic action.

“Contrary to rumors, wishes and schemes, the Bush administration prefers to remain on the sidelines,” columnist Nahum Barnea wrote in Yediot Aharonot. “The assumption there is that there is no foundation at present upon which to build negotiations. Sharon won’t blink, and Arafat won’t blink. Only a huge, awful catastrophe with lots of casualties may provide a platform for the resumption of the process.”

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Details of the Report

Key recommendations made by an international commission led by former Sen. George J. Mitchell (D-Maine):

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Jewish Settlements

The report calls on Israel to “freeze all settlement activity,” including the “natural growth” of existing settlements. It recommends that Israel consider whether existing settlements are “valuable bargaining chips for future negotiations or provocations likely to preclude the onset of productive talks.”

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Terrorism

The report calls on the Palestinian Authority to “make clear through concrete action to Palestinians and Israelis alike that terrorism is reprehensible, and unacceptable, and that the Palestinian Authority will make a 100% effort to prevent terrorism and to punish perpetrators. This effort should include immediate steps to apprehend and incarcerate terrorists operating within the Palestinian Authority’s jurisdiction.”

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Israeli Military Tactics

The report calls on the Israeli army to: consider withdrawing to positions held before Sept. 28, 2000; adopt and enforce policies and procedures encouraging nonlethal responses to unarmed demonstrators; abandon the blanket characterization of the current uprising as an armed conflict short of war; and reinstitute military police investigations into Palestinian deaths resulting from Israeli army actions.

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Palestinian Military Tactics

The report calls on the Palestinians to “prevent gunmen from using Palestinian populated areas to fire upon” Israelis. The Palestinian Authority should “establish a clear and unchallenged chain of command for armed personnel operating under its authority” and institute and enforce standards of conduct and accountability within its ranks. It also calls on the Palestinians to renew security cooperation with Israel.

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Economic Impact

The report calls on Israel to lift closures of Palestinian areas and transfer tax revenue owed to the Palestinians. Israeli security forces and civilians should refrain from the “destruction of homes and roads, as well as trees and other agricultural property in Palestinian areas.” The report acknowledges Israel’s view that such actions have been taken for security reasons.