Arafat, Sharon Answer U.S. Plea

With the U.S. lobbying for a Mideast truce as the world turns to a wider battle, Israel and the Palestinians took significant steps Tuesday toward defusing their yearlong bloody conflict.

Israel ordered a halt to offensive operations against the Palestinians and began withdrawing troops from Palestinian territory. Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat, in announcing he would enforce a cease-fire, ordered his forces to stop shooting--even when they come under attack.

The moves were hailed by diplomats as a potential breakthrough and came in response to urgings from U.S. officials eager to forge an international alliance to wage war on terrorism.

All parties were aware that any cessation of hostilities could collapse; there was profound skepticism on both sides that the bloodshed that has claimed about 800 lives in the past year would stop. Intense shooting in at least three areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip was reported throughout Tuesday night.

However, Israelis and Palestinians have a new impetus for stepping back from the abyss. Numerous cease-fires have been called in the last year, including one brokered by CIA Director George J. Tenet. None stuck. But the political and diplomatic context now, a week after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, is radically changed.

“This can become a turning point,” Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told CNN, adding that he hoped to meet with Arafat soon in what would be their first formal face-to-face negotiations in months. “The world is facing unbelievable danger, and it is time to put aside secondary skirmishes.”

“Because there has been a real American intervention, we now have a big chance” for progress, said Arafat spokesman Yasser Abed-Rabbo.

At the White House, President Bush called the moves “very positive.” Referring to the attacks last week on the United States, he added: “I hope in my heart of hearts that out of this evil comes good.”

If violence subsides for 48 hours following Tuesday’s agreement, a seven-day cooling-off period will begin, according to Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Then a series of political and security steps is set in motion, as outlined in a peacemaking plan by an international panel led by former Sen. George J. Mitchell (D-Maine).

A Desire to Reduce Anti-U.S. Sentiment

The fighting between Israelis and Palestinians has been the principal flame igniting anti-U.S. sentiment throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds in the past year. The United States is seen as a vigorous supporter of Israel, supplying it with the F-16 fighter jets and Apache helicopter gunships that attack Palestinian targets.

The Bush administration is thus eager to lower tensions here as it seeks to forge a coalition that should include Arab states for maximum success.

Gissin confirmed the decision to halt offensive operations and pull back troops from Palestinian territory around the West Bank towns of Jenin and Jericho, which were seized last week. Israel also hopes to resume the workings of a joint security committee that would oversee the cease-fire.

Gissin said the government remains “wary” of Arafat’s intentions, but has concluded that at least for “tactical” reasons, the Palestinian leader appears serious about a truce.

Arafat has been in an abysmally difficult position since the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked Sept. 11. Aware of a mounting anti-Arab backlash, Arafat is desperate not to fall on the wrong side of the U.S. government nor to make the same mistake he did in 1990 and 1991, when he favored Iraq before and during the Persian Gulf War and suffered crippling isolation as a result.

He also has feared, with some justification, that Sharon and Israel would take advantage of the shift in world attention and sympathies to launch a major offensive against Palestinian positions.

Arafat quickly condemned the attacks on the U.S. and announced that he would join any U.S.-led alliance. In telephone conversations, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell urged him to agree to and enforce an authentic truce, and this is the step Arafat has taken.

Powell spoke with Sharon by telephone Sunday and Tuesday, and with Arafat on Tuesday.

There are risks for Arafat. Many Palestinians are not ready to end the fight, and siding with the United States too firmly is sure to put Arafat on a collision course with the increasingly powerful hard-line Islamists in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

Meanwhile, Sharon also repeatedly was urged last week by Powell and Bush to carry on truce talks with Arafat. Sharon publicly refused and alienated American officials by repeatedly branding Arafat as “Israel’s Osama bin Laden,” a reference to the suspected master terrorist.

On Sunday, however, Sharon went before a special session of the Israeli parliament and said that if Arafat halted all attacks, he would too. Behind the scenes, Sharon dispatched his son, Omri, to a clandestine meeting with Arafat. Omri Sharon emphasized to Arafat what Sharon was offering, according to an aide to the prime minister.

Cease-Fire Announced in New Year’s Greeting

On Monday, Arafat announced a cease-fire in a Jewish New Year’s greeting to Sharon. The statement was read repeatedly in Arabic on Palestinian television and radio. By Monday evening, according to Sharon’s aides, the Israeli government decided to call off offensive operations, and the order went out Tuesday.

Also on Tuesday, Arafat received about two dozen foreign diplomats in Gaza City, where he reiterated to them that he was serious about a cease-fire. He also gave a conciliatory speech in which he reaffirmed his desire to negotiate a peace settlement with Israel and stated that he recognized Israel’s right to live within secure borders.

Terje Roed-Larsen, the special United Nations envoy for the Middle East and a longtime negotiator, was one of the diplomats present. He voiced guarded optimism that the conflict had reached a turning point.

“We have a first step--it can fade tomorrow--but at least it’s a beginning,” Larsen told CNN. “The 11th of September changed the world. It is important to form a coalition with key Arab and Muslim states, and without progress on [the Israeli-Palestinian] conflict, there will be no coalition. And terrorism will prevail.”

Under the new orders, Israeli soldiers will shoot when shot at or when the army considers its forces in danger. But the military will suspend “targeted killings,” in which it hunts and kills suspects, and incursions into Palestinian-ruled territory, a Defense Ministry spokesman said.

Unchanged are plans to carve out closed military zones in Palestinian territory along Israel’s border with the West Bank, the spokesman said. The zones are designed to prevent potential terrorists from entering Israel, but Palestinians and some Israelis criticize the plan as a form of collective punishment.

An Order to Refrain From Shooting Back

Arafat’s cease-fire for the first time requires his many security forces to refrain from shooting--even when shot at. But it remains a key question whether all gunmen in the West Bank and Gaza Strip will obey. That did not seem to be the case Tuesday night, judging from the gun battles raging in the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Hebron and in the Nablus area.

Then too, suicide bombers have been dispatched during the intifada by two militant Islamic factions that adamantly oppose peace with Israel. Spokesmen for the groups--Abdullah Ashami of the Islamic Jihad and Abdulaziz Rantisi of the Hamas movement--said Tuesday night that they had no intention of stopping the “resistance.”

Israeli security officials say they think that Arafat has sent word to the two factions to suspend bombing missions for now. Both spokesmen for the militants denied that, but suggested that their forces might lie low for a while.

“If they stop killing our civilians,” Ashami said, “we will stop killing theirs.”