It’s Icy at the Israeli-Palestinian Summit

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas held a chilly and contentious summit Tuesday that yielded no substantive progress in shoring up a fragile truce.

Palestinians expressed sharp disappointment with the talks, which were held at Sharon’s official residence and lasted more than two hours.

“It was a difficult meeting and did not meet our expectations,” Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Korei said afterward at a news conference in the West Bank town of Ramallah. “We expected positive answers, but there were no positive answers.”

Abbas’ decision to send Korei to speak to reporters instead of appearing himself was seen as a sign of anger and displeasure. Sharon and Abbas eschewed a joint appearance after the talks.

Israeli officials said Sharon had offered concessions, including the hand-over of two more West Bank towns to Palestinian security control, but only if Abbas took what Israel considers serious measures to quell attacks by Palestinian militants.

“Everything is subject to the security situation,” said Raanan Gissin, an official in Sharon’s office. “If the Palestinian Authority doesn’t take the necessary steps, there is no way we can move forward.”

Israel has demanded that Abbas disarm militant groups and destroy their infrastructure, actions he has said could ignite civil war among Palestinians.

Some aspects of the summit were symbolic of the widespread hope that a new era of cooperation had begun after the November death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. The talks marked the first time an Israeli prime minister and a Palestinian Authority president had met in Jerusalem, which both sides claim as their capital.

But tensions were evident from the start. In a photo-taking session before the meeting, there were no smiles, handshakes or displays of cordiality. As the talks were about to begin, a live microphone picked up Sharon growling to Abbas, “We’re still taking casualties,” Reuters news agency reported.

That was a reference to the violence of recent days, which soured the pre-meeting atmosphere. An Israeli soldier was killed over the weekend in the Gaza Strip and a Jewish settler was slain Monday in a roadside ambush in the West Bank. The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for both attacks.

In response, Israel on Tuesday arrested 52 Palestinians suspected of being members of the group. The predawn sweep in the West Bank appeared to mark Israel’s renunciation of a pledge in February to target only militants it considered “ticking bombs” -- those planning an imminent attack.

The timing of the crackdown, hours before the summit, was viewed by Palestinian officials as a slap at Abbas. It was the largest such roundup since the Israeli and Palestinian leaders declared a halt to hostilities at their last meeting, held Feb. 8 in Sharm el Sheik, Egypt.

Neither side went into Tuesday’s talks with particularly high expectations. Israeli commentator Akiva Eldar, writing in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, said that what Sharon had to say to Abbas would “probably fit into a cellphone text message: the letters N-O.”

But Palestinians had clearly hoped U.S. pressure might prod Sharon into making a concrete gesture toward Abbas. During a weekend visit, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Israeli officials that the Palestinian leader was badly in need of Israeli steps, such as the lifting of West Bank roadblocks and the release of more Palestinian prisoners, that would bolster his standing among his people.

Sharon, however, appeared determined to drive home the point that no such measures could be expected unless Abbas cracked down on militant groups, including Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

In an unusual move, and one that appeared to be mainly for domestic consumption, Israeli officials released a videotape of part of the closed-door meeting. It showed Sharon upbraiding the Palestinian leader.

“When we were in Sharm el Sheik, you said you would exert all efforts to stop terror,” the prime minister said. “But this action never happened.”

Palestinians say Abbas is not strong enough, politically or militarily, to survive a head-on confrontation with the militant groups. They also argue that his strategy of seeking to co-opt Hamas and Islamic Jihad has been more successful than Israel is willing to admit, resulting in a steep reduction in violence since his election in January.

A Palestinian official familiar with the summit proceedings reported several testy exchanges between the leaders on the subject.

When Sharon pressed for action against the militants, Abbas several times replied, “This is something I cannot do unless I have something to show my people on the ground.”

At one point, the official said, Abbas protested that he had done all he could to prevent attacks on Israelis. “It’s not enough,” Sharon replied, according to the official’s account.

Israeli media also described the meeting as tense.

Palestinian officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the two sides had agreed before the summit that the hand-over of two West Bank towns, Bethlehem and Kalkilya, would take place within two weeks.

But Palestinians were angered when Sharon unexpectedly linked the hand-over of towns to a restoration of calm. Israel promised in February to turn over five West Bank towns to Palestinian security control, but only two, Jericho and Tulkarm, have changed hands.

One of the goals of Tuesday’s meeting was to begin coordinating Israel’s planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, scheduled to begin in two months. Israeli officials said Abbas was given permission to begin preparing for Gaza’s seaport and international airport to reopen, although without a guarantee that Israel would eventually allow the reopenings to occur.

Sharon said in a speech after the meeting that he and Abbas had agreed to cooperate on the pullout, but Palestinians said little or no progress had been made.

“There was nothing, nothing,” Mohammed Dahlan, the Palestinian official in charge of coordination with Israel on the withdrawal, told reporters in Ramallah.

Israeli officials also said Sharon had told Abbas he would consider releasing more Palestinian prisoners, but also made that conditional on a crackdown on militants. Israel has released 900 prisoners since the Egypt summit but still holds nearly 8,000, and their fate is of major concern to Palestinians.

The meeting came as both leaders are feeling politically beleaguered. Public support for Sharon’s pullout plan has been slipping, even though it appears most Israelis still want to relinquish the 21 Jewish settlements of Gaza, together with four small ones in the northern West Bank.

Abbas, meanwhile, is confronting the growing political clout of Hamas, the largest and most powerful of the militant groups. Hamas spearheaded a campaign of suicide bombings in the current uprising, which began in September 2000, but in recent months it has turned its attention to electoral politics.

For the first time, the group intends to field candidates in parliamentary elections, scheduled for this year.

The group, which has been scornful of Abbas’ approach in negotiating with Israel, seized the opportunity to ridicule him for failing to obtain any concessions at the summit. Sami abu Zuhri, a spokesman for Hamas, called the meeting a “total failure.”

Special correspondent Maher Abukhater in Ramallah contributed to this report.