U.S. envoy presses Israelis, Palestinians on peace plan

An American envoy Friday gave Israeli and Palestinian officials the Bush administration’s first formal critique of their failures to honor commitments under a U.S.-backed peace plan, but he apparently was unsuccessful in healing a rift over the issue of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. William Fraser III, the envoy assigned to oversee the plan, ran the two-hour meeting with the aim of pressing the sides into compliance. But the session produced a new irritant: The Palestinians took the absence of Israel’s defense minister as a slight.

Fraser did not make his assessment public. Instead, he will report the two sides’ reactions to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and return to the region this month for more discussions.

The peace plan, known as the “road map,” outlines interim steps aimed at easing tensions as Israel and the Palestinian Authority try to negotiate the terms for setting up an independent Palestinian state, including its borders with Israel and the status of Palestinian refugees.

President Bush, who helped launch the latest peace effort after years of sitting on the sidelines, has urged that a final accord be reached by the time he leaves office in January. But the negotiations, revived at a November conference in Annapolis, Md., have been hampered by tension over Jewish settlement growth and an upsurge in violence between the two sides.

The road map requires Israel to freeze settlement construction and ease travel restrictions in the West Bank. The Palestinians are required to take steps to disrupt and dismantle militant groups that plan attacks on Israel.

A key ingredient of the U.S. initiative is the role of Fraser in monitoring these steps. After criticism from the Palestinians for a late start, Fraser sent his first confidential report to Rice a few weeks ago. Later, during a visit here, Rice said both sides were falling behind on their commitments.

Fraser discussed his report Friday during a meeting at a Jerusalem hotel with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Israeli Maj. Gen. Amos Gilad, head of the Defense Ministry’s political security staff.

The U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem gave no details of the report and few about the session. It said the three men discussed “where the parties are not meeting their commitments and the reasons why, and explored ways to accelerate the process and make the parties’ implementation of their road map obligations more effective.”

“We had a cordial but frank exchange of views that helped the participants attain a better understanding of some very complex issues,” the statement said.

Israeli officials declined to comment on the substance of the discussions. But after the meeting, Fayyad issued a statement condemning Israel’s settlement activity, indicating that differences over the issue remain.

Israeli officials have said they will continue to build homes in Jewish neighborhoods of East Jerusalem and in West Bank settlements close to Jerusalem that Israel expects to keep under a final peace accord.

The Palestinians, who want East Jerusalem and the West Bank for their future state, have cried foul in recent weeks as Israel announced plans for projects involving hundreds of new homes in those areas.

“Israel is eroding the very possibility of the two-state solution,” Fayyad said. “A freeze on settlement activity is crucial to preserving the possibility of a Palestinian state. And by freeze, I mean not one more brick.”

Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesman, said Israel remained committed to the road map but could not be expected to comply fully as long as the Palestinian Authority was falling short on reining in militant groups in the West Bank. The Gaza Strip, the site of an upsurge in violence in late February, is ruled by the militant group Hamas, which calls for Israel’s destruction and is not party to the talks, which are expected to resume next week. Hamas took control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority by force last year.

“Just as no one expects the Palestinians to do everything from Day 1, it’s important to recognize that for Israel, too, the road map is a process,” Regev said, adding that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had taken firm steps to halt settlement growth far from Jerusalem.

Fayyad said the Palestinian Authority’s security forces were making “serious and sustained efforts” to disarm militant groups. U.S. officials have said that more needs to be done, but they have complained privately to Israel that its settlement building and frequent raids in the West Bank are undermining those efforts.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Israeli officials briefed on the report before Friday’s meeting were calling its criticisms of Israel “skewed” and a source of tension with the Bush administration.

U.S. officials had expected Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who has ordered West Bank raids and defended settlement building, to attend Friday’s meeting. But the minister, who once described the peace negotiations as a “fantasy,” sent Gilad, his aide. Interviewed by Israel Radio, Gilad denied that there was friction with Washington.

Saeb Erekat, a veteran Palestinian negotiator, called Barak’s absence a sign of disrespect. “Maybe Barak couldn’t go because he is busy planning more settlement construction and more incursions,” Erekat said.

Friday’s meeting was the first between Israeli and Palestinian officials on the peace initiative since the recent violence. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas suspended peace talks in early March during a five-day Israeli offensive that killed more than 120 Palestinians in Gaza.

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boudreaux@latimes.com