As the ninth round of the Middle East peace talks got under way in Washington this week, Israeli officials said they were determined to make progress in the 18-month-old negotiations, which have netted few achievements so far.
All parties seem intent on a major effort this time to move toward the interim Palestinian autonomy program outlined in the original Camp David accords of 1978.
Israel’s delegation is expected to submit new proposals that, in its view, substantially broaden the scope of Palestinian authority.
“Our approach is to hand over to them virtually all civilian responsibilities,” Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said in an Independence Day interview with the Yediot Achronot newspaper.
The Egyptian ambassador to Israel, Mohammed Basyouni, declared Monday that the resumed talks are a critical testing time. He hopes for and expects progress; the failure to achieve it, he warned, could propel the region to stagnation and disaster.
Egypt has been vigorously involved in the diplomatic effort to put the talks back on track, following the crisis brought on by Israel’s expulsion of 415 Moslem extremists last December.
To create a conducive atmosphere for the talks and to get the ball rolling, Israel was expected to announce several gestures to the Palestinians as the negotiations got under way.
Israel reportedly has agreed to accept back some 30 Palestinians it had deported from the administered territories between 1967 and 1987.
Sources said the Israeli security authorities were making the selection from a list of more than 50 names drawn up by the Palestine Liberation Organization.
In addition, the Israeli government was expected to announce other measures designed to ease conditions for the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
One new element disclosed by Rabin this week was a proposal to hand over to the Palestinian leadership immediate control over money being invested in the territories — funds originating from Israel, the Arab world and the West.
RABIN BACKING POLICE FORCE
In this context, Rabin noted that European states have been more generous in talking about aid than in actually providing it to Palestinians in the territories.
The issue of investment in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has taken on more significance since Israel sealed off the territories at the end of last month, leaving 120,000 Palestinians who held jobs in Israel proper with little hope of finding employment in their underdeveloped local economy.
The government intended to lift restrictions for some 10,000 to 12,000 of these workers this week, in order to ease a critical labor shortage in the agriculture and construction fields.
Rabin also has confirmed his support for the early creation of a Palestinian police force in the territories. He said preparations for training the force could begin at once in Jordan and Egypt.
The idea — incorporated in the original Camp David blueprint — was recently broached in public by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and is likely to come up at the talks in Washington.
However, the notion of armed Palestinians in the territories triggered harsh reactions from leaders of the Jewish settlers movement.
The ongoing closure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, meanwhile, is increasingly seen as a watershed in Israel’s attitude toward the territories.
Although originally triggered by security considerations to end a series of violent Palestinian attacks on Israelis — which it has been largely successful in doing — the closure is now being viewed as a move toward an eventual and permanent separation of the territories from Israel proper.
Israeli public opinion, with the exception of the far right, has reacted with marked approval of the closure. And Palestinians too, while decrying the economic hardship and dislocation, see it as a hopeful step toward autonomy.
It remains to be seen how this unilateral step by Israel will impact the talks in Washington.
TRADING ‘EVERYTHING FOR EVERYTHING’
While recent media reports have tended to focus attention on the Israeli-Palestinian talks, some observers in Jerusalem believe the Syrian talks could quickly capture center stage again, that is if President Hafez Assad throws down the gauntlet to Rabin.
To accomplish this, the Syrian leader must instruct his negotiators to offer a broad and generous definition of the “nature of the peace” that Damascus is prepared to embrace.
Israel has long demanded this Syrian definition before it, in turn, defines its own readiness for territorial withdrawal.
Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak publicly assured Rabin in Ismailia, where the two men met earlier this month, that Assad wants to trade “everything for everything.”
Rabin quickly made it clear that such second-hand assurances are not enough. He wants to hear them spelled out in detail. And he wants to hear them directly from the Syrians.
At the same time, Rabin is still committed to his electoral pledge of last year “not to descend” entirely from the Golan Heights.
But the prime minister noted pointedly in his interview that the precedent of the Sinai agreement, in which Israel handed back the entire peninsula to Egypt, would be “very difficult to change.”
Israeli officials have also said they were discouraged by Syria’s refusal, during these past months, to resume the peace talks with Israel unless the Palestinians did as well.
It is precisely such dependence on progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front that Israel wants to avoid in any far-reaching agreement with Damascus.
A final element that all parties to the peace talks will be judging is the significance of the Clinton administration’s proclaimed determination to play the role of “full partner.”
American consultations in preparation for the talks were intensive. Samuel Lewis, director of policy planning at the State Department and a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, visited here for further talks early this week.
When asked by reporters about the peace process, Lewis said, “I think we’re going to make some real progress. We’re going to work as hard as we can, and I’m optimistic.”
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