Having thwarted, for now at least, a move to impose U.N. sanctions against Israel, the United States is directing its diplomatic efforts at persuading the Arabs to drop the deportation issue and return to the peace talks with Israel.
As part of those efforts, senior State Department officials met here Monday with Hanan Ashrawi, who has served as spokeswoman for the Palestinian delegation to the negotiations even though she is not an official member of it.
The meetings took place as Israel’s new ambassador to Washington, Itamar Rabinovich, arrived here Monday and presented his credentials at the State Department.
Rabinovich, the chief Israeli negotiator with the Syrians in the now-suspended peace talks, took over from former Ambassador Zalman Shoval at a time when Israel continues to face international pressure on the issue of the 415 Palestinians it deported to Lebanon in December.
In a compromise worked out with the United States, the Israelis have agreed to return 100 of the deportees to the administered territories almost immediately and shorten the terms of exile for the 300 or so others.
But the Palestinians have rejected the deal and say they are not returning to the peace talks until all of the deportees have been returned to the territories.
The United States is eager to resolve the issue before Secretary of State Warren Christopher travels to the region next week. The purpose of Christopher’s trip is to get the peace talks back on track, a task which all sides agree is impossible until the deportation issue is resolved.
While State Department officials would not disclose details of the talks with Ashrawi, observers said the United States would now likely try to convince the Palestinians that it was in their best interests to resume talks with Israel.
U.S. OFFICIALS TO MEET WITH ISRAELI DELEGATION
Ashrawi met Monday with Edward Djerejian, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near East and South Asian affairs; and his deputy, Daniel Kurtzer; and Martin Indyk, a National Security Council specialist on the Middle East.
She also was to meet with Samuel Lewis, director of the State Department’s policy planning staff, and two other members of the staff who have been involved in the peace talks, Dennis Ross and Aaron Miller.
State Department officials were scheduled to meet later in the week with an Israeli delegation, led by Cabinet Secretary Elyakim Rubinstein, who heads the Israeli team negotiating with the Palestinians.
Ambassador Rabinovich met Monday with Deputy Secretary of State Clifton Wharton, in what an Israeli spokeswoman termed a “protocol” session, in which the new ambassador presented his credentials. She said the two men did not discuss the peace process or the deportation issue.
Meanwhile, the State Department is protesting Israel’s handling of the arrests of three Palestinian Americans suspected of providing assistance and funds to the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas movement.
The Palestinian Americans have been detained without charges under Israeli emergency regulations inherited from the period of the British Mandate.
The U.S. position is “that if someone is suspected of having committed a crime, charges should be brought, access to legal counsel assured and a public trial held,” State Department spokesman Joe Snyder said Monday.
The United States has protested in writing about “delays in consular access to the three American detainees,” Snyder said at his daily briefing.
Family members of two of the detained Arab Americans claim they are innocent of involvement with Hamas.
At a news conference here last week, Amal Jarad, wife of detained Illinois resident Mohammed Jarad, said her husband was a “model citizen” who had never been arrested and had never broken the law.
She said he was carrying only $100 dollars with him, not $100,000 as the Israelis have charged.
Amal Jarad and officials of the American-Arab Anti- Discrimination Committee raised the issue in meetings last week with Deputy Assistant Secretary Kurtzer, Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.) and representatives of Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (D-I11.) and Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.).
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