Palestinians Seem to Have Succeeded in Delaying Restart of Negotiations

The Palestinians have once again demonstrated they cannot be ignored in the Middle East peace process and that the Arab world is loath to negotiate with Israel without the cover of Palestinian approval.

Bowing to Palestinian pressure, Arab foreign ministers in Damascus said Saturday they wanted to delay the resumption of peace negotiations that had been scheduled to resume Tuesday in Washington. But they said a formal decision would not be made until Monday.

Although it seems that the talks will be delayed by one week only, the fact is that the talks are on hold — because of Palestinian unhappiness that their demands have not been met.

Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa said Sunday that no Arab delegation would attend the peace talks unless the Palestinians took part.

Israeli officials received the Arab decision with disappointment, replacing the reserved optimism that had characterized last week’s summit meeting between Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

The Israeli negotiators, who had been preparing to depart for Washington, were instructed by Rabin to delay their flights.

Israeli officials appeared to be surprised by the Arab decision to postpone the talks, voicing fear that the delay could extend beyond the few days now envisaged. These officials said the delay could build up a momentum of its own.

Farouk Kaddoumi, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s political department, was quoted Sunday as saying the PLO would propose April 26 as the resumption date.

That would be unacceptable to Israel, since it is the country’s Independence Day. Consequently, the talks might be pushed back till April 27.

NO NEGOTIATIONS OVER CONCESSIONS

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, in an interview on army radio Sunday, said Israel would not enter into any discussions over further concessions to the Palestinians prior to the resumption of the talks.

To do this, Peres said, would mean negotiating about the resumption itself — rather than negotiating over substantive issues of the peace process.

However, the truth is that the Palestinian delegates have said all along that they would not return to the negotiations unless several conditions were met.

Kaddoumi said Sunday the Palestinians have raised six demands that did not receive satisfactory replies, among them applying the land-for-peace principle contained in U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 to Jerusalem as well as the administered territories.

That is a non-starter for Israel, which maintains that Jerusalem is its indivisible capital and is not up for negotiation.

The Palestinians have also demanded the return of some 400 Islamic extremists whom Israel deported to Lebanon in December. But more recently, the Palestinians have indicated that they would not insist on the return of all the men as a condition for resuming the peace talks.

Last week, Ziad Abu-Ziad, an adviser to the Palestinian negotiating delegation, said the minimum the Palestinians would demand was partial lifting of the closure of the territories, so that residents would not be banned from entering “Arab Jerusalem.” Palestinian leaders such as Faisal Husseini had said as early as two months ago that even if the Palestinian delegation wanted to, it was unable to return to the talks “under the present circumstances” because of popular opinion against the talks, fired up by rejectionist groups such as the Islamic fundamentalist Hamas movement.

‘UNDESIRABLE.’ BUT NOT A ‘CRISIS’

In the past week, there were reports that the Palestinian delegates had received threats to their life if they went to Washington.

Dr. Haidar Abdel-Shafi, head of the Palestinian delegation, said over the weekend that by no means would he return to Washington.

Husseini blamed the Israelis for making it difficult for the delegation to convince the people that the negotiations would improve the situation in the territories.

Rabin, at the weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday, blamed the Palestinians for the delay and praised both Egypt and the United States for their constructive role in the process.

Itamar Rabinovich, Israel’s ambassador to the United States and head of the negotiating team with Syria, expressed disappointment Sunday that the talks were not opening in time.

Rabinovich said the delay is an “undesirable development” because the process is “complicated,” and determining its timetable requires mutual trust.

But Rabinovich warned of overdramatizing the situation. He refused to describe it a “crisis” and said he did not see a scenario in which the Arabs would break away from the talks entirely.

“There may be an effort by some Arabs to change the rules of the game,” he said, “but we are also party to determining the rules of the game.”