Egypt is prepared to bring Israelis and Palestinians together for a dialogue to facilitate elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Defense Minister Yizhak Rabin said Monday night.
He spoke on his return from a one-day visit to Cairo that has thrown Israel’s domestic politics into turmoil.
Rabin told a news conference at Ben-Gurion Airport that he and President Hosni Mubarak, who initiated the meeting, agreed that Egypt would organize the dialogue, subject to the prior approval of the Israeli Cabinet.
The dialogue would be aimed at deciding the ground rules for the Palestinian elections, which Israel proposed this spring as part of a two-phase plan to end the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
The elections would produce Palestinian representatives with whom Israel would negotiate self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and eventually the final status of the territories.
The preliminary Israeli-Palestinian dialogue was one of 10 points Mubarak suggested in a paper aimed at advancing the Israeli peace plan.
Egypt will now try to facilitate the dialogue, Rabin said, by proposing the members of the Palestinian delegation, after “coordination with various parties,” Rabin said.
If Rabin’s one-day trip to Cairo achieved an understanding with the Egyptians on these matters, it widened the deep rift between his own Labor Party and Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s Likud bloc over how the conflict could and should be resolved.
NEXT ROUND IN NEW YORK
During three hours of meetings with Mubarak, mainly at the president’s residence in the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis, Rabin said he spoke frankly about the differences in the Israeli Cabinet over key points.
He said no Israeli decision could be expected for two or three weeks. And first, there would have to be further Israeli-Egyptian discussions to clarify the details of what Egypt is proposing.
He suggested that Mubarak might hold talks with Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres of Labor and Foreign Minister Moshe Arens of Likud. All three men will be in New York next week, where Mubarak and Arens will be addressing the 44th U.N. General Assembly session.
Likud and Labor are severely at odds over whether Rabin should have gone to Cairo at this time.
On Saturday night, Shamir, Rabin, Peres and Arens met for the third time in a week and failed to reach agreement on an Israeli response to Mubarak’s 10-point paper proposing terms and conditions for the Palestinian elections.
The following day, on the eve of Rabin’s departure, the Likud ministers of the Cabinet convened and proclaimed their rejection of the 10-point paper.
Likud flatly rejects the Mubarak paper, because it speaks of trading land for peace and because it would allow Arab residents of East Jerusalem to participate in the elections Labor is more flexible on both points.
Likud also is opposed to international supervision of the elections and the withdrawal of the Israel Defense Force from the immediate vicinity of the polling stations, both proposed by Egypt.
RIFT OVER DELEGATION’S COMPOSITION
But it is the question of Palestinian representation in preliminary talks with Israel that immediately threatens the survival of Israel’s national unity government.
Egypt, reportedly with U.S. backing, is canvassing a delegation that would comprise mainly leaders of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but would also include two Palestinians from the “Diaspora.”
The two would likely be Palestinians deported by Israel from the territories who have informal links to the Palestine Liberation Organization.
PLO leader Yasir Arafat has reportedly signaled that he would be prepared to accept the 10-point Egyptian paper if such an accommodation could be made.
Likud officials have blasted the idea, pointing out that the guidelines establishing Israel’s current unity government specifically rule out negotiations with the PLO.
Rabin told reporters the delegation, in his view, would be composed “mainly of Palestinians from the territories.” But he refused to be drawn by reporters into a public argument with Likud.
In the Knesset, meanwhile, Labor members managed to get the 20 signatures needed to call the legislative body out of recess for a special session to discuss the quickening pace of the peace process.
Likud whips, apparently not consulted, reacted angrily. They denounced “Labor’s acquiescence in talks with the PLO.”
Several Likud ministers spoke ominously of the government’s likely downfall. Ronni Milo, the minister of environmental protection and a close confidant of Shamir’s, warned that a “very serious crisis” hangs over the unity government.
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