Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin will meet with members of the Bush administration Friday in Washington, as the United States seeks to revive Israel’s moribund peace initiative.
Rabin, who departed for the United States on Wednesday night to address an Israel Bonds gathering in Philadelphia, will meet with three top U.S. officials Friday: Secretary of State James Baker, Defense Secretary Richard Cheney and National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft.
The defense minister, a leader of the Labor Party in Israel’s unity government, will be followed into Washington next week by Deputy Foreign Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, a Likud stalwart.
Foreign Minister Moshe Arens is scheduled to come to the United States on Sept. 24 for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly session.
Reports from Israel are that the Bush administration is trying to convince the Palestine Liberation Organization and moderate Arab states to support a 10-point paper drawn up by Egypt that modifies Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s proposal for Palestinian elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The Egyptian paper is expected to win the approval of Israel’s Labor Party, but not the Likud bloc, since it endorses the principle of trading “land for peace” and would allow Arab residents of East Jerusalem to participate in the proposed Palestinian elections.
But a White House official refused to confirm Wednesday that the United States is backing the Egyptian paper. The official said the Bush administration supports the original election plan proposed by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.
U.S. EMBASSY IN BEIRUT EVACUATED
But, he added, the administration has stressed that the plan needs “fleshing out” and it has been seeking “input” from all sources, including Egypt.
Rabin also is expected to discuss the situation in Lebanon when he meets with the U.S. officials, as he has done on all his previous visits to Washington.
The situation may take on more urgency this week, because the United States evacuated all 30 of its remaining diplomats from the U.S. Embassy in Beirut on Wednesday morning.
State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said that there was a real fear that the U.S. diplomats could be killed or kidnapped.
Tutwiler said the situation deteriorated over the weekend, when some 1,000 supporters of Lt. Gen. Michel Aoun, leader of the Christian forces, surrounded the embassy in East Beirut. She quoted some threats from Aoun in newspaper interviews and said the situation was “getting nastier.”
“The evacuation does not represent diminution of our intention to try to help Lebanon in its time of trouble,” Tutwiler said.
She said the administration is consulting with other countries, including Israel, “on how to try to achieve a cease-fire, an end to all blockades and the beginning of a political reconciliation process.”
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