Clinton Awaits Word on Peace Talks

Tuesday, December 26th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) â€” The long holiday weekend over and his time running down, President Clinton is waiting for word from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on a potential tradeoff that could flower into a long-sought peace accord.

The two leaders are expected to notify the president by midweek whether they think they will be able to follow through on the tradeoff, in which Israel would back off from control of the holy sites in East Jerusalem and the Palestinians from insisting on a ``right of return'' for refugees to Israel.

Or they may advise him they are prepared to deliver their response to him personally, in separate visits.

In five days of talks here last week, and two meetings with Clinton at the White House, Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami clearly signaled Israel's concessions on Jerusalem. The Palestinian negotiators were less clear on what Arafat might be willing to do about the refugees issues.

Palestinian negotiators arrive at White House
AP/Rick Bowmer [14K]
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Both sides confirmed, however, that compromise on these two core issues were essential in order to reach an agreement before Clinton left office Jan. 20.

For both leaders, the decisions are painful and potentially ominous.

Already reviled by many in Israel as having given far too much ground to the Palestinians, the dovish Barak would be risking defeat in the Knesset and at the polls when he seeks re-election in February. He would be gambling that Israelis are so eager for peace they would approve yielding on Jerusalem's holy sites â€” the most emotional of all issues, particularly to observant Jews.

Arafat, for his part, would have to find a way of keeping the faith with the Arab world, which insists, as he does, that the Arabs who left Israel on its birth in 1948 were expelled and had a right to go home and reclaim whatever property they left behind.

Conceivably that could mean millions of Palestinians relocating in Israel, when descendants are taken into account, and challenging its Jewish nature. In practical terms, especially since a Palestinian state would result from an agreement, no one expects anything near that number to choose to live in Israel.

Israeli negotiators already have made clear that thousands of Palestinians would be admitted, many of them on humanitarian grounds, such as family reunification.

With the help of experienced U.S. negotiators, the two sides would have to find flexible language for an agreement that would bolster Arafat as loyally defending the right of refugees while Israel did not commit itself to acknowledging millions have a ``right to return.''

As they left the White House Saturday, Palestinian and Israeli negotiators said gaps remained. But at Camp David in July and since then, even amid more than two months of bloody conflict, there has been, as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told The Associated Press last week, an ``evolution'' in their thinking.

Clinton summarized those changing positions in his talks with the two sides and urged them to keep working toward a compromise, U.S. officials said.

Other key elements of an accord have been clear for some time.

â€”â€”The Palestinians will have a state.

â€”â€”Israel will turn over to them about 95 percent of the West Bank along with Gaza, dismantling most Jewish settlements in the process.

â€”â€”The Palestinian Authority, as it has many times in the past, will pledge to take steps to safeguard Israel's security.

â€”â€”If the Palestinians concur, ``Jewish Jerusalem,'' as Ben-Ami called it last week in a report to American Jewish leaders, will encompass several controversial settlements on the outskirts of the city.

â€”â€”Similarly, Palestinian control of areas of East Jerusalem will include some Arab neighborhoods on the outskirts of that side of the city.

``How far we go, how fast we go, is up to the parties,'' White House spokesman P.J. Crowley said near the end of last week's round of talks.

``There is an opportunity to make progress; whether progress happens or not is up to the parties,'' he said.