OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 4 January — US special envoy Anthony Zinni arrived back in the Middle East yesterday to seek ways to bring both Israel and the Palestinians back to a durable cease-fire, after a drop in Palestinian violence that has driven deep divisions through the Israeli leadership over how to proceed.
Zinni arrived at Tel Aviv airport in the late afternoon and went straight into briefings with Israeli security chiefs, including deputy army chief Gen. Moshe Yaalon.
He is due to meet the hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on his ranch this morning before heading to Ramallah to talk with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, who has been confined to the West Bank town by Israeli forces for the past month. Zinni will stay for just four days this time round, although his last visit which started in late November and ended three weeks later in a massive explosion of violence was open-ended.
Israel greeted Zinni by opening some checkpoints in the West Bank, where it has maintained a suffocating hold on Palestinian towns and cities since the start of the uprising against the occupation 15 months ago. The Defense Ministry announced an end to the military encirclement of Tulkarem, Qalqilya and Jenin in the north and Hebron in the south.
Palestinian leaders dismissed the moves as a mere redeployment that made no real difference on the ground, while the West Bank leader of Arafat’s Fatah movement said Zinni must set a timetable for an Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian land during his short stay. "Every international or political effort which does not lead to an end of the occupation will fail," Marwan Barghouti said.
Meanwhile, the rift between Sharon and his foreign minister, Shimon Peres, grew wider over the question of when to resume cease-fire talks with the Palestinian Authority, which has curbed the attacks since Arafat made a truce appeal on Dec. 16, a day after Zinni was recalled to Washington.
