OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 19 May 2003 — The Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers met Saturday night and early yesterday for the highest-level talks in more than 2 1/2 years of violence, but made little headway in bridging their differences and remained deeply divided over a new peace initiative called the “road map.’’
Aides for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the newly installed Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas described their three-hour meeting in Jerusalem at Sharon’s office as “constructive and serious,’’ but said they remain at loggerheads over the key issues of whether Israel will accept the road map and how Palestinian security forces will rein in terrorism.
“There was complete understanding, and I would say consensus, that stopping terrorism is essential to any kind of progress, and the Palestinians have promised to sustain a real effort to stop terrorism,’’ said a Sharon spokesman, Raanan Gissin.
But Palestinian spokeswoman Diana Buttu said, “Israel doesn’t get the link that their security is linked to our freedom.’’ While Abbas reiterated a willingness to abide by and implement all of the provisions of the road map, including security measures, she said that “implementation is conditional on Israel accepting the road map.’’ She said Abbas also “stressed that for Israel to get security, they have to stop their policies of assassinating Palestinian leaders and invading Palestinian areas.’’
The two leaders agreed to meet again but didn’t set a date.
The meeting was marred by a Palestinian suicide bombing Saturday night near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank city of Hebron, about 15 miles south of Jerusalem. According to an Israeli military spokesman. He said the bomber had disguised himself as a devout Jewish settler but appeared suspicious to Israeli soldiers on patrol. When they challenged the bomber in Arabic, he ran a few steps before detonating his explosive belt, the spokesman said.
Early yesterday, two Israelis were shot and injured by a Palestinian gunman who infiltrated the Jewish settlement of Shaare Tikva, about 12 miles east of Tel Aviv and two miles inside the West Bank, Israeli television reported.
The incidents were the latest indication that, more than two weeks after its release, the road map is having little impact on the violence and remains stalled at the starting gate. Since it was unveiled April 30, at least 49 Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers, including 15 in the last week, and seven Israelis have been killed, including the couple from Saturday night’s bombing. Earlier this week, Israel launched a major incursion into the northern Gaza Strip following a barrage of Palestinian rocket attacks on Jewish settlements and army posts that injured 10 soldiers.
President Bush has promised to make the road map a centerpiece of US Middle East policy, saying after the recent US victory in Iraq that he would aggressively push the plan to help resolve the 31 months of violence. But senior Israeli officials continue to shun the plan and some of its core elements, and Palestinians, wracked by internal dissent, seem reluctant to implement its security measures.
Officials from the Palestinian Authority, which has accepted the road map, said that stopping violence will be impossible unless Israel also embraces the plan.
Western diplomats said they expect the road map to languish and ultimately fail unless Bush helps implement it, particularly by encouraging Sharon to show more willingness to compromise. A visit by Secretary of State Colin Powell to the region appears to have had little impact on either side’s bargaining stance.
“Everything depends on Bush,’’ said a senior Western diplomat, looking ahead to Sharon’s visit to Washington this week. He said Bush needed to appoint an envoy with senior stature to oversee the plan, commit to US monitoring of it “on the ground,’’ and impress upon Sharon that it was time to implement the road map, not renegotiate it.
The plan calls for parallel confidence-building steps — with Palestinians disarming militant groups and Israel withdrawing from the West Bank and Gaza Strip and abandoning Jewish settlements there — ultimately leading to a “provisional’’ Palestinian state by the end of this year and full statehood by 2005.
The Israeli government, however, has shown little interest in the road map, and several Cabinet leaders have vowed to collapse the government if Sharon approves it.
Sharon, who has publicly ridiculed the plan, succeeded in delaying its release for months. About two weeks ago, he said that as a “condition for continuing the process,’’ Palestinian refugees must give up their long-standing claim to a “right to return’’ to areas inside Israel that they left during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The government seemed to back away from the comment under international criticism that such a stance so early in the process would kill the road map.
Last week, however, Sharon retreated from earlier statements in which he identified three areas in the West Bank where Jewish settlements would have to be abandoned as part of any final peace deal with the Palestinians. That prompted critics to say that Sharon wasn’t willing to make concessions for peace but was mainly interested in drawing out the process to give Israel more time to expand Jewish settlements.
Outside diplomatic sources said officials were searching for a “formula’’ whereby Sharon, during his visit to Washington, could accept the road map without saying it explicitly, and then implement it. But a Palestinian official said that would be unacceptable.
“The whole issue is, are there going to be reciprocal political measures that demonstrate Israel accepts the road map and believes in a two-state solution?’’ the official said. “We understand the security issue, but for security to be carried out, Israel has to accept the road map.’’
The problem, said the senior Western diplomat, who asked not to be identified, was that Israel had to help the new Palestinian prime minister, who is also known as Abu Mazen, demonstrate that peaceful methods of dealing with Israel pay higher dividends than violent ones.
“Abu Mazen can only fight terror if he has popular support, and unless he shows results, there will be no popular support, and Abu Mazen will be gone in three months, maybe faster,’’ the diplomat said.
