JERUSALEM (REUTERS) — A U.S. envoy planned talks Wednesday with Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs on a truce plan that could get Yasser Arafat back in the good graces of the White House and out of Israeli-imposed confinement.
Vice President Dick Cheney, ending a 24-hour visit to Israel, said Tuesday he would be “ready to meet with Chairman Arafat in the period ahead” if Arafat implemented and enforced the ceasefire blueprint drawn up by U.S. CIA Director George Tenet.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, speaking at a joint news conference with Cheney, said he would allow Arafat to attend an Arab League summit in Beirut next week after a truce but cautioned he might not let him return if it did not hold.
Their comments amounted to an attempt to offer Arafat clear rewards for helping end the worst Israeli-Palestinian violence in decades, including his highest-level meeting with U.S. officials since George W. Bush became president in January 2001.
Palestinian officials hailed Cheney’s conditional offer to meet Arafat but blasted Sharon’s terms for his travels. In a statement late Tuesday, the Palestinian cabinet reaffirmed what it said was Arafat’s commitment to ending the bloodshed.
Bush, who has hosted Sharon four times at the White House in what many Palestinians see as proof of pro-Israeli bias, has consistently accused Arafat of failing to do enough to crack down on militants behind attacks on Israelis.
The Palestinian Authority has said its security forces have been hampered by the blockades Israel has clamped around Palestinian towns and villages during the nearly 18-month-old uprising against Israeli occupation.
Israel’s army has confined Arafat to his headquarters at Ramallah, north of Jerusalem, since early December, and Nabil Abu Rdainah, a senior Arafat adviser, said Sharon’s remarks were “incitement and do not help further American peace efforts.”
Those efforts will include the reconvening Wednesday by U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni of the U.S.-Israeli-Palestinian Trilateral Security Committee to follow up on its previous session Monday.
The committee is dealing with the nuts and bolts of the Tenet plan, which seeks a truce and an Israeli troop pullback to positions held in the West Bank and Gaza Strip before the Palestinian uprising began in September 2000.
Under the plan, Palestinian authorities would be expected to arrest militants and confiscate illegal arms. The sides would then gradually move to full peace talks.
Sharon sets conditions for Arafat trip
Zinni arrived last Thursday, with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict clouding Cheney’s 11-nation Middle East tour to drum up Arab support for possible U.S. moves to thwart Iraq’s alleged attempts to build up weapons of mass destruction.
Since the former Marine Corps general began his mission, the level of violence has dropped sharply, with both Israel and the Palestinian Authority voicing support for his truce efforts.
In its statement Tuesday, the Palestinian cabinet said the Palestinian leadership and people were “fully prepared” to begin implementing the Tenet plan.
Sharon, appearing to dictate terms for Arafat’s address to the Beirut summit, told a news conference he hoped the Palestinian leader would not deliver a “speech of incitement.”
The summit is expected to discuss a Saudi plan calling for Arab normalization of ties with Israel in return for a full Israeli pullout from land seized in the 1967 Middle East war.
“I think [Arafat] understands or is starting to understand the importance of making peace here. If it is clear to us he did not act in this way, the government will meet and will have to take a decision. I don’t rule out any possibilities,” Sharon said.
Sharon was likely to face an international outcry at any attempt to exile Arafat as well as strong opposition to such a move from his key partner in Israel’s coalition government, the center-left Labour party.
Washington’s increased inclination to deal with Arafat to boost Arab support for its war on terror could put Sharon on a collision course with the United States, should Israel not let him back into the West Bank and/or Gaza.
The situation is complicated by Arafat’s apparent lack of control over Islamic militants who vow to keep attacking Israelis. Sharon declared Arafat “irrelevant” late last year but still holds him responsible for bomb and shooting attacks.
More than 1,400 people — at least 1,081 Palestinians and 346 Israelis — have been killed since the Palestinians rose up against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in September 2000, shortly after peace talks stalled.