Letting Arafat Go to Summit Is Risky, but So Is Stopping Him
By JAMES BENNET
nytimes.com
JERUSALEM, Monday, March 25 — Vice President Dick Cheney has presented the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, with a dilemma: let Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, escape his siege and attend a summit meeting of Arab leaders this week in Beirut, or risk having Israel look as if it sabotaged an Arab bid for peace in the Middle East.
In essence, he asked Mr. Sharon to put aside the conditions he set for Mr. Arafat to travel and let his old nemesis score at least a short-term political victory — another one — at the prime minister's expense.
Mr. Cheney sided with the Palestinian leadership and Arab states, declaring that the summit meeting would be more productive with Mr. Arafat in attendance. "As a general proposition, we think he ought to go," he said.
The trouble for Mr. Sharon is that, by his lights, Mr. Arafat — whom he has called "a bitter enemy of Israel" and wished dead — has not met the requirement he imposed for attending the meeting: that the Palestinian leader embrace and carry out a formal truce.
On Sunday night in Tel Aviv, the Bush administration's envoy here, Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, convened a new round of truce talks between security chiefs of the Israelis and Palestinians. He offered ideas to bridge the differences in their own proposals for a cease-fire, and both sides were said to be studying his suggestions.
Even if a cease-fire is achieved in the next 24 hours, neither side will have much chance to judge the other's compliance before Mr. Arafat would have to pack his bags for Beirut.
The Bush administration may now use the prospect of a future meeting with Mr. Cheney to encourage Mr. Arafat to talk peace at the Arab conference. For a possible meeting before Beirut, Mr. Cheney set the same condition as Mr. Sharon: a durable cease-fire, although the vice president appears willing to have the Israelis concede that condition.
It is far from certain that Mr. Arafat will reach Beirut. Nabil Aburdeineh, a close aide to the Palestinian leader, put the chances Sunday at 50-50. The decision, he said, depended on the Americans.
"Don't be surprised if we go," Mr. Aburdeineh said, "and don't be surprised if we don't go."
In advocating a trip to Beirut for Mr. Arafat, Mr. Cheney was boxing Mr. Sharon in, but was also giving him some protection from some of his domestic political rivals.
It will be harder for Mr. Sharon's right-wing critics, who are multiplying, to attack him if he is seen as complying with a plain request from Israel's most important ally. Not that that would be likely to stop them, should the prime minister let Mr. Arafat leave Ramallah, where Israel has confined him since December.
The Bush administration has been under pressure from Arab states, and in particular Saudi Arabia, to help Mr. Arafat come to Beirut.
The centerpiece of the meeting is to be a Saudi proposal for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In vague terms, the Saudis are urging a swap: normal Arab ties with Israel in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It is an idea the Bush administration has embraced.
Some Israeli officials argue that Mr. Arafat does not really want to go to Beirut, since he might be confronted with having to shoulder responsibility for some kind of peace process. Palestinians say it is Mr. Sharon who wants to scuttle any possible peace.
There is yet another possible outcome to consider in this game of chess: Israel could benefit from letting Mr. Arafat go to the summit if that helps the United States in its larger purpose, which is to build Arab support for a possible war on Iraq.
The Israeli leadership is torn on the question of Mr. Arafat's travel, as it is on so many matters. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres has suggested that it is in Israel's interest for Mr. Arafat to go, since otherwise the world's attention will focus on his predicament in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Some Israeli officials contend that Mr. Arafat behaves more responsibly when he is in the company of other world leaders, and by this analysis is more dangerous left alone in Ramallah. The violence continued Sunday and this morning, in a series of incidents that left 12 dead. Just east of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel, Israeli commandos tracked down and killed four militants who had crossed the border from Jordan overnight. The tip about the infiltration came from Jordanian officers, Israeli security officials said.
Jordanian border police had spotted a suspicious vehicle near the border overnight Saturday. They fired at it, killing two men, and then detected tracks leading toward Israel, the Israeli officials said.
Palestinian gunmen shot and killed a 23-year-old Israeli woman riding in a bus through the West Bank, near Ramallah. While searching for the killers, Israeli troops subsequently shot dead a Palestinian police officer in a firefight in the same area.
In the Gaza Strip, Israeli soldiers shot and killed three Palestinian men that the army said were trying to plant a bomb near a Jewish settlement. Soldiers also shot dead a Palestinian man who approached them near a road used by settlers. Israeli security officials said that the man was wearing a bulky coat that could have concealed a bomb or other weapon and that he failed to stop when warned. Soldiers found no weapons on his body.
On Sunday night, an Israeli settler was shot and killed while driving near the city of Hebron, also in the West Bank. This morning, on Palestinian man was killed and at least two were wounded during an Israeli incursion into a Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.
Another high-profile terrorist attack before the Arab summit meeting could solidify Mr. Sharon's resolve, and his diplomatic standing, to keep Mr. Arafat away from Lebanon.
But even if he does not make it to Beirut, Mr. Arafat has gained something he has been seeking for more than a year: A deepening involvement by the Bush administration in solving this conflict.
For months, Bush officials insisted that no progress was possible here until the antagonists exhausted violence and sued for peace themselves. On Sunday, Mr. Cheney offered a new analysis, which echoed the rationales of previous administrations that plunged into the pursuit of peace here. "Left to their own devices the parties appear to be unable to make any progress," he said, "or even to be able to see their way out of it." |
