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Barak: Clinton's departure from office not a deadline for peace

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December 4, 2000 

JERUSALEM--(UNB/AP) - As Prime Minister Ehud Barak plotted his re-election campaign Sunday, the embattled Israeli leader said U.S. President Bill Clinton's departure from office next month was not a deadline for a Mideast peace deal.

After 18 months in office focused on the goal of bringing home a final peace agreement with the Palestinians, Barak now faces early elections next spring and may need the success of at least a partial peace deal to convince voters to re-elect him.

In violence Sunday, an Israeli was stabbed at a roadblock north of Jerusalem. The extent of his injuries was not immediately clear. Meanwhile, the Israeli army arrested a Palestinian suspect in the bombing of a school bus transporting Jewish children and teachers in the Gaza Strip two weeks ago, which killed two people, Israel's army radio reported.

Nine weeks of violence has claimed close to 300 lives, most of them Palestinian, and has left peace efforts in tatters.

At Sunday's cabinet meeting, Barak lashed out against those in his own party who have pressured him to come to an agreement before Clinton leaves the White House on Jan. 20, at the end of his second and final term.

"Every attempt to dictate dates to the prime minister is bad for Israel and damages how the peace process should be conducted," Barak told his ministers.

Barak is being squeezed on all sides. He faces early elections he had hoped to avoid, growing public dismay over his failure to halt the violence and a potential revolt from within his own party.

Israeli media reports have said that a leading figure from Barak's Labor party, parliament speaker Avraham Burg, may challenge Barak for party leadership if no peace deal is in sight by the end of Clinton's term.

In the quest to revive the moribund peace talks, Barak has suggested quickly negotiating a phased peace plan that would recognize a Palestinian state but put off the most sensitive issues, such as control of Jerusalem.

However, the Palestinians have demanded a comprehensive agreement that creates a Palestinian state in all, or virtually all, of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip - areas Israel captured during the 1967 Mideast War.

In another development, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat denied reports that Israel and the Palestinians were engaged in secret talks. Arafat, on a visit to the United Arab Emirates, also said the Palestinian uprising would continue until his people's national goals were met.

"The Palestinian nation is ready to face all possibilities," he said.

Among those possibilities is the return of Barak's hard-line predecessor to power - Benjamin Netanyahu. Opinion polls have Barak trailing far behind Netanyahu, the man Barak defeated in a landslide victory last year.

Netanyahu was scheduled to return to Israel from abroad Sunday but it was still unclear if he would return to politics to challenge Barak. Barak had won a four-year term in 1999, but his allies in parliament deserted him in July, and the violence erupted at the end of September when peace negotiations with the Palestinians had stalled.

Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, an architect of past accords with the Palestinians, said that an overall peace deal could be wrapped up in the 50 days Clinton has remaining in office.

Beilin met with Clinton and U.S. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger on Friday in Washington, and said Clinton offered his help in pursuing an agreement during his last seven weeks in office.

Clinton "came into the meeting ... not just to say `hi,' but to say that as his administration comes to an end they have placed the highest priority on foreign relations and that their top priority is our conflict," Beilin told Israel radio.

Also, top Barak aide and senior Israeli negotiator Gilead Sher said Sunday that Israel would cooperate fully with an international inquiry into the causes of the violence.

Israel has previously said that the fact-finding commission, agreed to at a Mideast summit in October, should not begin its work while violence was continuing and other parts of the summit agreement had not been implemented.

But Sher said that the investigating team would be welcome when it arrives in two weeks' time.

"Israel will cooperate fully. We expect that all the terms of reference, the mandate of the commission - will be agreed upon before it begins," Sher told Israel radio of the team led by former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell.