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Israel to consider Arafat's offer of "marathon" peace talks inEgypt

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January 20, 2001 

JERUSALEM, JAN 19 (UNB/AP) - Israel on Friday put off consideration of a Palestinian proposal for marathon peace talks in Egypt, following the brutal killing of an Israeli youth in the West Bank, Israel radio reported.

Talks at the Red Sea resort of Taba were proposed by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who met on Wednesday in Egypt with Israel's Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami.

Palestinian parliament speaker Ahmed Qureia said they would involve "marathon 10-day negotiations ... beginning next week, to see if we can bridge the gaps that still remain on most of the issues."

Qureia led a Palestinian team which met with the Israelis for about three hours in Tel Aviv Thursday. The sides described the talks as serious and deep. Qureia said they focused on "issues of land and Jerusalem (discussed) with more concentration."

Palestinian officials suggested that Israel was inclined to accept, saying they would send to Egypt a team that will include experts on land, water and other issues.

But on the Israeli government level, it remained unclear whether Israel would accept the Taba offer and in what format, with Barak sounding increasingly pessimistic about the chances to achieve some breakthrough before the Israeli elections on Feb. 6. Israel radio said Barak would convene senior advisers and make a decision Saturday evening. Barak's office had no immediate comment.

"We shall do everything possible in order to have a peace agreement before the elections or after them. I don't believe there's a real chance of reaching an agreement before the ballot but we shall continue to seek an accord after it," Barak told high school students in Tel Aviv Thursday.

Still, Israeli reports said there was serious pressure on Barak within the top-level Peace Cabinet to accept Arafat's offer, especially from Israel's elder statesman Shimon Peres.

The killing of the 16-year-old Israeli boy, Ophir Rakhum, whose emotional funeral was held in the coastal town of Ashkelon Friday, could harden Barak's stance. Barak described it as a "vile killing by murderers lacking a human image," adding that such murder made peace negotiations even more difficult.

A Palestinian security official said the boy was shot several times near the West Bank town of Ramallah. Friends said he was lured to the area by a girl whom he met through an Internet exchange of letters and who initially posed as a tourist.

"All of Israel is crying today," Diaspora Affairs Minister Michael Melchior said at the funeral. "The Rakhum family is a symbol of the Jewish people. What a horror that we raise our children to be merciful, to care about others ... to get close to them, but then, when they get close to them, the cruelest thing of all happens."

Meanwhile, Barak and his hawkish challenger Ariel Sharon clashed over Sharon's own peace plan.

Sharon's program, revealed in detail for the first time Thursday, calls for full Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem and the Golan Heights and no more land concessions to the Palestinians, who will be offered a long-term interim agreement including statehood on less than half the territory of the West Bank.

The Palestinians and Barak immediately attacked Sharon, who still maintains his double-digit lead over the incumbent.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Sharon's ideas were a "recipe for disaster, a recipe for war." Barak echoed Erekat on Thursday, saying the plan had "absolutely no chance" and was a "recipe for violence and deterioration."

Polls in Friday newspapers showed Sharon maintaining his double-digit lead over Barak. A Gallup poll in the Maariv daily showed Sharon ahead by 51 to 31 percent. The poll questioned 1,100 Israeli adults and quoted a 3 percent margin of error.

Negotiations in the current talks have been guided by U.S. President Bill Clinton's peace proposals, which call for a Palestinian state in the Gaza Strip, 95 percent of the West Bank and Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem. Barak's government and the Palestinians have accepted the plan in principle.

"Barak has made most far-reaching concessions but did not reach peace," Sharon snapped Thursday. "We need a different plan."

Under Sharon's plan, Israel would aim for a long-term interim deal with the Palestinians. Israel would not hand more land to the Palestinians, and all the Jewish settlements would remain in place. Sharon would not build new settlements, but, like Barak, would continue to expand them, especially around Jerusalem.

The Palestinians would be allowed a state in their cities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip - now autonomous - and over surrounding areas where they now have partial control. In the West Bank, the two categories would account for 42 percent of the land. Tunnels would connect these areas for Palestinian traffic.

Sharon said he saw no possibility of any compromise over Jerusalem, "Israel's unified and indivisible capital forever." Asked about the Golan Heights, captured in the 1967 Middle East war from Syria, he said: "Israel has to stay on the Golan Heights. Period."