Palestinian leaders said Friday they were ready to meet their Israeli counterparts to discuss crumbling US suggestions for a peace deal against a backdrop of new violence on the ground and growing pressure from hardliners on both sides.
One day after plans broke down for a summit on ideas put forward by US President Bill Clinton, the Palestinians said their leader Yasser Arafat would be willing to hold a summit with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, provided that the Clinton ideas are clarified.
"We don't have problems attending any meeting to clarify what remains unclear and to develop the American proposal so that it can be the basis for negotiations. ... President Arafat has no objections to holding any meeting like that," said Palestinian international cooperation minister Nabil Shaath.
But Barak, who had conditionally accepted the Clinton proposals, appeared to backtrack late Friday, telling Israeli television he would not accept Palestinian sovereignty over a key hotspot in Jerusalem, a cornerstone of the US plan.
"I do not intend to sign a document that calls for a transfer of sovereignty to the Palestinians of the Temple Mount, which is at the heart of our identity," Barak said.
Jews consider the Temple Mount their holiest place as it includes the Wailing Wall, the last remnant of the Jewish temple destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.
On top of the site are the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque, from where Muslims believe the Prophet Mohammed rose to Heaven. The Noble Sanctuary is considered the third holiest site in Islam.
In response to Barak, Arafat aide Nabil Abu Rudeina told AFP his side would not accept any deal "that does not give total Palestinian sovereignty over (east) Jerusalem, the Noble Sanctuary and all of the holy sites."
Shaath said the Palestinians had sent a letter to the Clinton administration seeking "clear answers from them on the Palestinian questions about the principles of the proposals."
White House spokesman Jake Siewert declined to comment on Barak's statements, saying only that US officials "remain in consultation" with Israelis and Palestinians.
Clinton has shown frustration at the slow pace of negotiations, telling a press conference Thursday there was "no point in our talking further unless both sides agree to accept the parameters that I've laid out."
"I do not want to talk more about this. ... Both sides know exactly what I mean and they know exactly what they still have to do, and that's enough right now," said Clinton, who did not explicitly criticize either side.
Clinton hopes to secure a peace deal before he leaves office in little over three weeks, while Barak knows a peace deal may be his only hope of winning re-election February 6.
Israel's Communications Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer said Friday that Clinton's ideas were acceptable, but added that reaching a deal could take months and remained subject to the will of the electorate.
And wide gulfs remain in public opinion. A poll in the daily newspaper Maariv found that 56 percent of Israelis do not want a peace deal before the elections, brought on with the surprise resignation earlier this month of Barak, who was gambling that a peace accord could help him win reelection.
Only 39 percent want an early deal, while five percent were undecided.
And the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Friday urged Arafat not to accept Clinton's proposals and instead pursue "the path of resistance."
"All attempts to give life to the failed negotiating process and to save the Zionist killer Barak from his political crisis through negotiations in Washington do not serve our Palestinian goals," a Hamas statement said.
"They will not stop the blessed Intifada," or uprising, the group said.
More than 350 people, most of them Palestinians, have died since the uprising broke out September 28.
One more Palestinian died Friday when Israeli soldiers fired a tank shell at a Palestinian post near the Erez crossing point between Israel and the Gaza Strip, hospital officials said.
At least 19 other Palestinians were injured in assorted clashes.
Barak, acting in his role of defense minister, on Thursday ordered a total closure after two Israeli soldiers were killed and another two hurt in a Gaza Strip bombing and 13 people were wounded in an explosion on a Tel Aviv bus.
The al-Qods Brigades, a military arm of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, claimed responsibility Friday for the bombing attack in the Gaza Strip.
"Our heroic combatants detonated by remote control an explosive charge weighing 53 kilograms of explosive materials when seven of the Zionist force got out of their vehicles," said the statement faxed to AFP in Beirut.
Some 95 percent of the West Bank and the entire Gaza Strip would be handed over to the Palestinians under the Clinton plan, along with some of east Jerusalem.
The Palestinians would also control east Jerusalem's holy sites, except for the Western Wall, the most sacred shrine for Jews.
In exchange for Israeli flexibility over east Jerusalem, which the Jewish state captured and annexed in 1967, Palestinians would have to accept Israel's refusal to allow some 3.7 million refugees to return to what is now Israel -- JERUSALEM (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
