JERUSALEM -- Less than a week before President Clinton is to arrive to promote the land-for-security deal he brokered in October, the Middle East peace process is again in crisis, with disputes raging over the accord and his visit.
Israeli and Palestinian leaders accused one another yesterday of lying about the terms of the Wye peace agreement, which was suspended last week by Israel. Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners joined a hunger strike to protest their detention by Israel.
Several of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Cabinet ministers called on Clinton to postpone his high-profile visit to Israel and the Palestinian areas, which is to begin Saturday.
U.S. officials insisted that the three-day visit will proceed as planned. But they acknowledged that issues both symbolic and substantive must be resolved and that tensions are building between Clinton's Israeli and Palestinian hosts.
"There's a high level of negative vibes right now," one said.
Netanyahu raised the level yesterday. In an interview with Reuters, the Israeli leader accused Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat of lying to his people about the accord, particularly the explosive issue of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, and of failing to carry out commitments.
"Peace will take place when both sides, not just Israel, keep their peace contracts, and we're not about to be patsies on this," Netanyahu said.
Palestinians say Israel has violated terms of the agreement by not freeing jailed activists and instead releasing 150 common criminals alongside 100 political prisoners in the first phase of implementation. Netanyahu says he is abiding by the agreement and that he never agreed to release prisoners who carried out attacks against Israelis.
The United States says Israel has fulfilled its commitments so far regarding the prisoners. To date, 250 have been released of the 750 required to be freed under the three-phase agreement.
The prisoner issue has been the focus of a recent wave of violence in the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem, with Palestinian demonstrations turning into clashes with Jewish settlers and Israeli soldiers. In one incident Saturday, about 200 Palestinians broke through a fence surrounding the Jewish settlement of Ariel, where they stoned houses and burned utility poles before being dispersed by police.
About 1,700 Palestinian prisoners have reportedly joined the hunger strike intended to draw attention to the issue.
Unless the Palestinians agree to Israel's interpretation of the agreement and stop what Netanyahu's government considers violations, Israel has said it will not carry out the next troop withdrawal from the West Bank, due Dec. 18. Cabinet members reaffirmed that decision yesterday.
Mahmoud Abbas, a senior Palestinian official who is Arafat's deputy, alleged that Netanyahu was "not telling the truth" on the prisoner issue.
"At Wye River, after long hours of give and take, the agreement was that 750 political prisoners must be released," Abbas told Palestinian television.
As the sides argued, Israeli President Ezer Weizman called on Clinton, who invested dozens of hours negotiating the accord, to get it back on track.
"It's right for him to come here, not only for celebrations, but rather to see if he can do something to move the cart out of the mud," Weizman said.
If the disputes are unresolved by the time he arrives, Clinton may be forced to try to solve them himself. Both sides have credited Clinton with helping them to reach the October deal, which also gave him a foreign policy success as he faced impeachment hearings in Congress.
Complicating matters is the fact that the president's visit has become a subject of controversy between Israel and the Palestinians. Underlying the differences are the divergent uses the sides want to make of Clinton's presence.
The Palestinians, who are delighted at the prospect of the first visit by an American president to Palestinian-ruled land, hope to use the trip to bolster their claims to sovereignty and to show off a warming U.S.-Palestinian relationship.
dTC Israel, which fears just that, is stressing that Clinton's visit to the Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip should be held without the trappings of statehood and that his stay in Israel should be "meaningful" to balance the likely substantive and emotional impact of the Palestinian leg of the trip.
The result is a headache for U.S. planners, who are struggling to resolve heavily symbolic issues such as whether national anthems should be played for Clinton's arrival in Gaza and whether the president's plane or a helicopter will land at the newly opened Gaza International Airport.
Israel has asked Clinton not to arrive at the Gaza airport -- a potent symbol of Palestinian independence -- on Air Force One. David Bar-Illan, a senior adviser to Netanyahu, said Israel also is concerned about other symbols of statehood, from flags to honor guards, during the Palestinian visit.
To help balance the symbolism, Clinton is tentatively scheduled to visit Masada, the mountaintop fortress where Jewish zealots committed suicide 2,000 years ago rather than surrender to the Roman army. But with the late addition of a stop in Palestinian-controlled Bethlehem, where Clinton is likely to light the annual Christmas tree, the Israelis are complaining that the trip is weighted again toward the Palestinians.
Pub Date: 12/07/98