Clinton Urges Arafat to Renew Peace Talks

WASHINGTON â€”  President Clinton appealed personally to Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat and angry Palestinians on Wednesday to resume peace talks with Israel, warning that a breakdown in negotiations would “hand a victoryâ€� to the Jewish extremist who massacred 48 worshipers in a West Bank mosque.

“If the peace talks don’t get back on track, then we are rewarding the damage and the death wreaked by the extremists,� Clinton told reporters at the White House. “We don’t want to do that. We want to keep going.�

In Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin made an impassioned appeal of his own to Palestinian leaders to resume the negotiations.

“I believe at this stage, the leadership of both sides, Palestinians and us, have to stand up to overcome pain, sorrow and agony and to understand that the real solution is in the political field,� he said.

Using similar arguments, Clinton and Rabin called for logic to prevail over emotion.

Both insisted that the only chance the Palestinians have to improve their living conditions in the Israeli-occupied territories is to resume negotiations over limited self-rule in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho.

But they both ruled out measures that Arafat has demanded as a condition for resuming the talks.

He has said that all Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip should be disarmed and that the settlements should be moved away from Arab population centers.

Clinton acknowledged that the mood among Palestinians after the Hebron massacre is so angry that logic apparently has little appeal.

Many Palestinians in the occupied territories and in refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon are condemning Arafat for trying to make peace with Israel at all, arguing that the peace process somehow made it easier for an American-born Israeli settler to shoot up the Ibrahim Mosque.

“I know (Arafat’s) under a lot of pressure at home, and I understand that,� Clinton said. “The only thing that I would say to the Palestinians who are pressuring Arafat not to resume talks is that that is the surest way to hand a victory to the madman who killed all the Palestinians in the mosque.�

Taking up the same theme, Secretary of State Warren Christopher said the Palestinians must get beyond their demand for revenge and realize that only peace will give them “a different future.�

“The problem is that any hiatus (in the talks) . . . is to the benefit of the extremists,� Christopher said. “They are able to exploit delay, pointing out to the people on the ground that the present circumstances are not causing any progress and thus urging people there to turn to more extreme measures.�

He said he plans to meet Friday with Nabil Shaath, a top adviser to Arafat, on ways to restart the talks.

But PLO sources said that Shaath’s only objective is to persuade Washington to apply more pressure on Israel, a step the Administration has already ruled out.

Talking to foreign correspondents in Jerusalem, Rabin said that Israeli and PLO negotiators were tantalizingly close to agreement on the details for Palestinian self-government before the Hebron massacre intervened.

“Prior to the atrocity in Hebron, we were closer than ever to an agreement on security measures, to maps on how Gaza and Jericho should be delineated and how to transfer power from Israel’s military government to the (Palestinian) civil authority,� Rabin said.

Despite Rabin’s rejection of Palestinian demands to dismantle settlements and disarm settlers, Israeli police imposed restrictions on 18 Jewish activists in the ultranationalist Kach and Kahane Hai movements. The militants were ordered to turn in their army-issued weapons and were placed under travel restrictions.

Israel has also made other conciliatory gestures, including the release this week of 570 Palestinian prisoners. Another 400 are to be freed today and Friday.

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Israel “is not blind� to Arafat’s need for concrete concessions before he can return to the negotiating table.

A top Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, arrived in Jerusalem from PLO headquarters in Tunis, Tunisia, with a letter from Arafat to Rabin, outlining PLO proposals for resuming the talks.

“The Palestinians want to see certain changes on the ground,� Erekat said, “and Israel’s response to our position will be a test of its sincerity.�

Meanwhile, often-violent protests over the massacre continued across the occupied territories.

* Two Palestinians were killed, and hospitals reported nearly 100 wounded in the fighting.

* A 17-year-old was shot dead in Hebron, according to military sources, when hundreds of youths poured into the streets, throwing stones and firebombs during a three-hour lifting of the curfew that has kept the town’s population of 65,000 largely confined to its houses for four days.

* In Jericho, a rally turned violent with hundreds of demonstrators stoning police and soldiers, who opened fire, killing a 20-year-old Palestinian.

Rabin said he intends to maintain the widespread curfews in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and to bar most residents of both regions from Israel until the violence subsides, although this means that more than 50,000 Palestinians are unable to get to their jobs in Israel.

Kempster reported from Washington and Parks from Jerusalem.