U.S. Envoy Tries to Restore Trust to Riven Mideast

JERUSALEM —  U.S. peace envoy Dennis B. Ross shuttled between Israeli and Palestinian leaders Sunday, listening to each side complain about the other and trying to restore a trust shattered by a double suicide bombing and months of stalled negotiations.

U.S., Israeli and Palestinian officials said the talks on the first day of Ross’ mission to the region went well, but there were no signs of an imminent breakthrough.

The U.S. envoy and his team of negotiators met twice Sunday in Jerusalem with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and held a lengthy meeting and leisurely lunch with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Then, in what a Netanyahu aide praised as “a small step in the right direction,” Ross arranged a late-night meeting under American auspices that brought Arafat and his senior security aides together with Ami Ayalon, Israel’s chief of internal security.

Ross said his top priority will be to restore the “security underpinning” of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and encourage the resumption of comprehensive security cooperation between the sides.

If he is successful, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is expected to pay her first official visit to the region at the end of the month and begin an intensive, personal effort to salvage the U.S.-sponsored peace process.

But the challenges facing the seemingly tireless Ross were apparent Sunday as the two sides even differed over the main purpose of his mediation effort. Israeli officials said Ross told them that he will focus solely on security issues during his visit; Palestinians said he is willing to discuss political as well as security topics.

A veteran Middle East envoy, Ross brokered the complex agreement on Israeli troop withdrawal from the West Bank city of Hebron in January but has stayed away from the region since May, when peace negotiations broke down. President Clinton asked him to return to the Middle East to try to defuse a rapidly deepening crisis in the wake of the twin bomb blasts July 30 that killed 15 people, including the bombers, and injured 170 in a Jerusalem market.

But even before that attack produced a new round of mutual recriminations, relations between Israel and the Palestinians had slipped to their lowest level since the two sides launched the peace process four years ago. In recent months, each has accused the other of violating both the terms and the spirit of their interim agreements.

Israel accuses Arafat of failing to take stern enough measures against militant Islamic organizations that operate in areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip under his control. The organizations, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, are responsible for attacks that have killed scores of Israelis. Hamas claimed responsibility for the recent Jerusalem bombings.

Israel has said the Palestinians must make a serious effort to crack down on the militants before Israel will lift severe sanctions imposed after the bombings. The measures include a tight closure of the Palestinian territories and a halting of tax revenues to the self-governing Palestinian Authority.

The Palestinians, in turn, charge that Netanyahu’s government, never comfortable with the inherited peace agreements, is now out to destroy the accords. They also say Netanyahu acted in bad faith last spring when he offered Palestinians a smaller-than-expected continuation of the troop withdrawal from the West Bank and then launched a new Jewish housing project in traditionally Arab East Jerusalem.

Ross’ first step, the Palestinians argue, should be to persuade Israel to ease the sanctions.

On Sunday, Ross met first with Netanyahu and Israeli security officials, who gave him a laundry list of complaints about the Palestinian security efforts.

“They told him everything the Palestinians aren’t doing that they should be doing to crack down on the infrastructure of these organizations,” a senior Netanyahu aide said.

In Ramallah, officials were braced for Ross to make immediate demands for heightened Palestinian security cooperation with Israel. But Ross quickly reassured Arafat, making no specific demands and telling him that restored security contacts would lead to a broad new political initiative by Albright.

Marwan Kanafani, an Arafat advisor, said that “Ross handled himself beautifully. He didn’t hit us with demands to do things right away, and he told President Arafat that he was aware of the hardships the Palestinians are facing. He spoke of [Albright’s] desire to get things back on track and [Clinton’s] instruction to find a solution to the impasse.”

Over a lunch of fish and salads, Arafat complained to Ross about the new Israeli sanctions and appealed to him to “save the peace process.”

Arafat also said he wants U.S. officials to participate in every security meeting between Israel and the Palestinians--to judge “whether we are doing the job or not,” Kanafani said.

The Arafat aide said he could not confirm Israeli media reports that the Palestinian leader is inclined to wait for Albright’s visit before making any real concessions to Israel on security issues.

But a U.S. official said such a decision would not be surprising. “The Palestinians are clearly more interested in Albright’s visit than Dennis’,” he said.

Ross’ visit has coincided with an upsurge in violence between Israeli soldiers and Iranian-backed Lebanese guerrillas in southern Lebanon. One Israeli soldier was reported killed and another wounded Sunday in the latest clashes.

Fourteen Lebanese and one Israeli have died in the past week of fighting between the Hezbollah guerrillas and Israel and its militia allies.