Clinton's Middle East Role Gets Personal

With Israeli-Palestinian peace talks stalled and crucial deadlines looming, President Clinton has personally intervened to get Israel's agreement on U.S. mediation of the talks.

Returning from Washington on Wednesday, a senior Israeli official suggested to reporters aboard Israel's Air Force One that Clinton left Prime Minister Ehud Barak little choice: the Americans are "convinced the Palestinian track must be accelerated," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak had resisted U.S. efforts to mediate until his visit to Washington on Tuesday at Clinton's behest.

But Barak was not in much of a position to resist Clinton's attempts at persuasion: a year after the Israeli prime minister won power promising a comprehensive peace by the end of this year, talks with the Syrians—and their Lebanese proxies—are at a dead end.

The Israeli official said that U.S. observers would begin regularly attending the Israeli-Palestinian negotiating sessions at Bolling Air Force Base near Washington. He said that Clinton felt that their presence at the meetings would facilitate after-hours informal mediation by U.S. officials.

If the May deadline for a treaty framework approaches without significant progress, the Americans would adopt a much more involved role and begin to put formulations on the table, the official said.

State Department Spokesperson James Rubin said those ideas would "bridge gaps" and would not be coercive.

The three leaders—Clinton, Arafat and Barak—would wrap up the loose ends at a Washington summit, the Israeli official said. He didn't say when that would take place, but Barak is due to attend a pro-Israel lobby on May 20 in Washington.

The official said that a successful treaty outline would "make it a lot easier for us to be more generous with territory" in the last interim troop withdrawal in the West Bank, slated for June.

The Palestinians complain that Israel has so far refused to withdraw from areas that would give them the contiguity they need for statehood.

The Israeli official said that for Israel to consider the outline agreement successful, it would have to address solutions for Jewish settlements, borders and Palestinian refugees.

For the first time, the two sides have exchanged drafts of a final treaty outline this week.

By RON KAMPEAS