Rabbis Aid Palestinian Effort

As Israeli and Palestinian leaders prepare for Tuesday's round of peace negotiations, some citizens of the divided country have already begun making amends. CBS News Correspondent Jesse Schulman reports.

West Bank Palestinian Salim Shawamrah is rebuilding his house, after Israeli army work crews demolished it last month, putting him, his wife, and their six children out on the street.

In itself, it is a familiar tale. What makes it new, is that the help Shawamrah is getting is from just about the last friends you might expect. They call themselves "Rabbis for Human Rights," and they say destroying homes is wrong no matter who's doing it, even the Jewish State.

"Every day currently homes are being demolished," Rabbi Arik Ascherman said. "I find that is trampling on the Torah, trampling on the Jewish tradition."

The rabbis' cry from the heart comes as a wave of demolitions rolls on. Hundreds of family homes have been destroyed, and up to 2,000 more are waiting their turn.

Despite all the help they're getting, chances are the Shawamrah family may never get to live in their new house. Standard Israeli procedure in cases like this one, is to wait until the journalists are gone, then send the bulldozers back and knock the new house as flat as the old one.

The Israelis insist they're just enforcing the law.

"This is an ongoing effort against the various building criminals," said Lt. Peter Lerner, a spokesman for the West Bank military government.

But who's the criminal is a matter of where you stand. To the struggle over land and who controls it, is now added a battle between the power of Jewish conscience, and the might of the Jewish State.

In the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian official warns that Tuesday's meeting with Israeli officials may be the last in this round of peace talks.

The senior aide to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat says it could be the last one unless Israel accepts a U.S. plan to withdraw its troops from 13 percent of the West Bank.

Meanwhile, Israeli officials are telling the Palestinians not to issue ultimatums. They say the two sides are not that far apart in their talks.

Reported by Jesse Schulman