Israel Wants Delay Before Ceding Land To Palestinians Apparent Rebuff To U.S. Call To Speed Up Peace Process

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said Friday that he wanted to wait at least five months before handing the Palestinians any more territory. That dealt an apparent rebuff to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who had urged him to speed up the Middle East peace effort.

At a joint news conference after their meeting here, Netanyahu said he had brought “no maps” and discussed “no percentages” for a withdrawal, which is due under the 1995 Oslo accords. He said his government wanted the delay to judge “Palestinian fulfillment of their obligations.”

American officials indicated that a five-month delay was hardly what Albright had in mind, although they said the Palestinians also had obligations. But they said that before making more comments, they first wanted to hear from the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, whom Albright will meet today in Geneva.

Netanyahu’s call for a five-month delay did not come up at the news conference, and American officials who were asked about it later said they would have no immediate comment on the matter. They did say that “all issues of substance and timing were discussed” in the meeting.

The Americans have demanded that any Israeli withdrawal be “credible and significant.” But Netanyahu, saying he had future generations to consider, insisted that he would not be rushed or pressed into making a fateful decision on troop withdrawal.

After the Israeli cabinet agreed “in principle” on Sunday to withdraw from more West Bank land, the Americans were hoping that the Israelis would be ready to discuss a detailed proposal, but Netanyahu did not produce one and said to do so would require weeks. It may also require an assurance from Arafat that a sizable Israeli withdrawal will bring him to “final status” talks.

Albright put on a brave face after the long session with Netanyahu Friday, emphasizing that their meeting was “useful and substantive” and that she took the Israeli cabinet decision “seriously.”

It was Albright’s second meeting with Netanyahu in two weeks. At the first one, in London, she identified December as the month in which the peace effort must be revived and called for “a new urgency” and “bold decisions” from both Israelis and Palestinians.

The Americans have talked privately of “turning up the pressure” on Netanyahu to persuade him to show that he really does want peace with the Palestinians, but in public both Albright and Netanyahu spoke of the enduring basis of friendship and shared interests between the United States and Israel.

She was apparently sufficiently satisfied with what Netanyahu had to say that she did not feel compelled to lay out a plan for him. When asked if the Americans were ready to put forward their own proposals in public, she said, “I don’t have to answer that yet.”

Netanyahu, when asked if he still feels slighted by President Clinton’s refusal to arrange his schedule in order to meet him, said Friday’s meeting “cleared the air.”

While “we’ve had our differences,” he said, “I think the surface waves do not in any way affect the depth of this ocean of common values and common feelings,” which, he said, include the search for peace.

Albright repeated the public American position, which is that Clinton will see Netanyahu when their schedules permit.

She said that in her meeting with Arafat today, she would encourage him to fulfill his commitment to combat terrorism on a full-time basis, and to “take note of the Israeli cabinet decision.” The United States “takes it seriously, and he should take it seriously,” she said.

She also will urge Arafat “to have a sense of moving forward in a realistic way” on Israel’s territorial withdrawals from the West Bank, she said. American officials have said Palestinian calls for an Israeli withdrawal from 70 or 80 percent of currently occupied land is “unrealistic” outside of talks on a final settlement between them.

Israeli officials say the withdrawal Netanyahu is contemplating might be bigger if Arafat agrees to enter final-settlement talks. But Israel is first trying to decide what its “bottom line” will be for a future border with a Palestinian entity, the officials said, and then on that basis, the military is drawing up four options for an interim withdrawal.

“We’re aware of the need to move the process forward,” Netanyahu said. “The operative word is ‘useful”’ he said of Friday’s meetings, then smiled and added, “It’s a useful word.”