A Little Bit of Hope
Mideast Security
Chiefs Meet; Clashes but No Deaths
J E R U S A L E M, Oct. 25 - Israeli
and Palestinian troop commanders met
at U.S. insistence today to try to
pave the way for a truce, as the West
Bank and Gaza experienced a relative
calm.
There were sporadic exchanges of gunfire, but no one was killed
in
clashes for the first time in a week.
Palestinian Maj.
Gen. Abdel-Razek al-Majaydeh met today with Israeli
Maj. Gen. Yom-Tov Samia,
chief of Israel's southern command, with the aim
of "lowering significantly
the level of friction and violence."
They reportedly met in the
presence of U.S. officials.
The Israeli army also said the chief of
its central command, who
oversees the military in the West Bank, had begun
a meeting with his
Palestinian counterpart.
Similar talks
have been held several times since clashes erupted on
Sept. 28, but a senior
Israeli official said today's meeting was the first
in about two weeks.
President Clinton has raised the possibility of holding separate
meetings in Washington with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and
Palestinian
leader Yasser Arafat if a truce he brokered last week at a
summit in Sharm
el-Sheikh in Egypt finally takes effect.
Speaking at a New York fundraiser
and 53rd birthday celebration for
his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, tonight,
the president says the United
States will continue to stand by Israel.
Clinton said dealing with the Middle East problem "takes about half
of every day I have now, and most of the nights."
Israel
has said the Palestinian Authority has done little to quell
shooting attacks
on Israeli positions. The Palestinians have complained
that Israel has
not lifted its security closure of the Palestinian areas
and withdrawn
troops from trouble spots.
In all, 128 people, the vast majority Palestinians,
have been killed
in four weeks of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.
Clinton said today that neither Arafat nor Barak were completely in
control of the situation.
"I think the violence can be dramatically
reduced. I think that there
are probably some people within the Palestinian
territories and probably
some people within Israel that are not within
total control of Chairman
Arafat or even the Israeli government,"
Clinton said.
"But I do think Chairman Arafat can dramatically
reduce the level of
violence," he said.
P.J. Crowley,
spokesman for the White House National Security
Council, said Clinton spoke
by telephone with Arafat for 30 minutes on
Tuesday. Another U.S. official
said Clinton also called Barak.
"The president raised the possibility
of the leaders coming here to
Washington," Crowley said, adding that
Arafat and Barak would "come
separately."
The meetings
would be held "within the context of seeing progress on
full implementation
of Sharm," he said.
Barak has tried to bring the hawkish opposition
into his government
to ensure his political survival before a hostile parliament
convenes next
week. If he succeeds, a resumption of peace talks is unlikely.
Tensions Ease
Israel has said that if there were no new outbreaks
of violence, it could
withdraw troops from friction points and then look
into ways of resuming
peace talks. However, army officials were skeptical
a cease-fire would
hold for long.
"We must wait a day
or so to see if there is a real change," Maj.
Gen. Giora Eiland said.
If calm prevailed, Israel would pull back forces
to previous positions,
he said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami said Israel could
even
envision returning to peace talks.
"If, by some
miracle … the violence would stop, as a result of talks
Clinton had [Tuesday]
with Arafat and Barak, mostly with Arafat … then we
could talk about the
best way to restart the peace talks within two
weeks," he said.
It was not clear whether Ben-Ami spoke for Barak. The Israeli prime
minister has said repeatedly he no longer considers Arafat a peace
partner.
Speaking before shooting began, the chief of operations in the
Israeli army said there had been a significant drop in violence over the
past day.
Heavy rains over the West Bank, which brought three inches
in 24
hours, were credited with the lull, but clashes continued in the
Gaza
Strip where conditions were drier.
After nightfall today,
Palestinian gunmen fired at Israeli targets
from several locations. Shots
were fired from the West Bank at the Jewish
neighborhood of Gilo on the
southern edge of Jerusalem. For the third day
in a row, the army responded
with tank fire.
The leader of Arafat's Fatah movement in the West Bank,
Marwan
Barghouti, said the uprising would continue. Barghouti said Wednesday's
lull was not due to the rainy weather, but a result of instructions by
the
uprising leadership that activists take time off to help farmers harvest
olives.
On Friday, the Muslim Sabbath, large-scale protests
would resume, he
said.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed
to this report.
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