Jerrold Kessel: Israel, Palestinians at diplomatic crossroads

Jerusalem Correspondent Jerrold Kessel has been following the Israeli-Palestinian fighting and the efforts by Egypt and Jordan to revive peace talks.

Q: Now that Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres met Sunday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Abdullah, what's the next step?

KESSEL: We've had several moments where you could say we're at a crossroads, where you can almost see the choice very starkly and graphically delineated for the two sides -- whether they head on to the roads toward escalation and further deterioration or gradually weaning their way back to a negotiating posture.

VIDEO CNN's Ben Wedeman visits a residential Palestinian home that the occupants say is regularly fired upon by Israeli soldiers Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)     AUDIO CNN's Rula Amin: Progress has been made towards a cease-fire agreement 632 Kb/58 secs. AIFF or WAV sound CNN's Ben Wedeman: The question now is if Arafat is in control to stop the Intifada 534 Kb/49 secs. AIFF or WAV sound

It started gaining a new kind of momentum with these meetings that Peres had in Cairo and in Aqaba. Whether the meetings spell that a new direction is possible, that will take some time to tell ... I think we're going to see the decision on the crossroads taken by both sides, actively or passively, within not too long a time.

Q: Is the Israeli agreement today to lift some of the restrictions they have imposed on the Palestinian population a conciliatory gesture from Israel or are they in response to other moves?

KESSEL: Israel has not yet seen what it says are the cardinal measures that need to be taken. But what they say is they do differentiate between the constant need to battle the people who are making what they call the terror on the Israelis, and the bulk of the Palestinian population. ... As Peres said today, they will do that unilaterally.

The other of the Egyptian-Jordanian initiative elements are primarily that the violence would stop; that concurrently to the violence stopping, Israel will stop settlement-building -- that's a problematic area -- and that the peace talks would start right away.

That, along with the issue of the settlements, was one of the major misgivings that Israel has with this initiative. If there is a cessation of hostilities ... only after it's proven to be valid and happening, then can the negotiations start again. It is a fundamental -- without this, (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon would be in political turmoil. He has to prove that the violence has ended before he will negotiate.

Q: Peres and Mubarak said today that peace talks could resume four weeks after a cease-fire takes effect. Does that give anyone any breathing room?

KESSEL: It seems that what Peres is proposing to get out of the Sharon bind is that there is this four-week leeway. If that gets accepted -- and I'm not sure the Palestinians would go for it that clearly -- but if the Jordanians and the Egyptians do, then we have a serious initiative on our hands.

Then the pressure would be on both Sharon and Arafat to show they mean business. They both have a hard time not doing it. Sharon would have to go seriously into peace talks, and the Palestinians would have to seriously say they are restraining the violence. And whether Arafat can do it or not, that's the big question.

Q: Observers suggest that Peres may be moving ahead of Sharon to push for a cease-fire and new talks. What happens to Peres if Sharon doesn't go along with the plan?

KESSEL: We don't know how true that is. Until now, the officials say formally they see eye-to-eye, they're working hand-in-glove, there is no question of Peres having to push Sharon. The facts speak differently. Sharon said last week, in the wake of the failure of that small incursion into Gaza, that the Jordanian-Egyptian initiative is not even contemplatable.

There are enormous expectations about whether Peres can deliver even the possibility of getting back to the peace table. If it succeeds, there is a chance that Peres will be able to say, "I was the one who did it" when Sharon wasn't that keen, when Sharon's right wing is baying at his heels not to do it, and when there are people in the Palestinian camp who would be clearly uncomfortable with that position.

Q: And if it doesn't work?

KESSEL: If it doesn't work, then these accusations that Peres is serving as a fig leaf for Sharon's tough policies would pick up steam.

If this happens, Sharon will be faced with clear-cut choice. This unity government as it exists is a strange hybrid. Certainly, if it gets to that point about the possibility of a negotiating gambit taking steam, Sharon may lose his ultra-right wing. It may well be that the rightists in the Cabinet will say, "We can't take part in this."

On the other hand if he rejects Peres' gambit, if he spurns it, he could lose maybe Peres and maybe the Labor Party and have a real political crisis. But we're not at that stage yet. He doesn't need to make the choice yet.

Q: Where does all of this leave Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat?

KESSEL: Top Palestinian security officials told us again last night that there was a meeting in which they emphasized to all Arafat's Fatah loyalists that they have to stop those mortar attacks that have been the cause of Israel's pressure down in Gaza. Certainly, there have been more mortars. We don't know if Fatah's people are responsible for them, as they claimed responsibility last week. But we know that today some Fatah people said they are not going to respond positively to the Arafat strictures.

Arafat could very soon, if this diplomatic initiative begins to take shape, be faced with the same choice that Sharon could soon be faced with -- does he go down the negotiating path or does he let the violence continue to escalate? We're really at a time where there could be some very critical decisions that will have to be made, that both leaders will have to make.

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