Mideast leaders: Peace still possible

Rabbo, left and Beilin

TEL AVIV, Israel (CNN) -- A former Israeli Cabinet minister and the Palestinian information and culture minister said Friday they still feel 10 months of violence can be halted and a peace agreement can be reached.

Former Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin and Palestinian Information and Culture Minister Yasser Abbed Rabbo were among 50 cultural and political leaders who signed a declaration last week calling for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"There is a possibility to stop this cycle of violence," Rabbo told CNN. "The implementation of the Mitchell recommendations is the first step, and for that reason we had asked for international observers, basically American, to come and monitor the situation on the ground, to guarantee that there is a real cease-fire and end of violence and there is a new beginning by implementing Mitchell's recommendations."

Beilin added: "What we need right now, urgently, is a coalition of sanity."

The Mitchell committee report calls for an end to violence, a crackdown on "terror" by the Palestinians, a freeze in settlement activities by the Israelis, and a return to negotiations.

The Mitchell committee, a five-man, independent, international group charged with investigating the Israeli-Palestinian fighting, was created during talks at Taba, Egypt, last fall that both sides said came close but failed to end with an agreement.

Beilin said the background of the current situation is that "the Americans are sick and tired of both of us, Palestinians and Israelis, the Europeans went on vacation, and we are there killing each other without a solution around the corner. So, we have to suggest something, we have to go back either to the Clinton plan or to the talks which stopped at Taba some months ago and try with all the difficulties to sit together and to find a solution."

Beilin said it is up to the leaders of the two sides -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat -- to find a way out of the current difficulties.

"I don't want to give up on Arafat. I don't want to give up on Sharon," he said. "Both of them were elected democratically, and it is their role to find a way out. My feeling right now is that none of them knows exactly what to do and maybe we should tell them."

The declaration that Beilin and Rabbo signed -- which was published in both Israeli and Palestinian newspapers -- calls for a peace formula that follows United Nations resolutions on the Middle East.

The result, they said, would be two states -- Israel and Palestine -- based on 1967 borders between the two sides, with Jerusalem as the capital of both.

Rabbo said the basic issue that must be settled is the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.

"We need to stop the violence, but we need to solve the basic issue, which is the occupation. Our people want to live in peace and want to have their freedom and their independent state side by side with Israel. This has to be declared by Mr. Sharon if he wants to look for peace with the Palestinian people," he said.

Beilin said mistakes have been made on both sides and the only question remaining is whether the two sides can be partners in peace.

"Whether Mr. Abed Rabbo is my partner, whether I'm his partner," said Beilin, "whether Arafat is the partner for Sharon. And our answer to it is yes."