A Bridge To Peace

By DOUGLAS WALLER/WASHINGTON

He has three weeks left in his presidency. He had to scratch a trip to North Korea that might have cemented his foreign policy legacy; missile talks with Pyongyang weren't yet ripe. So Bill Clinton is making one last Hail Mary shot at a Middle East peace deal.

Two Saturdays ago, he summoned Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to a long table in the Cabinet Room of the White House to receive a carefully calculated ultimatum. The two teams had been sequestered at nearby Bolling Air Force Base the previous week, making some progress in restarting peace talks ruptured by three months of Palestinian rioting that had left nearly 350 dead. But they "would still be flapping around" at Bolling if Clinton hadn't decided "to force the beginning of an end game," says an aide--eager to give credit to the President.

When the Palestinian and Israeli diplomats were seated, a door to the Cabinet Room opened. Clinton walked in, pulled his chair up to the table and unfolded his notes. "I want to be as precise as I can, so I'll read this slowly," he said. As the envoys scribbled on pads, Clinton, sounding like a settlement attorney, calmly laid out American "ideas" for finally closing a peace deal. Arafat would get a Palestinian state, with Israel ceding all of the Gaza Strip and 95% of the West Bank (in exchange for the 5% of the West Bank Israel keeps for its settlements there, the Palestinians would get an extra slice of territory in Israel's Negev). Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat would have to give up his demand that millions of Palestinian exiles have the "right" to return to homes in Israel lost during Mideast wars. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak would have to make concessions as well: Palestine would gain sovereignty over East Jerusalem neighborhoods and the top of Temple Mount, a holy site sacred to Jews and Arabs, who call it Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary. Clinton folded his notes and looked up. "If you want to reach an agreement, I think that the only way to get it done is to accept this," he said.

Barak and Arafat had until midweek to let Clinton know if they were ready to negotiate based on the U.S. outline. Barak said he was willing to accept the plan "as a basis for discussion" if Arafat was. Arafat's response would have made a Palm Beach County lawyer proud: a long letter delivered to the White House on Wednesday with 26 questions, clarifications and objections he wanted answered first. It was a stall, and an irritated Clinton had no intention of answering. "There's no point in our talking further unless both sides agree to accept the parameters that I've laid out," he said icily. "Both sides know exactly what I mean, and they know exactly what they still have to do."

Perhaps, but that hasn't made it any easier. It took Barak 10 hours of haggling with his cabinet behind closed doors last week before they voted 10-2 to accept the plan in principle. "There is an opportunity, despite the pain," Barak pleaded. Israel wouldn't swallow all of Clinton's ideas, he assured his cabinet. "I will not sign an agreement that transfers sovereignty on the [Temple] Mount to the Palestinians," the Prime Minister insisted. His army chief, Lieut. General Shaul Mofaz, also warned the cabinet that "there are a lot of gaps in the American plan," the most worrisome of which was how Israel's eastern border would be protected from a Palestinian state that would still have to be considered at least potentially hostile. An Israeli military source points out that the Knesset and the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem "will be within range of Palestinian mortar fire."

The Palestinian Authority later issued a murky statement that it was ready to negotiate "under international sponsorship," but in private Arafat considers Clinton's plan an American-Israeli offer only marginally better than the one he rejected at last July's Camp David summit. The Palestinian leader distrusts Barak. Arafat's letter to the White House demanding details wasn't frivolous, his aides insist. Barak has a penchant, they complain, for publicly tossing out bold proposals, then backing away from them when the negotiations begin.

Arafat is also understandably suspicious about whether Barak can deliver on any document he signs. Polls put Barak 18 points behind in the Feb. 6 contest for Prime Minister with Likud hawk Ariel Sharon, who, if he won, would be sure to block the implementation of a Barak. "Israel would be free to back out of the deal," a Palestinian official frets, "whereas Arafat would be stuck."

Clinton worked the phones to pressure the Palestinians--and to line up Arab support for the plan. "If you don't take this golden opportunity," the President gravely told Arafat during a call last week, "you will have no mention in history and coming generations of Palestinians will curse you." Arafat hung up the receiver and turned to an aide. "He's threatening me," the Palestinian leader said, twisting his lip with dismissive scorn. Other Arab leaders Clinton phoned voiced support for his proposal. But senior Arafat advisers tell TIME that many of these same leaders have been privately urging Arafat not to negotiate with Barak on the U.S. peace plan, fearing street protests in their countries.

Clinton, however, is clinging to the hope that Barak's and Arafat's clocks are finally synchronized. Five months ago, at Camp David, Barak was ready to reach a deal but Arafat wasn't. Today, Barak has calculated that he can't win re-election unless he has a peace agreement, so he's willing to make more concessions. Believing Arafat now has to show his people some results for the heavy price they've paid during the Aqsa intifadeh, Washington hopes he sees this as his best chance for quick international recognition of the Palestinian state he craves.

George W. Bush has given Clinton the green light to reach a deal. But if Jan. 20 passes without one, Arafat knows it will take Bush some time before his diplomatic team will probably be ready to broker an accord. And if Sharon wins in Israel, that day may never come. Perhaps that's what Arafat wants. But, as Clinton mused at a press conference last week, "we're all operating under a deadline. It's just some of us know what our deadline is."

--With reporting by Matt Rees, Jamil Hamad and Aharon Klein/Jerusalem and Scott MacLeod/Paris

With reporting by Matt Rees, Jamil Hamad and Aharon Klein/Jerusalem and Scott MacLeod/Paris