Experts don't give Israeli-Palestinian peace a chance by Sept. 2000 deadline

JERUSALEM -- Just last year, Palestinian minister Ziyad Abu Ziyad urged Israelis not to take seriously the Palestinian demand for 3.5 million Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in what is now Israel. He said the Palestinians would settle for compensation and a symbolic return.

Today, Abu Ziyad no longer talks about compensation. Instead, his colleagues in the PA insists that Israel agree to a return of the Palestinian refugees as well as compensation for their property in the 1948 war of independence.

As Israel and the Palestinians begin final status talks, the two sides acknowledge that their positions are further apart than when they agreed to the initial Israeli withdrawal in 1993. Demands that leading Palestinian officials said were no longer applicable are being raised as opening positions. These include Palestinian demands for the right to introduce heavy weapons and jet fighters in any future state.

The result: even the most ardent advocates of Israeli-Palestinian conciliation have ruled out the prospect of the two sides completing final status talks by the September 2000 deadline. Talks to complete principles of these negotiations are to be completed by February.

"No one among us has illusions,'' Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy said. "We face a difficult task. The permanent status agreement is the final block in building peace, but it is the most complex of them all.''

Even senior U.S. officials agreed. "It's definitely going to be very difficult,'' U.S. Middle East envoy Dennis Ross said.

Virtually nobody in either the Barak government or in the Palestinian Authority believes the two sides will meet the deadlines. On Tuesday, Barak convened his Cabinet and sources said the prime minister rejected the Palestinian demand for the return of refugees to their homes in Israel.

Barak was quoted as saying that Israel faces three prospects over the next year: a final status agreement; a long-term interim accord or no agreement with the Palestinians.

On Tuesday, former Prime Minister Shimon Peres, a minister in the current government headed by Prime Minister Ehud Barak, said final status negotiations would need at least two years to achieve results. He called on the Palestinians to discuss easier issues and leave such topics as refugees and the status of Jerusalem to the end of the negotiations.

The Palestinians immediately dismissed the proposal. "We will never accept a deal by which we can accept a Palestinian state on land the Palestinian Authority controls now, in exchange for leaving some of the final status issues, such as Jerusalem and refugees, for open negotiations," PA Information Minister Yasser Abbed Rabbo, who heads the Palestinian talks, said.

The Palestinian strategy for final status negotiations is simple. Senior officials said they can cite United Nations resolutions as the basis for their demands. The demand for the return of the refugees is based on UN Security Council resolution 194.

The Israeli side has presented counterdemands. The government will encourage demands compensation for Jews who were expelled or left Arab countries. The government will insist on maintaining Jerusalem as its capital and Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

On Tuesday, a day after the opening ceremony of final status talks, Barak toured the West Bank city of Maalei Adumim and pledged to maintain the Jewish settlement. "We will continue to strengthen Maalei Adumim," Barak said to applause.

The Palestinian leadership appears to have ruled out any compromise on major issues. On Tuesday, Abbed Rabbo said the Palestinians would approve in a referendum any final status agreement with Israel.

With the two sides so far apart, is an explosion inevitable? Both Israeli and Palestinian officials as well as Western diplomats say this is unlikely over the next months.

First, officials from both sides acknowledge that the deadlines will probably be ignored if some progress is made over the next year. They said the declarations made during the opening ceremony on final status on Monday night were made three years earlier.

"I think there is an exaggeration of these talks," Ghassan Khatib, a leading Palestinian analyst, said. "This is the second time we held a ceremony for the opening of final status talks. We have to see how things develop."

"I know that the final status talks will take a long time," said Farouq Khaddoumy, head of the PLO foreign department and regarded as a successor to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. "The Arab-Israeli conflict has been going on for a long time."

Western diplomats said the United States and European Union will press both Israel and the Palestinians to continue negotiations and to reach agreements that will ensure the continuation of the peace process. They said both the Americans and the Europeans will also link funding to both Israelis and the Palestinians to the reconciliation process.

""There can be some interruptions and difficulties," said EU envoy Miguel Moratinos on Tuesday, "but this will not fail. The European Union and the international community will do everything to guarantee that this will not fail."

In the end, Palestinians and Israeli analysts say, the continuation of the peace process will depend more on the balance of power in the Middle East rather than the success of meeting deadlines for final status negotiations. They say the Palestinians currently have no military backing among the Arab states and Israel has little interest in ruling the millions of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"The Arab strategy is still built on peace," PLO foreign department head Farouq Khaddoumy said in an interview with PA radio. "But peace has its conditions."