East Peace Talks

CAIRO, Egypt -- Diplomats say that the 43-year-old Arab ban on commercial and financial ties with Israel would not be lifted anytime soon and that the official blacklist of foreign companies that do business with Israel might even be expanded at the urging of hard-line states.Arab League officials are to meet in Damascus on Oct. 24 to discuss increasing the blacklist despite appeals from U.S. officials, who argue that the boycott of 10,000 companies should be lifted soon to add momentum to Middle East peace talks.

Israeli officials yesterday were forced by the fall of Mikhail S. Gorbachev to re-evaluate plans for Middle East peace talks and to begin preparing for a possible tidal wave of Soviet Jews wanting to emigrate.The turmoil threatened to upset months of planning for the peace talks scheduled to convene in October under Soviet and U.S. sponsorship. But Foreign Minister David Levy pledged Israel's willingness to participate with or without Soviet involvement.Mr. Gorbachev was the figure who ended decades of Soviet hostility toward Israel, first by reducing Soviet military support for hard-line Arab regimes.

WASHINGTON -- In an effort to persuade the Palestinians to resume the Middle East peace talks, the Clinton administration has suggested to Israel that it accept a prominent Palestinian leader from East Jerusalem as head of the Palestinian delegation, U.S. officials said yesterday.But a senior administration official said that the proposal, as well as others currently under discussion, would be carried out only if the Palestinians agreed in advance and in public to attend the talks, which are scheduled to resume in Washington on April 20.The request is seen as a way to offer the Palestinians an incentive that is not related to the issue of the 400 Palestinians from the occupied territories who were deported by Israel to Lebanon last December.

WASHINGTON -- Middle East peace talks continued yesterday amid signs that Israelis, Syrians and Palestinians were willing to discuss compromises on some issues.The discussions, like those of the last two days, dealt with general concepts and procedural questions. But Arab and Israeli negotiators reported that the atmosphere of the talks was still lTC much better than in any of the five previous rounds.Yesterday Israelis and Palestinians discussed the powers of a proposed administrative council or legislative assembly, through which the Palestinians of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would rule themselves.

JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is telling the Israeli Cabinet that the U.S. presidential election will put the Middle East peace talks on hold, possibly for several months, until the uncertainty that the campaign brings is ended.Although Israel had offered to resume in October the Washington-based negotiations, which are scheduled to adjourn this week, neither its Arab partners nor the Bush administration would agree, Mr. Rabin told the Cabinet yesterday."The Bush administration is totally preoccupied with the elections -- that is, with its own fate -- and the Arabs want to see whether this administration does, in fact, survive November," a senior Israeli official commented after the Cabinet meeting.

JERUSALEM -- The Israeli army said yesterday that to combat a wave of shootings of Jewish settlers in the West Bank, it was relaxing the rules under which soldiers are allowed to shoot in threatening situations.Four settlers have been killed and several wounded in a series of shooting ambushes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since October. The attacks, coinciding with the start of the Middle East peace talks, are thought by the army to be the work of radical Palestinian groups opposed to the negotiations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has found the perfect excuse for delaying peace negotiations with the Palestinians: Tehran's ambitious pursuit of nuclear power and the threat it poses to Israel and the region's security. Mr. Netanyahu's concerns about Iran are shared by many in Washington, including President Barack Obama. But the task of ending or significantly eroding Iran's advancing nuclear capabilities shouldn't take precedence over seeking peace with the Palestinians. There's little to show that Iran can be persuaded to change course, and further neglecting the Palestinian problem would likely deepen anti-Israel sentiment across the globe.

WASHINGTON -- Over the objections of the United States, Russian cargo planes flew special truck chassis that are commonly used for mobile missile launchers from North Korea to Syria last summer, Clinton administration officials say.Aides familiar with classified intelligence reports said two large Russian Condor planes had transported the vehicles in August. U.S. intelligence officials said the vehicles had probably been taken from there to a missile plant at Nasariya for use in Syria's Scud missile program.

JERUSALEM -- The Israeli army said yesterday that to combat a wave of shootings of Jewish settlers in the West Bank, it was relaxing the rules under which soldiers are allowed to shoot in threatening situations.Four settlers have been killed and several wounded in a series of shooting ambushes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since October. The attacks, coinciding with the start of the Middle East peace talks, are thought by the army to be the work of radical Palestinian groups opposed to the negotiations.

WASHINGTON -- Syria has informed the United States that it does not intend to participate in one of the three phases of the U.S.-crafted Middle East peace talks, a move U.S. officials fear may induce other Arab countries to remain on the sidelines and make the negotiations less appealing for Israel.According to Middle Eastern diplomats and U.S. officials, the Syrians told Washington they do not plan to take part in the negotiations involving Israel about regional problems -- like water rights, economic development and arms control.