Jewish Settlements

Yesterday, the Israeli and Palestinian leaders met at the White House in a symbolic first session of what is supposed to be a yearlong series of negotiations toward a final settlement in the Middle East. It was the first fruit of Tuesday's Annapolis summit, and though there may not have been much to it, there is at least the promise of a more substantial harvest down the road. But if Annapolis turns out to have been nothing more than an end-of-term gambit by President Bush, it will come to nothing.

JERUSALEM -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Cabinet approved in principle yesterday a plan to give the Palestinians more West Bank rural land to control.But the Cabinet did not set a timetable for the removal of Israeli troops from areas of the occupied territories or define its scope -- two key issues for Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his people. It also made the pullouts conditional on Palestinians containing terrorism more effectively.Palestinian officials, who expect to gain control of 20 percent to 25 percent of the West Bank through the redeployment of Israeli troops, had mixed reactions.

PARIS -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to build the first 2,500 of more than 6,000 new apartments planned for East Jerusalem, so as to complete Arab Jerusalem's encirclement by Jewish settlements, is a reaction to his current political problems, but also has a long-term logic.U.S. President Bill Clinton criticized the project recently, and a Palestinian official has called it "a form of declaration of war," but what either Mr. Clinton or the Paltestinians think will not alter Mr. Netanyahu's ideas about Palestinian political sovereignty.

KIRYAT SEFER, West Bank -- Nasser Diab Abu Issa is helping to excavate the archaeological remains of a Jewish settlement more than 2,000 years old, and he is watching the expansion of a second, newer Jewish settlement, as bulldozers clear land for houses on this hilltop.Abu Issa, 75, has spent the latter part of his life working on archaeological digs. But he understands the political landscape."The strong man can do what he wants," he says.So Jewish settlements continue to expand on land that Palestinians want for a state of their own. And thus, settlements remain one of the most vexing problems in the stalled peace process between Israelis and Palestinians.

WASHINGTON -- Trying to defuse rising Middle East tensions, President Clinton warned Israel yesterday against expanding Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and expressed impatience with the lack of progress in Israeli-Palestinian talks.Clinton said of the settlements that "anything that pre-empts the outcome" of future negotiations "cannot be helpful in making peace."He also prodded the Israelis and Palestinians to try to reach a settlement quickly over the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the volatile West Bank city of Hebron.

JERUSALEM -- Angered by the latest plan to expand Jewish settlements and the demolition of a building in Arab East Jerusalem, Yasser Arafat accused Israel yesterday of "declaring war on the Palestinian people."He called for a general strike today in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the first such action since Israel handed over control of much of the area to the Palestinian authority in 1993.Arafat urged Palestinians to descend on East Jerusalem tomorrow to pray at the Al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest shrine in Islam.

JERUSALEM -- The Israeli authorities have approved plans to build nearly 4,000 homes in Jewish settlements in the West Bank, putting into practice a government decision to end restrictions on expanding settlements there and in the Gaza Strip.Palestinians say the land allotted for the new buildings was confiscated from neighboring Arab villages.But the settlers assert that it was bought by Jews.Pub Date: 9/20/96

JERUSALEM -- A new highway that links Jerusalem to Jewish settlements on the West Bank is an engineering and political first. It boasts the first highway tunnel through the Judean Hills, the highest bridge in the region -- and a ban on travel by Palestinians.Israelis can use the highway, a $42 million project that was completed last month. But Palestinian drivers cannot.The road is called Route 60, and an eight-mile section offers Jewish settlers a faster route to Jerusalem. They can bypass Bethlehem and a Palestinian refugee camp called Daheisha, formerly a launching point for Palestinians who aimed stones at Israeli vehicles.

DURA AL-QA'RA, Occupied West Bank -- Israeli settlers apparently shot and killed a Palestinian yesterday who protested their attempt to confiscate more land for Jewish settlements.The killing was the first bloodshed in the two-week campaign by Israeli settlers to expand their hold on the West Bank by camping on vacant hilltops.Authorities said last night that they had detained three settlers for investigation and that an autopsy on the dead man would be performed today.The government has chafed at the campaign by the settlers, but it reacted cautiously yesterday.

JERUSALEM -- Thirty months after he was elected and announced a freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said yesterday that he really will do it now.Mr. Rabin met yesterday with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to try to diffuse Arab anger over the continuing expansion of settlements, anger that threatens to halt the peace process.Palestinians say the settlement freeze announced by Mr. Rabin in July 1992 has looked more like a spring thaw to them.

As the Obama administration moves to transform Palestinian arguments about Israeli settlements into U.S. policy, an examination of the facts underlying these issues is appropriate. There may be no better place to begin than the swimming pool at Rimonim, a Jewish settlement in the heart of the West Bank. The scene is a familiar one. Families picnicking together. Mothers yelling at children to be careful. Young children calling out to moms to watch them do dangerous things. But it is the view from the hilltop pool that is striking.

Yesterday, the Israeli and Palestinian leaders met at the White House in a symbolic first session of what is supposed to be a yearlong series of negotiations toward a final settlement in the Middle East. It was the first fruit of Tuesday's Annapolis summit, and though there may not have been much to it, there is at least the promise of a more substantial harvest down the road. But if Annapolis turns out to have been nothing more than an end-of-term gambit by President Bush, it will come to nothing.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- When Israel evacuated its settlements in the Gaza Strip one year ago, Ayed Abu Ramadan dreamed that Gaza's new independence would fuel an economic revival. Abu Ramadan led a Palestinian project that used greenhouses left by departing Jewish settlers to grow cherry tomatoes, strawberries and peppers for export to European markets. The government project, which employed more than 4,000 Palestinians, was expected to inject $20 million into Gaza's battered economy.

JERUSALEM -- Ehud Olmert's centrist Kadima party won the largest number of seats yesterday in Israel's parliamentary elections, ensuring that Olmert will become prime minister and be able to pursue his plan to give up some Jewish settlements in the West Bank and establish the country's permanent borders. Kadima's victory was muted by the party's winning fewer seats than polls had projected. But it broke the monopoly on leadership held since the country's founding by the center-left Labor Party and its predecessors, and by the right-wing Likud, the party Olmert left to join Kadima.

JERUSALEM -- Israel will move immediately to abandon more Jewish settlements in the West Bank if Ehud Olmert, the interim prime minister, and his Kadima party win election this month, a party leader said yesterday. Israeli troops would remain after civilians were removed from isolated Jewish settlements and resettled, said Avi Dichter, a former chief of the Shin Bet security service and now a leading member of Kadima. Dichter's comments to Israel Radio reinforced expectations that a Kadima government without Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would accelerate the unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank, which Sharon began last summer, along with a pullout from the Gaza Strip.

PHILADELPHIA -- As Ariel Sharon lies ill, many wonder how his successor will handle the Palestinian question. One of the great ironies of Mr. Sharon's career is that he became identified as the best hope for a solution to the Palestinian conflict. He was demonized by Arabs and he disdained negotiations with the Palestinians. But he also withdrew troops and Jewish settlements unilaterally from the Gaza Strip. The Bush administration let him guide its policy on the peace process, hoping he would make further withdrawals from the West Bank.

ASHKELON, Israel - Freshly coaxed or dragged by Israeli security forces from their homes in the Gaza Strip's Jewish settlements, dozens of dazed and weeping families arrived by the busload at the King Saul Hotel in this seaside city last week. In the hotel lobby, psychologists and social workers were ready to welcome them with hugs and counseling. Schoolteachers entertained the children with crayons, candies and games. Other volunteers stood by, offering to wash the settlers' laundry. Then the families were handed keys to hotel rooms and a promise of full room and board on the government's tab for 10 days - after that, they were reminded, it was time to get on with their lives outside the Gaza Strip.

LOOKING FORWARD MONDAY One year after the release of the Sept. 11 commission report recommending an overhaul of the U.S. security and intelligence apparatus, the House Homeland Security Committee will hold a hearing titled "The Secretary's Second-Stage Review: Re-thinking the Department of Homeland Security's Organization and Policy Direction." The House Small Business Committee will hear testimony on the government's compelling pharmacists to dispense drugs to which they are morally opposed.

JERUSALEM - Blocking roads and stopping buses, Israeli police and soldiers thwarted a march yesterday by tens of thousands of opponents of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to evacuate Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip. Israeli demonstrators had hoped to reach Jewish settlements in Gaza, flooding the communities with thousands of new residents and forcing the government to cancel or delay the withdrawal. But police declared the demonstration illegal before it began, barring buses from taking marchers to the rally and preventing their numbers from growing.

JERUSALEM - Israeli forces swept into the West Bank city of Tulkarem yesterday, killing a Palestinian police officer in a gunfight and arresting five suspected members of Islamic Jihad after the militant group killed four Israelis in a suicide bombing Tuesday, the army and Palestinians said. Pressing ahead with preparations for a withdrawal next month from the Gaza Strip, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon signed an order closing Jewish settlements there to nonresidents in an effort to block entry by protesters who have vowed to resist the pullout.