CIA chief George Tenet will meet with Israeli and Palestinian security chiefs on Monday in the West Bank city of Ramallah following the postponement of a meeting the day before, said reports.
The two sides are set to give their response to Tenet's plan to shore up a ceasefire and bring a halt an eight-month-old Palestinian uprising against three decades of Israeli military occupation.
According to Israeli media, Sunday's meeting was postponed because Tenet considered the remaining differences between the two sides to be substantial.
Haaretz newspaper said that Israel had on Sunday welcomed Tenet's blueprint for a lasting truce, but the Palestinians expressed reservations about the plan.
According to Israeli media, Tenet's plan includes a halt to Israeli attacks against autonomous Palestinian sectors, the withdrawal of Israeli forces to positions before the Intifada broke out, a lifting of the blockade on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and action to stop Jewish settlers from attacking Palestinians.
The Mitchell report had called for an immediate ceasefire, an Israeli freeze on Jewish settlement building, and full Palestinian efforts to prevent "terrorism" in order to move back to the negotiating table.
"Mr. Tenet suggested the best thing, if not the most perfect, to both sides in order to enter into an actual ceasefire," Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told reporters.
Israel's television channel said the US officials, who had arrived in Ramallah for the meeting, had returned to Jerusalem as they were not pleased with the Palestinians' responses to their proposals.
The postponed meeting comes as a setback to peace efforts. Meanwhile, the European Union also stepped up efforts to end the crisis.
During talks with EU officials, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat told reporters he remained committed to the truce.
Peres said the ceasefire had been "quite a success."
"I think if all of us will coordinate in a responsible, positive manner we may bring the Middle East again to the port of negotiations in order to attain a real and durable peace in this region," Peres said after meeting Swedish Prime Minister Goeran Persson, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
Persson called for the creation of an international coalition to bolster the truce between Israel and the Palestinians, according to AFP.
At his talks with the EU officials, Arafat insisted that the Palestinians were holding to the ceasefire he declared eight days ago following a suicide bomb blast in Tel Aviv, amid persistent Israel complaints that he was not doing enough.
"We are holding to the ceasefire and we are working towards bringing the situation to how it was before September 28 (when the uprising erupted)," Arafat said.
The Palestinians charge that Israel has not eased the tougher closure it imposed after the Tel Aviv bombing, saying crossing points in Gaza remained closed and fuel supplies were still blocked.
Sharon Equates Arafat with Bin Laden
In a new attack, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon likened Arafat to Saudi dissident Osama Bin Laden, Israeli media reported.
"You won't negotiate with a Bin Laden, and for us Arafat is a Bin Laden," Sharon was quoted as telling US special envoy William Burns Saturday.
Since the outbreak of the latest Israeli-Palestinian conflict last September, Reuters reports that Palestinians have killed approximately 88 Israelis with weapons ranging from stones and knives to machineguns and car bombs. The latest suicide bombing raises that toll by at least 20. Israeli military sources have reported well over 600 injuries to Israelis of Jewish descent.
In the same time period, according to CNN, Israeli soldiers and armed Jewish settlers have killed 13 Arab Israelis and 450 Palestinians with weapons ranging from machineguns and tanks to US-made Apache helicopter gunships and F-16s. The most recent Israeli tank attack raises that death toll to at least 453.
According to Amnesty International, nearly 100 of the Palestinians killed were children.
In addition, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society has reported over 14,000 Palestinians wounded.
Jewish author Noam Chomsky, who according to a New York Times Book Review article is "arguably the most important intellectual alive," has been quoted as saying: "State terrorism is an extreme form of terrorism, generally much worse than individual terrorism because it has the resources of a state behind it." - Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
