US Middle East envoy Dennis Ross is to pursue efforts Friday to push Israel and the Palestinians towards a new peace summit amid a heightened state of alert in Israel following a US warning of terror attacks.
Ross, on his first visit since the breakdown of the Camp David summit in late July, met Friday morning with Israeli President Moshe Katsav and was due to meet with Prime Minister Ehud Barak in the afternoon.
Later, he was to meet with senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat and with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
In comments to the press, Ross said much work was still to be done.
"My focus right now is to meet with both sides, spend time with them, see what kind of conclusions they have drawn about the insights developed at Camp David, and we will see if there are ways to overcome the differences," he said.
"Camp David was significant ... but there are differences that have to be overcome; there is work to be done," he added.
The Israeli media suggested that Ross could be preparing the way for meetings between US President Bill Clinton, and Barak and Arafat separately when they are in New York next month for the UN General Assembly.
But in recent days, Israeli and Palestinian leaders have each called on the other side to do more if they are to overcome their differences on Jerusalem in particular and forge a peace deal by a fast-approaching and self-imposed September 13th deadline.
The press Friday quoted Barak as saying that if the Palestinians want to establish an independent state, they must first declare that their decades-old conflict is at an end.
"If the Palestinian leadership is truly prepared to deal with the challenge of setting up a Palestinian state and solving the plight of its people, it must understand that the condition for it is the end of the conflict with Israel," Barak said at military graduation ceremony, the Jerusalem Post reported.
But Arafat, in Tokyo on the latest leg of his 20-plus nation tour, accused Israel of acting in bad faith and warned of an "explosion" if the Middle East peace process failed to bear fruit.
"Barak doesn't want to keep the promises he and former prime ministers made, particularly on the issue of the sacred place (Jerusalem) which is very important to everybody, including Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims and Christians," Arafat said, according to a Japanese official.
"Israel not only doesn't want to give way on this issue, but is also claiming the area for itself. Barak is demanding both territory and peace," he said.
Arafat said this week that the Palestinians were reviewing their September 13 statehood target.
In addition to Jerusalem, the two sides must find solutions to the fate of Palestinian refugees, Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, set final borders and resolve water and security issues.
Meanwhile, Israeli security officers were out in force around bus stations and other busy areas in main cities on Friday for fear of attacks, particularly in Jerusalem, despite official declarations playing down any dangers.
"We have strengthened our forces as we do from time to time after an evaluation of the situation," police spokesman Ofer Shimon told AFP without elaborating.
Scores of Israelis have been killed or injured in bomb attacks since 1993 by radical Palestinian Islamic groups opposed to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
The measures follow a new travel warning issued by the US State Department on Wednesday of an "increased possibility for terrorist attacks in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza."
Barak played down the warning Thursday, saying there was no reason for people to take special measures. Palestinian chief of security in the West Bank, Jibril Rajoub, dismissed it as US "propaganda." - OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (AFP)
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