Palestinians Reject Clinton Plan

J E R U S A L E M, Jan. 8, 2001 -- Senior Palestinian negotiatorssaid today that the Palestinian Authority rejected U.S.President Bill Clinton’s proposals as a basis for endingconflict with Israel.

“We can’t accept Clinton’s ideas as a basis for futurenegotiations or a future settlement. Clinton didn’t take[Palestinian President Yasser] Arafat’s reservations intoaccount and these ideas don’t offer our people their legitimaterights,” senior negotiator Ahmed Korei told Reuters.

At the same time, Israeli negotiators said today they accepted the Clinton proposal as a basis for peace negotiations.

”We consider his ideas as a basis for the continuation ofnegotiations,” Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh toldReuters.

Details of the Plan Made Public

On Sunday, for the first time in public, Clinton outlinedhis plan for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal and said he wouldsend his special Middle East envoy Dennis Ross to the region.

Another Palestinian negotiator, Hassan Asfour, said today that Clinton had failed in his efforts to achieve a finalpeace because his aides were influenced by Israeli positionsthat had already been rejected by the Palestinians.

Clinton, peacemaker-in-chief after eight years in office,came close to acknowledging that a deal might not be reachedbefore his presidency ends on January 20, and a senior aide saidseparately that an accord would be hard to achieve by then.

Palestinian officials said Arafat, in talks with Clinton inWashington on January 2, had accepted the ideas with conditions,and only if amendments were made.

Wasted Time?

Arafat’s adviser Nabil Abu Rdainah said there was sufficienttime to reach a deal on sensitive final issues such as the fateof Jerusalem, refugees, borders, and Jewish settlements, andaccused Israel of having wasted the time.

“President Clinton almost admitted a deal would not bereached before he leaves office, and so he should have publiclyblamed Israel for wasting time,” Abu Rdainah told Reuters.

Clinton presented his peace proposals to the Israelis andPalestinians two weeks ago and summarized them on Sunday in aspeech to the Israeli Policy Forum in New York.

They would give the Palestinians the “vast majority” of theWest Bank but deny millions of refugees the right of return totheir homes in Israel many left more than 50 years ago.

Palestinians: Ross Mission Unlikely to Bear Fruit

Palestinian negotiators said Ross’s mission was unlikely toproduce results and was aimed at filling the time until Clintonhands over to President-elect George W. Bush.

Palestinians said that Clinton’s ideas would cancel UnitedNations resolutions 242, 338, and 194, the basis of the peaceprocess which Israel accepted nine years ago.

These resolutions call for swapping lands that Israeloccupied in 1967 for peace with the Arabs. They also call forthe right of return of Palestinian refugees to homes andvillages they were uprooted from in 1948 when Israel wascreated. The Palestinians were pressured to accept thoseresolutions before peace talks were launched with Israel in1991.

Israel said it had accepted Clinton’s ideas with somereservations.