Barak Ready to Accept Palestinian State

Nov. 8, 2000 -- As clashes turned deadly in the Gaza Strip today, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak made his clearest offer yet of an independent Palestinian state but said it must be the result of negotiations that would resume only after the violence abates.

Barak’s pledge of a “viable Palestinian state” came in a long letter to the heads of all the world’s governments, meant to explain Israel’s policy in its weeks of conflict with the Palestinians.

The statement came as fighting once again flared in the region after days of comparatively reduced violence.

Four Palestinian teenagers and an Israeli woman were killed today in clashes inthe West Bank and Gaza, medical officials said.

Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian teenager near Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip, hospital officials said today. Earlier, they reported that a 14-year-old Palestinian youth was killed in stone-throwing clashes with Israeli soldiers at the Karni crossing which connects Israel to the Gaza Strip. They said the youth was shot in the neck.

The clashes came even as the international diplomatic community pushed to arrive at a solution to the crisis that has lasted nearly six weeks and has claimed more than 183 lives, mostly Palestinian.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat today made a stopover in Cairo where he met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak before heading to Britain and the U.S., where he is expected to meet with President Clinton.

A Declaration and an Appeal

And as Arafat departed for his meeting with Clinton to be held on Thursday, Barak told world leaders he is ready to accept the creation of a Palestinian state but only if it is born out of agreement and not through violence.

The remarks, contained in a letter to foreign leaders, were Barak’s clearest commitment so far to conditionally accepting a Palestinian state.

“We are at a crucial crossroads, facing two distinct possibilities. We could resume negotiations, which — based on the ideas discussed at Camp David — will lead to the creation of a viable Palestinian state,” Barak wrote in the letter.

“Or we can succumb to the route of violence, and unilateralPalestinian action, which is liable to create a source of continuous instability in the region, a great potential for threatening moderate neighboring countries and endangering regional stability and global interests.”

He said the international community should tell Arafat thatthe “only road to be taken is the one leading to an honorable, agreed-upon, negotiated birth of a Palestinian state.”

International Fact-Finding Commission

On Tuesday, the White House announced that a fact-finding commission headed by former U.S. Senator and Northern Ireland mediator George Mitchell would provide an independent and objective review of the crisis intended to prevent its recurrence.

There was no immediate Israeli or Palestinian reaction to the appointment of the commission.

Arafat supports an international commission of inquiry and also wants an international force sent to protect his people.

But Barak firmly opposes an international force and Clinton has said it cannot happen without Israel’s support.

Barak is expected to meet with President Clinton on Sunday. However, there was no word if Barak and Arafat would meet face to face.

Fresh Wave of Violence

The continuing clashes will no doubt be at the top of the agenda for the Washington talks.

But on the streets of the occupied territories, the violence showed no signs of abating.

Israeli tanks fired shells while battling Palestinian police and stone-throwers in the occupied territories, witnesses said today.

Three Palestinians, aged 14, 16 and 18, were shot dead in clashes with soldiers at Gaza’s Karni commercial crossing and at Khan Younis, local hospital officials said. A 14-year-old Palestinian was killed in Hares, a village in the West Bank.

Palestinian gunmen ambushed a car driving to the Rafah crossing in the Gaza Strip, killing an Israeli woman and seriously wounding a passenger, an Israeli army spokesman said today.

The Israelis responded by closing border crossings and the Gaza airport.

In recent days, the airport has been used to evacuate a number of wounded Palestinians for hospital treatment abroad.

The current round of clashes began on Sept. 28 when Palestinians, frustrated with the direction of the peace process, rioted after Israeli hard-liner Ariel Sharon visited a controversial site that is sacred to both Muslims and Jews.

The violence has continued despite a tentative ceasefire agreement reached between Arafat and Barak in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh last month.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.