President Clinton's last-ditch effort to forge an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty produced conflicting responses early this morning. The Israeli cabinet announced that it "conditionally" accepted the plan, but an Israeli-Palestinian summit scheduled for today was cancelled.
The Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's office said this morning: "Israel sees these ideas [the Clinton plan] as a basis for discussion provided that they remain unchanged as a basis for discussion also by the Palestinian side." Israel will request several clarifications from the US on issues that are related to Israel's vital interests, it said.
Palestinian officials earlier sent an ambiguous letter to the US, neither accepting nor rejecting Clinton's blueprint.
But a summit planned for today between Mr Barak and the Palestinian Authority President, Mr Yasser Arafat, was cancelled, also early this morning, according to a source close to Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, who was to host the meeting at Sharm al-Sheikh. No reason was given, and no immediate comment was available from Israeli or Palestinian sources, but the cancellation must be a blow to hopes for peace. The talks were to have been the first face-to-face contact between the two men since violence exploded in the West Bank and Gaza three months ago. Mr Arafat will now meet Mr Mubarak in Cairo today, but Mr Barak will not attend, the source said.
Earlier in the day, the Clinton initiative was condemned by one Palestinian official as a "fast-food solution that cannot be swallowed". Israeli leaders were warning of the growing potential for regional war.
A senior Palestinian negotiator, Mr Yasser Abed Rabbo, said that Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat considered the framework deal that Mr Clinton had presented to the two sides last weekend to be "worse than Camp David" - even less workable, that is, than the terms rejected at the failed Middle East peace summit last summer. "How can we accept that?" Mr Abed Rabbo asked.
Mr Arafat spoke publicly yesterday of the start of "a new era, when a Palestinian boy or girl will wave the Palestinian flag from the mosques of Jerusalem". But privately, Palestinian sources said last night, Mr Arafat had formally told US officials that, pending further clarifications, the Clinton proposal was unacceptable for two reasons: it "failed to address" key issues, such as the fate of the Temple Mount and Palestinian refugee rights, in a satisfactory manner, and it required the Palestinians to formally acknowledge the "end of the conflict" with Israel even before central elements of the accord were implemented.
Any Palestinian rejection of the proposal, warned Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, last night, meant "a further escalation" of Israeli-Palestinian violence was in prospect, with the very real possibility of regional conflict.
While Mr Barak was evidently prepared to use the Clinton formula as a basis for further discussion, he and his ministers set out a long list of major reservations.
Mr Barak made clear that, even if a deal were achieved, he would not consent to the Clinton-envisaged January 10th "signing ceremony" but would first have to await the results of Israel's prime ministerial elections on February 6th - a stance that means Mr Clinton cannot possibly crown his presidency with a longed-for peace accord.