By
The Associated Press
NEW YORK - At a town hall meeting with New York Jewish leaders, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak exuded confidence. If peace talks with the Palestinians fail, he said, he'll simply move on and attend to Israel's domestic problems instead.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has appeared equally unruffled, saying that if he cannot deliver everything he promised - a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with east Jerusalem as a capital - an eventual successor would do so.
Both leaders have begun rewriting their agendas and shifting terms of the debate over Mideast peace. The changes come as a peace treaty is slipping out of their grasp following President Clinton's failure last week to resolve the toughest problem: the dispute over Jerusalem holy sites.
In part, such a display of cool may be a negotiating tactic, with both men trying to show that they have other options and won't make peace at any price.
However, Barak, and to a lesser extent Arafat, have also begun preparing public opinion for the possible collapse of negotiations
Both had staked their political prestige on a peace deal. Barak was elected by a landslide in May 1999 on a bold pledge to end the conflict with the Arabs in his first four-year term, while Arafat promised his people at every turn that he would deliver Palestinian statehood - one of the fruits of peace - by the end of the year.
Barak's shift of emphasis became apparent in appearances before American Jewish leaders on Sunday, the last day of a weeklong New York visit during which the Israeli prime minister met twice with Clinton to try to break the deadlock in negotiations.
"If it turns out that peace is a dream whose time has not yet come, then I am prepared to transfer my full focus and energy to building bridges over the deep social divide between our people," Barak told a town hall meeting of Jewish leaders here.
Barak's fallback plan to a peace treaty is to launch a "civic revolution" in Israel, including writing a constitution, allowing civil marriage and making math, civics and English mandatory in all schools.
Barak has said he would invite hard-line factions, including the main opposition party Likud, into his government to win support for a secular agenda. That move would dim peace prospects even further since Likud opposes concessions to the Palestinians.
Arafat also has been trying to lower expectations raised by his repeated promises that a Palestinian state would be declared by the end of the year.
After his difficult meeting with Clinton last week on the sidelines of the U.N. Millennium Summit, the 71-year-old Arafat said he would not compromise on the Jerusalem shrines, even if that meant there would not be a peace treaty. Should he be unable to wrest Muslim shrines in Jerusalem from Israeli control, Arafat said, "another one (leader) will come to liberate them."
On Sunday, the top PLO decision-making body, the Central Council, voted to delay the declaration of a Palestinian state. Arafat at one point had said a declaration could be made as early as tomorrow, the original deadline for a peace treaty.
Sunday's decision was deliberately vague, stipulating only that the council would reconvene Nov. 15 to review the matter. Palestinian officials said they didn't want to fall again into the trap of naming a date, then having to pull back from it.
Arafat is wary of a unilateral proclamation of statehood. A state in the disjointed patches of land he now controls would not be viable, and Israel has threatened to impose harsh sanctions in response to unilateral acts.
For now, neither Barak nor Arafat is saying openly that peace efforts have collapsed, in part to avoid being blamed for failure. Second-tier negotiators were to resume talks later in the week, working against an unofficial five-week deadline, but Israeli and Palestinian officials are skeptical they can succeed where Clinton's personal intervention has failed.
The flashpoint of negotiations is a 36-acre walled compound in Jerusalem's Old City. Known to Jews as the Temple Mount, it is the site of their biblical Temples. To Muslims it is Haram as-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, with two major mosques marking the spot where the Prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven.
Both leaders have shown some flexibility on the issue in recent days.
Barak suggested Sunday that he was willing to consider less than full Israeli sovereignty over the site, provided it was not handed to sole Palestinian control. Arafat, who until recently insisted on Palestinian rule over the mosque compound, told Clinton last week he would accept Islamic sovereignty there, under the auspices of several Arab countries, including Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Morocco.
Still, it has not been enough to create common ground, and the Mideast knot remains so tight that even Clinton, who after seven years of negotiations is familiar with every minute detail, may finally be giving up.
"This Middle East thing, it's maddening,'' he said after his latest failed mediation effort.
