By
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat met for more than two hours Wednesday with President Clinton, then emerged with bitter condemnation of Israel for the wave of violence that has shattered already faint peace hopes.
After a shaking hands with Clinton and a good-bye salute at the White House door, Arafat told reporters in a rain-swept driveway, "I am not the one who initiated the violence."
"My tanks are not sieging Israeli towns," Arafat said, interrupting his interpreter to make sure his views were correctly relayed. "We are facing a very dangerous situation that is really injuring the peace process."
Despite his comments, however, the Palestinian leader said: "I reiterated my firm commitment to making peace" and said the outcome depends on the efforts that Clinton exerts.
Arafat raised with the president his proposal that the United Nations set up an international force to protect Palestinians from Israel. He did not say how Clinton reacted, but the State Department has dismissed the idea all week.
Resuming negotiations with Israel appeared a highly remote possibility.
"We're now in a very difficult cycle," Clinton's assistant for national security, Sandy Berger, said before the meeting. "The president is focused on what he can do in the next few months to try to reduce the violence and resume a political process."
Rejecting any notion Clinton's influence has waned with his term running out, Berger said "the business of the presidency goes on."
Once-optimistic plans to mold a final settlement between Palestinian leader Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who comes calling Sunday, are in disarray, shattered by their differences on Jerusalem and five weeks of violence on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and in Israel.
Yesterday, Israeli combat helicopters rocketed a pickup truck packed with Palestinian guerrillas on the West Bank, killing one and critical wounding another. The Israeli army said the assault implemented a new policy of targeting ringleaders.
Two passers-by were killed and 11 others were injured.
Berger declined to address the incident specifically, but said in a general way that "violence breeds violence and we must find a way to break this cycle. It's important for people on both sides to do all they can to try to achieve that."
Barak said Wednesday on Israeli television that he would seek no resumption of peace talks. "I go to Washington to ensure that the end of violence that was agreed on at Sharm el-Sheik is carried out, if that is possible. That is all," he said, referring to an Egyptian resort where Clinton mediated a truce last month.
"It's still the U.S.'s intention to work with the parties to help them try to achieve what they are in a position to achieve, what the want to achieve," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Wednesday before Arafat arrived a little after midnight.
Referring to the truce the leaders accepted under Clinton's prodding, Boucher said, "We think that first attention needs to be paid to implementing the commitments to Sharm el-Sheik, to reducing the violence, restoring the calm."
Arafat is requesting that the United Nations establish an international protective force to shield Palestinians from Israeli soldiers and police. Boucher said new U.N. resolutions are not the prescription for ending the unrest. Carrying out the emergency summit's accord is the best approach, he said.
The Arabs continued their diplomatic offensive against Israel, persuading Qatar to announce yesterday it would shut down an Israeli trade mission in Doha. Qatar did not say if it would officially sever relations with Israel, but relations have been based entirely on commerce.
Barak cautioned Wednesday at a memorial in Israel to slain Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin: "Violence will not achieve anything. It will not change our policy and will not weaken our determination to bring peace and security to Israel."
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has reprimanded Arafat for what she considers an inadequate followthrough on the truce. She is expected to meet separately with Arafat after he sees Clinton at the White House.
En route to Washington, Arafat flew to Cairo to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, host of the summit, then stopped in London to meet with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Arafat wants Britain and the European Union to become more involved in the Middle East.
Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said, "It is remarkable that Arafat, despite repeated entreaties from the White House, is visiting the president without yet uttering in public a personal call for an end to the violence."
Without that, Satloff said in an interview, "it is difficult to imagine any possible return to diplomacy."
Shibley Telhami, a political scientist at the University of Maryland, said Arafat wants to explore the possibility of a comprehensive deal in Clinton's remaining 21/2 months in office.
"The Palestinians, at this point, cannot envision a return to an incremental approach," Telhami said in an interview. The situation on the ground has changed, and "Arafat wants a read on the possibility of a comprehensive deal and on Israel's assessment of what has transpired."
