Israel has offered the Palestinians a gradual cease-fire, a senior government official said, while suggesting that efforts to remove Yasser Arafat as Palestinian leader will intensify after the US-Iraq conflict is resolved.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made the limited truce offer in secret talks last week with senior Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qureia.It was Sharon's first meeting with a top Palestinian official in about a year. More Israeli-Palestinian talks were to be held this week at a lower level.
Similar cease-fire arrangements have failed in the past, in part because Palestinian security forces have lost control in many areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and because Israel has refused to stop killings Palestinian militants in targeted attacks.
Under Sharon's proposal, Israeli troops would withdraw from Palestinian areas where quiet reigns, said Sharon's bureau chief, Dov Weisglass, who was present at the Sharon-Qureia meeting.
"It proposes that everywhere they succeed in preventing attacks or showing that they are making serious efforts to do so, Israel will react accordingly by changing its military deployment in the area and easing restrictions on trade and movement," Weisglass told Israel Radio on last night.
Such a gradual ceasefire took hold briefly in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, but fell apart after a suicide bombing on a bus in Jerusalem on Nov. 21 that killed 11 people. Israel reoccupied Bethlehem, the bomber's hometown, following the attack.
AP