Strong Stance On Summit Eve
Hours before Yasser Arafat's departure for his meeting in York with President Clinton, a senior Palestinian official said the Palestinians will not make new concessions to Israel.
Tayeb Abdel Rahim, who said he was speaking on Arafat's behalf, said the Palestinians have been flexible enough in agreeing to United Nations resolution 242, which gives them only 22 percent of British Mandatory Palestine.
The Palestinians will not give in on the issue of Jerusalem, he told a graduation ceremony of military intelligence soldiers in Gaza.
"We are committed to our national principles and first and foremost the right of the refugees to return and sovereignty over east Jerusalem which will be only for the Palestinian independent state," Abdel Rahim said.
The two sides are attempting to seal a final deal by Sept. 13 that will settle outstanding issues including the fate of Jerusalem, refugees, borders and settlements.
The Camp David summit in July broke down over the issue of Jerusalem. Israel insisted on retaining sovereignty over the area but offered the Palestinians certain rights, which were less than sovereignty, at the Muslim Holy places.
Israel captured the eastern sector of the city in the 1967 Middle East war in a move not recognized internationally. It regards the entire city as its "united and eternal capital."
Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
Each side accused the other of being inflexible.
Abdel Rahim said the Palestinians are not seeking a military confrontation with Israel, "but we will defend ourselves if the Israeli side tries to attack us."
Arafat left Saturday night for Cairo, where he is to address a session of the Arab League before flying on to New York. On Saturday he had a meeting with visiting CIA director George Tenet, in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Palestinian security officials were also present. They discussed the peace process, a Palestinian official said.
American peace envoy Dennis Ross also held a meeting Friday with Palestinian negotiators Saeb Erekat and Mohammed Dahlan. Ross has been trying to bridge the gap between Israel and the Palestinians, but Erekat said it is still wide and "Israel has backslided" on some of the positions it adopted at Camp David.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak has made the same charge against the Palestinians.
Ross will report to President Clinton before he holds separate meetings with Barak and Arafat at the U.N. Millennium Summit of more than 160 world leaders in New York.
Friday, Ross said, "We still have to find a way to overcome the differences that still exist."
But he said that "commitment to resolving the issues and trying to end this conflict exists on both sides. We will try to ensure that the possibility of achieving an agreement is translated into a reality."
The Palestinian cabinet said this week that a decisio on whether to extend the Sept. 13 deadline for declaring an independent Palestinian state would be taken by the Palestinian council that is due to convene on Sept. 9.
It said the council would also discuss the peace process, negotiations and the issue of Palestinian sovereignty with Jerusalem as its capital.
Palestinian minister Nabil Shaath told reporters before the cabinet meeting that any postponement would "have to be based on purely Palestinian conditions and considerations without any veto from any other side."