Word: netanyahu
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Bill Clinton can forget about repeating Jimmy Carter's Camp David Mideast breakthrough. Benjamin Netanyahu and Yasser Arafat arrived at the White House Thursday to open crucial summit talks that will continue at Wye Plantation, Maryland. "Don't expect much," says TIME Jerusalem bureau chief Lisa Beyer. "Washington had hoped much of the agreement would have been worked out by the time talks began, and that hasn't happened...
...broken, a final deal remains elusive. The current talks are over the size of Israel's second withdrawal from the West Bank -- they've not even begun to talk about the third one prescribed in the Oslo Accords. And with next May's "final status" agreement deadline looming, Netanyahu refuses even to discuss some issues specified by Oslo, such as the status of Jerusalem. "These two leaders are unlikely to reach a final agreement," says Beyer. "But as long as the talks don't end in curses and threats, Washington will announce that there's been important progress and that...
...Benjamin Netanyahu has put his government's leading hawk in charge of making peace -- and the Palestinians may actually be happy to deal with him. Naming Ariel Sharon as foreign minister Friday might look like an act of provocation to the Palestinians, who hold him responsible for more than one massacre over the years, but it could advance the peace process. "Netanyahu is doing this to calm the Israeli right wing," says TIME Jerusalem bureau chief Lisa Beyer. "The right wing sees him as the staunchest guardian of their interests, and he can bring them on board for Netanyahu...
...Palestinians, for their part, will probably welcome Sharon's inclusion: "Israel's peace partners may not like what Sharon says, but they find him credible," says Beyer. "They believe that what he says really is his position, whereas Netanyahu has gained a reputation as being deceptive." And they know that if Sharon has the power to disrupt any deal on the Israeli side, it may be better to have him at the table...
...Negotiations have been stalled since the beginning of the year, when Arafat accepted a U.S. compromise proposal over Israeli troop withdrawal from the West Bank and Netanyahu -- to the U.S.'s dismay -- refused. "The only way you get any movement in this process is by setting deadlines," says TIME correspondent Douglas Waller. "But the last time the U.S. set a deadline for the Israelis, it backfired on Clinton because he wasn't prepared to risk a backlash from pro-Israel interests in the U.S. So the real question remains whether the White House is prepared to force the two sides...