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Clinton Tells Israel Barak Is Not To Blame For Palestinian Uprising
JERUSALEM, Feb 2 (News Agencies) - Former U.S. president Bill Clinton said Friday that caretaker Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak's peace efforts did not cause the Palestinian uprising, whose violence has left Barak likely to lose next week's prime ministerial election.
"I can't say enough about how much I respect the risks Prime Minister Barak has taken," Clinton told Israeli television Channel Two in an interview taped Thursday at his new home in a New York suburb, alluding to the concessions Barak made at the negotiating table.
"I do not believe they caused the Intifada."
Less than two weeks out of office, Clinton, who made peace in the Middle East his personal goal while president, also refused to point the finger at Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for the recent bloodletting, which has left nearly 400 people dead.
"It appears now that Chairman Arafat genuinely wants this peace process to go on - he does now," Clinton said while alluding to his questions about Arafat's position at the beginning of the uprising.
He emphasized that Arafat, like Barak, faces an enraged population at home.
"Chairman Arafat is subject to the same sort of pressures," Clinton said.
Clinton refused to offer any clear opinion on Barak challenger and campaign frontrunner Ariel Sharon, who is expected to take a more aggressive military stance against the Palestinians if elected.
Asked if Sharon would carry on the path to peace, Clinton said: "That's a decision for him to make."
He said he believed the solution to the conflict would come with the compromises he had laid out to the two sides in December.
Clinton had proposed that Israel hand over to the Palestinians the Arab neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, all of the Gaza Strip, more than 90% of the West Bank and also share sovereignty for Jerusalem's disputed Muslim and Jewish holy sites.
In return, the Palestinians would renounce the right of return for 3.7 million Palestinian refugees who fled their homes after the creation of Israel in 1948.
"They will have to come back to the final parameters I laid out," Clinton said, adding that was what the two sides had done last week in talks in Egypt.
But Clinton said the decision to make peace ultimately depends upon the Palestinians' willingness to accept the compromises already on the table, having refused to give way on the questions of Jerusalem and refugees' right of return.
"They are genuinely torn because the time for hard decisions has come," Clinton said. "If they make them, we can have peace."
He added that, since last July's Camp David summit, when the previously taboo topics of Jerusalem and refugees were broached, an incrementalist approach to peace talks has not been an option.
Clinton displayed his home's snow-dappled scenery for the camera and, in a jocular mood, said he hoped to learn Gaelic and Hebrew with the free time he now has on hand.
He said he hoped to visit Israel in the next few months.
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