Jun 18, 2002 6 min read

JERUSALEM (AP) – Yasser Arafat rebuked U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice on Monday for saying his Palestinian Authority is corrupt and “cavorts with terror,” but the Palestinians also were trying to muster U.S. good will with a proposed outline for a state living in peace with Israel. The proposal, obtained Monday by The Associated Press, appears to soften the Palestinian demand that all 1949 war refugees and their descendants have the right to return to Israel, and for the first time proposes Israeli sovereignty over part of Jerusalem’s Old City.

The outline was delivered to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington last week by Palestinian Cabinet Minister Nabil Shaath, Palestinian officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Israeli reaction was muted. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon maintains that a final peace deal is far off and rejects key Palestinian demands, such as a renewed division of Jerusalem and a dismantling of Jewish settlements.

Israeli government spokesman Dore Gold said he wasn’t aware of the proposal and didn’t know whether the Americans had passed it on to Israel, but said it was premature to discuss ideas for peace talks.

“Right now, the only realistic way we’ll be able to proceed is once violence is vanquished,” he said.

Also Monday, a Palestinian blew himself up on Israeli territory near the West Bank, killing only himself, and Israeli forces continued their pursuit of militants in Palestinian villages.

In El Khader, a village near Bethlehem, Israeli soldiers shot and killed Walid Sbeh, a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades militia, witnesses and Israeli military sources said. The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Sbeh organized suicide attacks in Israel.

Later, Palestinian security officials said some Israeli tanks and jeeps moved into El Khader. The Israeli military had no comment.

Near Ramallah, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian who was pushing a cart, Palestinians said. Another man was wounded. The Israeli military had no comment.

Also, Palestinian witnesses said Israeli tanks and jeeps surrounded the house of Hamas fugitive Raed Ifrahat at the entrance to Yamoun village near Jenin. Ifrahat was not there and the soldiers left after firing tank shells near the house. The army said it blew up a car containing a bomb.

After the start of construction of the first 75-mile section of an electronic fence to keep suicide bombers from leaving the West Bank, Israeli officials said planning would begin soon to extend the fence to cover a total of 215 miles – roughly the length of the unmarked edge of the West Bank.

More than 220 Israelis have been killed in the past 21 months by suicide bombers, all from the West Bank. The Gaza Strip, where the radical Hamas group is based, is fenced in.

Arafat has been under U.S. and Israeli pressure to curb attacks on Israel, and both nations have urged elections and reforms in Arafat’s Palestinian Authority.

Rice, in an interview with The Mercury News of San Jose, Calif., said a Palestinian state should not be based on the Authority, which she said is “corrupt and cavorts with terror.”

Asked about Rice’s comment, Arafat said Monday: “She does not have the right to put or impose orders on us about what to do or not to do.”

“We are doing what we see as good for our people and we do not accept any orders from anyone,” Arafat said.

Arafat also denounced Israel’s fence as “a fascist, apartheid measure.” U.S. officials warned that borders must be negotiated, though Israel said the fence was not a border but a security measure.

The Palestinians apparently hoped their new proposal would generate good will in the Bush administration.

It sticks to the long-standing demand for a Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem, but hints at softening the Palestinians’ stance on key issues that undid an ambitious peace effort a year and a half ago.

It calls for “a fair and agreed upon solution” to the refugee problem, based on U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194. The resolution gives the refugees the right to choose whether to return to their former homes or receive compensation, a concept Israel rejects, saying an influx of millions of Palestinians would overwhelm it.

Up to now the Palestinians have insisted that all the refugees and their descendants, about 4 million people, must have the right to return to Israel.

Palestinians have assured Israel that most refugees would not ask to return to their former homes. Adding the phrase “fair and agreed upon solution” might indicate willingness to negotiate a formula that is less than the total “right of return” the Palestinians have claimed up to now, but Israel would have to abandon its rejection of Resolution 194.

On other issues such as borders and Jerusalem, the proposal embraces concessions the Palestinians reportedly agreed to in the failed peace talks, but had not made public.

After the talks failed, Israel and the United States both said their offers were off the table, and after Mideast violence erupted, hawkish Ariel Sharon was elected and has offered the Palestinians much less than his predecessor, Ehud Barak.

According to the new Palestinian proposal, the borders between Palestine and Israel would be the lines of June 4, 1967, before Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, but the “sides can agree on minor modifications.”

On the other hand, it calls for a link between the West Bank and Gaza through Israel, but states that neither side will have territorial claims beyond the June 4, 1967 lines.

It also addressed the divisive issue of Jerusalem by offering Israel sovereignty over the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and part of the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism. That would leave the contentious hilltop above the wall, holy to both sides, in Palestinian hands.

The proposal also said a Palestinian state would agree to limit its possession of weapons – a key Israeli demand – and that Palestine and Israel would agree not to participate in any military alliance against each other.