January 4, 2002	Friday	Shawwal 19, 1422

AL QUDS, Jan 3: The task of US special envoy Anthony Zinni, back in the region for a second attempt at bringing Israel and the Palestinians back to a ceasefire, has been further complicated by the growing divisions in the Israeli leadership over how soon to implement existing truce accords.

Ahead of his second visit, differences of opinion between right-wing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and dovish Foreign Minister Shimon Peres have widened into a serious rift over when truce talks should begin.

While both agree there has been a drop in violence on the ground since Zinni’s last trip, they have each drawn very different conclusions over what to do next.

For Sharon, a hardline former general, the fall in unrest in the past two weeks is far from enough to start implementing the Tenet understanding, a US-drafted ceasefire deal that would set the scene for the Mitchell plan to go into affect.

The Mitchell plan allows for confidence-building measures, the freezing of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories, arrest of militants by the Palestinian police and the seizure of illegal Palestinian weapons.

Instead, Sharon is demanding seven days of absolute calm before agreeing to sit down to truce talks.

He says the newfound calm is not the result of steps by Arafat to clamp down on extremists but rather of the Israeli army’s own raids into Palestinian land to snatch suspected militants.

Peres has by contrast said that it would be “a very good time” to start to implement the Tenet understanding if calm prevails for the next several days and amid a return to the region of US envoy Anthony Zinni.

“If calm continues for the next two or three days it would be a very good time to start the implementation of the Tenet plan,” Peres said Tuesday.

Without trying to play the long path still ahead, Peres said he would not “treat with suspicion” the efforts by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to enforce calm after calling for an end to attacks on Israel on December 16, a day after Zinni was recalled amid a tidal wave of violence.

Transport Minister Ephraim Sneh, close to Peres, said the sudden calm “justifies the start of contacts, even if pressure on Yasser Arafat is not to be lifted.”

The position of the left-wing of the coalition government is close to the demands of the Palestinians, who want an immediate application of both Tenet and Mitchell plans.

The divisions between Peres and Sharon grew on Wednesday when Peres said that promised alleviations of travel restrictions in the Palestinian territories had failed to materialise.

Ties had already been strained when Sharon publicly denied that Peres and Palestinian parliamentary speaker Ahmed Qorei had been discussing a plan for the fast-track establishment of a Palestinian state.

A day later Sharon grudgingly admitted he had given the green light to contacts between the two men, but stressed the talks were not of a political nature.

And Sharon, holding together a broad coalition government already bulging at the seams amid disputes of the 2002 budget which has still not been passed, ran afoul of Israeli President Moshe Katsav this week, a member of his right-wing Likud party.

Sharon vetoed a move by Katsav to appear before the Palestinian parliament and back the idea of a year-long ceasefire.

Despite the increasing differences, the 78-year-old Peres has refused to quit the government.

The head of the left-wing opposition, Yossi Sarid, said Peres manoeuvres were playing into Sharon’s hands and the Nobel laureate was providing the right-winger with an “alibi” in the face of world opinion.

“All the actors know their roles and play them out. As a result, instead of policies there is only one large theatre with lots of decoration.”—AFP