Chicago Tribune

JERUSALEM – At the Middle East summit in Egypt on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are expected to declare a halt to violence after more than four years of fighting.

The planned cease-fire was reported by both sides Monday, on the same day that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that the United States would send a security envoy to the Middle East to help the Palestinians strengthen their security forces, monitor the expected truce and potentially coordinate with Israel.

Rice, capping a 23-hour visit to Israel and the West Bank, also said Sharon and Abbas had accepted invitations to meet separately with President Bush in the United States this spring.

But first will come Tuesday’s summit at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik, which will have the trappings of a peace conference, with the participation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah II of Jordan.

While the Israelis and Palestinians are expected to declare a halt to violence, they remain divided on what comes next, on whether talks should become political peace negotiations or remain strictly discussions on security.

At a similar summit with Bush in 2003 there were also declarations about the need to halt violence, but several weeks later a cease-fire fell apart, and each side blamed the other for violating the truce.

This time, however, Abbas is the Palestinian president, no longer in the shadow of Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader who died in November.

Abbas has persuaded militant groups to suspend attacks pending the declaration of a formal truce, and Israeli officials say they are prepared to release Palestinian prisoners, hand over security control in West Bank cities and make other gestures to boost support for Abbas among his people.

But there are fundamental differences on how to proceed from there.

For the Israelis, the Sharm el-Sheik summit is not meant to revive the American-backed “road map” peace plan and political negotiations but to reach agreement on security steps that will ensure quiet on the ground and ease a planned Israeli pullout this summer from the Gaza Strip.

On the Palestinian side, there are opposite expectations: a return to the road map and political negotiations on core issues of dispute, not just security steps.

The road map plan, drafted by the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia, outlines steps to halt violence and return to negotiations leading to a permanent peace agreement and the creation of a Palestinian state.

The first phase of the plan requires the Palestinians to crack down on militant groups and seize their weapons as Israel pulls its forces back from areas occupied in the current conflict, dismantles unauthorized outposts built by Jewish settlers and freezes settlement building.

Mark Heller, of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, said the disparity between Palestinian expectations and what Israel is willing to talk about has been a recurrent theme in relations between the sides.

“The Israelis are always looking at the shorter term, focusing on operational matters, while the Palestinians want to open up a political horizon,” Heller said.

The Bush administration has backed Israel’s demand for an end to violence first, and Palestinian security performance is likely to remain a top priority in the near future rather than rapid movement toward political negotiations.

That trend was evident in the U.S. appointment of a security coordinator, rather than a diplomatic envoy, who would also tackle a wider range of contentious issues.

Rice has not ruled out the appointment of a diplomatic envoy in the future but has said she does not believe one is necessary now.

The “senior security envoy,” Lt. Gen. William Ward, who is the Army’s deputy commander in Europe, is to help Abbas consolidate and reform Palestinian security services, which Arafat intentionally kept divided to maintain his power.

Rice and State Department officials also said Ward’s role will include setting up training for recruits, monitoring inevitable flare-ups and potentially arbitrating disputes over security issues.

The naming of Ward and other U.S. diplomatic activity represent the clearest signal in nearly two years that the Bush administration is seriously re-engaging in Middle East peace efforts.

“We are back in with both feet,” said a senior State Department official traveling with Rice.

At an airport news conference in Tel Aviv, Rice called it “the most promising moment for progress in recent years” between the Palestinians and Israelis.

Earlier, appearing with Abbas at Palestinian Authority headquarters in Ramallah, Rice said “it is time for both parties to make their maximum efforts to give this chance for peace a real chance,” adding that she was encouraged by what she had heard from both sides during her visit.

Rice is on a weeklong, nine-country swing through Europe and the Middle East.

The news conference with Abbas, held in a cold and smoky hall in the bedraggled Palestinian compound where Arafat was a virtual prisoner before succumbing to an undisclosed illness last year, was only a short stroll from Arafat’s enclosed tomb in the compound’s parking lot, but Rice did not visit the tomb.

Aides said Rice wanted to go to Ramallah as a show of support for Abbas’ efforts to reshape the Palestinian Authority he has headed since winning the Jan. 9 election.

Rice’s visit to the compound appeared to be the first by a senior American official since 2002.

Abbas, who spoke of the new security envoy before Rice announced the appointment, seemed to have ambitious aspirations for the arrangement.

Speaking through an interpreter at the news conference in Ramallah, he said it would lead to reduced friction between the two sides and “all the sources of tension will be removed that might exist.”

Raanan Gissin, spokesman for Sharon, seemed less enthusiastic.

“If there are disputes, his good offices would be immediately available. There’s no problem with that,” Gissin said.

But he also said, “This envoy will not intervene unless approached by both sides, then he can arbitrate.”