Barak doubts Arafat's peace pledge

Yasser Arafat was heading to Washington today to meet US President Bill Clinton in an effort to broker a peace breakthrough but Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said he doubted Arafat is serious enough to reach an agreement soon.

Yasser Arafat was heading to Washington today to meet US President Bill Clinton in an effort to broker a peace breakthrough but Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said he doubted Arafat is serious enough to reach an agreement soon.

Prospects a deal could be reached before Clinton leaves office on January 20 appeared to dwindle further late yesterday when at least 50 Israelis were injured from a car bombing in the coastal city of Netanya.

The attack shows Arafat and his Palestinian Authority are "giving encouragement" for anti-Israeli violence despite the little time left to work out an agreement, Barak said.

"Since Arafat has wasted most of this time in dragging his feet ... we have very serious doubts about the seriousness of his intentions to reach an arrangement," Barak told army radio.

And today Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian farmer after another bomb blast injured an Israeli soldier in the Gaza Strip.

Arafat agreed in a phone conversation with Clinton to travel to Washington to meet him to discuss the American president's proposal for a final peace agreement.

The Palestinian leader has yet to issue an official response to Clinton's ideas. Israel has accepted them in principle.

Arafat spokesman Nabil Aburedeneh called Arafat's trip "a decisive visit at which the future of the peace process will be determined." Arafat departed Gaza at 01:00 GMT, his office said.

Talk prospects have been stalled for more than a week due to the Palestinians' insistence that the US clarify the proposal.

US officials, for their part, have refused to discuss details of individual proposals until the Palestinians commit to the talks.

All contacts between Israel and the Palestinians have been cut off, Barak added. Official talks broke down after violence broke out three months ago. The bloodshed has killed 356 people, almost all of them Palestinians.

A spokesman for Clinton's National Security Council, PJ Crowley, said Arafat and Clinton decided after a 45-minute phone call yesterday they should meet directly to seek a "common understanding" about what the talks would cover.

Barak told Clinton in a phone conversation that he suspected the Palestinians do not want to reach a deal in the coming weeks, army radio reported.

Meanwhile, Israeli officials intensified security efforts, including closing the international airport in Palestinian Gaza Strip, after the bombing in Netanya.

The bomb was detonated yesterday evening in a parked car in the city located 21 miles north of Tel Aviv, sending off three rapid-fire blasts that shattered windows and blew apart vehicles on a crowded shopping street.

"Cars were ripped up, women (were) screaming," a witness told army radio. Police ordered people from the area for fear of more bombs.

Israel radio said 54 people received treatment. Only one was critically hurt - probably the man suspected of being the bomber, Israeli Police Commissioner Shlomo Aharonishki said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. The Hamas militant group denied involvement but called such attacks a "holy right' for Palestinians.

Israel quickly threatened retaliation, with Deputy Prime Minister Benyamin Ben Eliezer saying the reaction should be "vigorous and immediate."

Israel intensified an existing closure on the Palestinian areas in light of the bombing, sealing off the Gaza Strip almost entirely, the army said. Only food, medicine and other essential humanitarian needs were being allowed through at the strip's Karni crossing with Israel.

Israeli protocols with the Palestinians say they must let Arafat fly in and out of Gaza even when the airport is closed to general traffic.

Three months of near-daily bloodshed - clashes, ambushes, and bombings - have killed more than 350 people, most of them Palestinians.

Before agreeing to the Washington trip, Arafat declared his people would keep resisting what he called Israeli aggression.

"I say that our people are very strong and will continue their struggles and confrontations," Arafat said in Gaza.

Clinton's proposals include asking Israel to surrender sovereignty over a Jerusalem site revered by both Muslims and Jews, and asking Palestinians to renounce their claim of the "right of return" of four million Palestinian refugees and their families.

Barak raised the possibility yesterday of a "unilateral separation" from the Palestinians if the peace efforts fail.

"We must part from the Palestinians. It is one of our highest priorities to do so in an agreement, but we will have to prepare to do so without an agreement if it becomes clear that the Palestinians are not interested in an agreement," Barak told army radio, speaking before tne new blast.

Unilateral separation would entail Israel setting borders between Israel and the Palestinian areas - a harsh prospect for both sides absent negotiations to resolve the difficulties involved, such as Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Israel's supplies of jobs, electricity and other vital needs for the Palestinian economy.