Leaders come to talk peace but geared for war

SHARM EL-SHEIKH - Middle East leaders arrived in Sharm el-Sheikh last night angry, embattled and armed with demands, to talk a knife-edge peace.

The conditions could scarcely be worse for world leaders gathering in the Egyptian Red Sea resort to halt the firestorm of violence engulfing the Middle East.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak is under intense pressure from the right wing and hardening public opinion against any compromise.

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat is a reluctant participant, who agreed to attend only after intense international lobbying.

He is acutely aware that many of his people do not want him there and hope to continue their new intifada.

Beyond them are two enflamed peoples, who are uneasy with their leaders, have a pile of unsettled scores and view each other with even deeper hatred than before.

At any point, the talks could be curtailed by a guerrilla bombing or another upsurge of bloodshed, further hastening the slide towards war in the Mid-East.

The alternative was plain yesterday.

Fresh violence ratcheted up the tension in a region already boiling with enmity, where more than 100 people, mostly Arabs, have died since violence erupted last month.

Gunmen in Jordan shot and wounded two Israeli border guards north of the West Bank city of Jericho.

The Israeli Defence Ministry confirmed that an Israeli businessman had been kidnapped after the Hizbollah group in Lebanon claimed to have captured an Army colonel.

Swiss police were investigating a report that the man might have disappeared in Switzerland.

In France, anti-Jewish violence erupted in the town of Toulon when three people wearing masks threw Molotov cocktails into a Jewish butcher's shop.

More than 20 attacks have been made against Jewish buildings across France.

In Israel, 13 soccer fans were arrested after a Jerusalem crowd chanted slogans, including "Death to the Arabs," at a football match.

After 18 days of killings, sectarian attacks and children slain by troops, the summit outcome is uncertain.

Expectations of the talks - chaired by Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and including United States President Bill Clinton, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Jordan's King Abdullah II and a senior European Union representative - are so low the summit was scheduled to last just a few hours.

The Palestinians demand the lifting of the Israeli closure of the occupied territories and an international commission of inquiry - rather than one dominated by the Israelis and their US allies.

The Israelis want the re-arrest of 60 members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad released from Palestinian jails in the past few days.

- AGENCIES

Herald Online feature: Middle East

Map

Middle East Daily

Arabic News

Arabic Media Internet Network

Jerusalem Post

Israel Wire

US Department of State - Middle East Peace Process