By Steven Mufson and John F. Harris
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, April 27, 1999; Page A10

Seeking to head off a Palestinian declaration of independence, President Clinton appealed to Israel and the Palestinian leadership yesterday to renew their peace talks swiftly and accept a one-year timetable for final settlement of their half-century-old conflict.

In a letter on the eve of a crucial meeting by Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Central Council to consider a unilateral declaration of independence, Clinton sought to reassure the Palestinians about the future of the peace process and the U.S. role in promoting an accord. A senior administration official said Clinton used slightly sharper language than before in describing Israel's land confiscations and Jewish settlements, calling them "destructive to the pursuit of peace," and expressed support for Palestinians' right to determine their own future as a free people on their own land.

Clinton's comments came in the form of a letter delivered to Arafat last night, which U.S. officials described as a way of providing cover for Arafat as he seeks to persuade his fellow Palestinian leaders meeting in Gaza City to postpone a unilateral declaration of independence before the May 4 deadline for conclusion of the peace talks set up under the 1994 Oslo peace agreements.

With elections looming in Israel on May 17, a Palestinian declaration of independence would provide fodder to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and other skeptics of the peace process in the campaign to defeat Labor Party leader Ehud Barak. Netanyahu has said he would annex disputed territories in the West Bank if Arafat and the 124-member Palestinian body declared independence, which could kill the ailing peace process and precipitate new violence.

It remained unclear, however, whether Clinton's letter will satisfy Palestinians, who have felt stymied in talks on their "permanent status." Under the Oslo accords, a five-year interim period was supposed to end next week with agreements on borders, refugees, the future of Jerusalem and other issues.

For more than a year and a half, Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization and head of the Palestinian Authority, has called May 4 a "sacred date" and vowed to declare independence unilaterally if negotiations remain frozen.

When Clinton visited Gaza in December, he said the United States understood Palestinian aspirations "to shape a new Palestinian future on your own land." In his letter, however, Clinton strengthened the language slightly, saying he supports such a goal as long as it is accomplished through negotiation.

Over the past week or so Arafat's negotiators have been in Washington urging the State Department to establish a timetable shorter than a year for finishing final-status talks. Although Clinton stuck with the one-year timetable, he said that the United States would try to bring the two sides together within six months for a high-level interim meeting.

U.S. officials said the idea of the letter -- and the political cover it gives to Arafat -- took root at a meeting Arafat had with Clinton in Washington March 23.

Palestinian officials had been hoping that Clinton's letter would be something approximating a latter-day "Balfour Declaration," the 1917 British statement of support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine that laid a foundation of international support for what became the Israeli state.

"I am sure that's what they are hoping for, but that's not what they are getting," said a U.S. official involved in drafting Clinton's letter.

The administration, which declined to release Clinton's letter -- even as it fully expected Arafat would release portions of it for his own purposes -- does "not cross the policy threshold" of changing stated U.S. aims in the region.

A statement from the Palestinian leadership issued after the letter was delivered said Arafat considers it "positive" and "pushing the direction of peace forward."

Hasan Abdel Rahman, chief representative of the Palestinian Authority in Washington, said that although Clinton has done little other than postpone the original Oslo timetable by a year, the letter showed that "Clinton agrees with us . . . that the interim period not be open-ended."

Indeed how to characterize the new one-year period appeared to be a delicate matter.

"We are opposed to a deadline, any deadline," said David Bar-Illan, the Israeli government spokesman. "We believe it is counterproductive. It makes fruitful negotiations extremely difficult, if not impossible."

A senior Clinton administration official said the administration wanted to "strike a balance" so as to "make sure" that talks would not be "open-ended without undercutting the value of negotiations" or "establishing a fixed deadline by which time unilateralism would be okay."

Any unilateral declaration of independence by the Palestinian ruling body would be fraught with difficulties. Palestinians so far have managed to negotiate for full or partial control over limited territory, controlling only Gaza and a scattered patchwork of non-contiguous chunks of land on the West Bank.

Correspondent Lee Hockstader in Jerusalem contributed to this report.