JERUSALEM - Jordan's King Hussein, piloting his own helicopter from Amman to Gaza to Tel Aviv, staged a diplomatic rescue mission yesterday for the deadlocked talks between his Israeli and Palestinian neighbors.
The unexpected intervention of the monarch, who has had uneasy relations with both parties, came as Dennis Ross, the Clinton administration's special envoy, announced an empty-handed departure from the region - and then, for the second time in less than three months, decided not to fly home after all.
Instead, Ross, the U.S. special Middle East coordinator, huddled until nearly midnight with Hussein and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Israeli Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv. A top aide to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat told reporters in Gaza City that a long-delayed accord on Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank city of Hebron could be initialed as soon as today, but Hussein announced no more than "a fresh beginning" for the talks when he emerged last night.
"We're not there yet, but there is no question that we are closer than we were," a drawn-looking Ross told reporters waiting outside.
Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy captured something of the spirit of the laborious endgame of the talks by declaring it "a matter of astrology by now" to attempt a prediction on their close. He made reference to Israel's contention that the decision is entirely Arafat's, adding, "If someone thinks that by creating a stalemate he will improve the situation, he is mistaken."
Israelis and Palestinians have negotiated intensively for more than three months to complete their first accord under Netanyahu, which amounts to an implementation plan for Israel's previous agreement to withdraw its army from most of the West Bank city of Hebron.
The deal has been stuck for some weeks now on Arafat's suspicion that Netanyahu will stall or renege on subsequent Israeli withdrawals from rural areas of the West Bank. Netanyahu is refusing to say he will honor Israel's signed commitment to a redeployment schedule that would leave all but Jewish settlements and Israeli "military locations" in Arafat's hands for limited self-rule by September 1997.
The two sides were said to be bargaining last night over a compromise date in mid-1998, and over Israeli demands for extradition of Palestinians wanted on criminal charges by the Jewish state and definitive changes in the Palestinian National Covenant.
Before flying to Tel Aviv, Hussein spent seven hours with Arafat, with whom he has fought many skirmishes and one all-out war over the years. Not so many months ago, Hussein told an Israeli newspaper that Arafat "is your problem, and mine." But yesterday the two embraced and kissed like the warmest of friends.