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Conflict in the Middle East: Arafat Consulting With Arab Leaders on U.S. Peace Proposal

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DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is back in the Middle East. He's consulting with Arab leaders about the recent U.S. peace proposal. Mr. Arafat is looking for support from foreign ministers meeting in Egypt. Yesterday in Washington, the White House said the Palestinian leader conditionally accepted the U.S. plan on a framework for peace with Israel. Today, Arab ministers have rejected a key part of that proposal.

With more on that, let's go ahead and check in with our Andrea Koppel, who is at the State Department -- Andrea.

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: Daryn, that's right. Gilead Sher, the top Israeli negotiator, is due to arrive here in Washington. Later this afternoon, he'll go into meetings with senior members of President Clinton's Middle East peace team. The purpose of Mr. Sher's visit from the Israeli perspective is to get further clarification on what the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, told President Clinton earlier this week when he accepted the framework for a U.S. peace plan with reservations. The Israelis want to find out more about these reservations and see if it's possible at all to think that a peace deal could be breached before Mr. Clinton leaves office.

Equally important, administration officials say, to talking about these reservations and whether or not they can be bridged will be to discuss with the Israelis how to end the violence, the same thing that President Clinton was discussing with Yasser Arafat earlier this week. Both sides, both the Israelis and the Palestinians, agree that there is no sense in trying to work out a peace deal because they acknowledge that if there isn't an end to the violence, a peace deal would not work out in the long run.

But, Daryn, everyone does see that the deck is stacked against them. With only 16 days left in office, President Clinton has a serious time constraint. There are also serious reservations, and no one really is sure whether or not they're going to be able to bridge those differences in the time remaining -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Andrea, a question for you. I'm not sure if you're able to know there at the State Department, but as I said in the last story, we're getting word that the Arab ministers in Cairo have rejected a key part of the Clinton proposal. Would we happen to know what that would be? KOPPEL: Yes, I do, actually. It depends what your interpretation is of this, if you want to call it a rejection or if it's simply just a restatement of what their policy has been. They say that it is incredibly important that the Palestinian refugees have their right of return to Israel. And this is something that the Arab world and the Palestinians have all along been saying is very important, is vital to any kind of peace deal. That's something that the Israelis have said they cannot accept because Israel would cease to be a Jewish state if they were to accept, essentially, hundreds of thousands if not million of Palestinian refugees, Daryn.

KAGAN: A number of tough issues they still have yet to tackle. Andrea Koppel at the State Department in Washington, D.C., thank you very much.

LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: That issue of the refugees may be even the stickiest one of all. I've heard experts say that that issue may even be tougher to get over or around...

KAGAN: Than Jerusalem?

HARRIS: ... than the issue of Jerusalem and its status.

KAGAN: None of it easy.

HARRIS: So that could be a tough point there to cover.

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