Rajoub has actually been thought to be positioning himself for the job of Arafat successor, or replacement, for quite some time. He's made numerous secret visits to the CIA in Washington, sent many of his men to secret CIA-training camps, and has been considered for some time by the Israelis as their favorite Palestinian "security man" to work with. He clearly is the top dog designated agent of the moment. And as part of what appears at this point to be an orchestrated campaign, a few days ago Rajoub gave an interview to the American Zionist newspaper, The Forward, in which he went out of his way to reassure the Israelis about Palestinian recognition of the Jewish State with just lip-service to the "Right of Return".

Amid Bombs, Shootings, Palestinians' Security Chief Offers an Olive Branch

[The FORWARD - 1 June - JERUSALEM] The ultimate price Israel will have to pay for peace with the Palestinians is acceptance of a return to its 1967 borders, senior Palestinian security official Jibril Rajoub told the Forward in an interview this week.

Gen. Rajoub, a reputed moderate who is considered one of the Palestinian Authority's three top military commanders, rejected widespread Israeli contentions that the current uprising is aimed at the destruction of the state itself. He also denied that Palestinian demands for formal Israeli recognition of a "right of return" for Palestinian refugees would spell the end of Israel as a Jewish nation.

"We do recognize Israel within the 1967 borders. The Palestinian people, the Palestinian political factions, ranging from the far right to the far left, do recognize this fact," said Gen. Rajoub, who is often mentioned as a possible successor to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat.

As for the Palestinian right of return, "We have long made it clear that insisting on this principle will not mean seeking drastic demographic change in Israel."

Gen. Rajoub is one of several Palestinian moderates who have made overtures in recent days to Israeli public opinion, which they see hardening in the face of relentless Palestinian violence against Israelis. Gen. Rajoub and fellow moderates appear to fear that an Israeli hardening would strengthen Palestinian-Islamic militants at their expense. These leaders ? others include Cabinet minister Faisal Husseini and parliament speaker Abu Ala ? are now calling for a return to the negotiations and bilateral cooperation snuffed out by eight months of bloodshed. Before the uprising Gen. Rajoub's security service worked closely with its counterpart, Israel's Shin Bet, under CIA tutelage, to block militant attacks on Israelis.

Gen. Rajoub spoke with the Forward a week after Israeli tank shells ripped into his house in Ramallah, narrowly missing the bathroom where he was showering. Israel has called the shelling an accident.

"We are not asking for more than the implementation of U.N. Security Council resolutions," said Gen. Rajoub, who heads the powerful Preventative Security Service in the West Bank. He was referring to U.N. resolutions 242 and 338, which specify Israeli withdrawals from territory captured in the 1967 Six-Day War.

He pointedly did not mention resolution 194, a General Assembly resolution that called for return of the Palestinian refugees.

Gen. Rajoub spoke to the Forward during a week when Palestinian violence against Israeli targets reached new heights, despite a self-declared Israeli cease-fire. Last Friday, with Israel still reeling from the Jerusalem wedding hall disaster that killed 23 Israelis ? prompting a statement of sympathy and offers of aid from the Palestinian Authority ? a car bomb went off near the Hadera bus station, injuring 39 Israelis and killing the perpetrators. Sunday, Islamic militants set off two more car bombs in downtown Jerusalem. Tuesday, Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank killed three Israelis, including Sarah Blaustein, 53, who moved to Efrat in the West Bank a year ago from Lawrence, N.Y.

Israel has repeatedly called for the P.A. to halt its violence and restrain Islamic militants. Mr. Rajoub said that before the violence subsides and peace talks can continue, the Bush administration is likely to be forced to exert pressure to "make Israel understand what its own interests are." He has said in the past that his "graduate school" was the Israeli prison in which he was jailed for 17 years.

"Peace and security are not only Palestinian interests, they are in the interest of Israel as well," Gen. Rajoub said. Otherwise, the certain result will be "regional deterioration, a situation that neither the Americans nor the Europeans nor the Arabs are looking for."

Asked about Israeli contentions that Mr. Arafat wants to continue the current bloodshed rather than return to negotiations, Gen. Rajoub said that both Israel and the Palestinians should be put to the test by adopting the recommendations of the Mitchell Commission on ending the violence.

"Let us have a third party to monitor whether the Palestinians and Israelis are doing their homework or not," he said. "We have no problem in having any third party that both sides trust and have confidence in ? the Americans, the Europeans, the Egyptians."

Israel opposes international observers as a de facto effort to impose a solution for the disputed territories. But Gen. Rajoub insisted that the "Israelis cannot be the judge and the aggressor at the same time."

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's center-right government has demanded a total halt in violence as the precondition to peace talks. The Palestinians, for their part, have labeled Mr. Sharon's unilateral cease-fire a publicity stunt.

The gap between the sides, and the often-incomprehensible nature of the violence in the field, was particularly evident last week, when Gen. Rajoub invited several leading Israeli reporters into his home in Ramallah as part of the overtures to the Jewish state. Shortly after the journalists left, Israeli tank shells struck his house, lightly wounding him and three aides.

Contradictory Israeli army explanations of the incident indicated that the tank fire was ordered at the height of a shootout between Palestinian gunmen operating from Gen. Rajoub's neighborhood and Israeli soldiers defending the nearby flash point settlement of Psagot.

U.S. Ambassador Martin Indyk, in an acrid and surprising departure from his customary imperturbability, laced into the Israelis for the attack last week. "Those who would stop the violence, the Palestinian police...are being hit, bombed, shelled, killed by the Israeli Defense Force," Mr. Indyk told a stunned audience at Ben-Gurion University.

"Maybe the strategy is to encourage them to act against their own people," he said. "I don't imagine that there is an example in history where such strategy succeeded."

Gen. Rajoub rejected suggestions that the attack on his house was an isolated act by hotheaded officers in the field, or that the soldiers had no idea whose house it was.

He said his experience has told him that "the Israelis wanted to kill me. The means they used, the manner, the timing, the location ? I think this was a professional operation. Without intelligence information, without cooperation with the army and other intelligence resources they could not do what they did."

The motive, he charged, was to foment chaos among Palestinians and eliminate moderates so Israel would not have to make concessions.

"I think the Israelis wanted to create a mess within Palestinian society," he said. "They don't want to see strong partners on the other side. They want to see some sort of chaos, to prompt us to say no to the Mitchell report, for example, to justify their own rejection of it." Palestinians claim Israel's acceptance of the Mitchell report is effectively nullified by its rejection of the call for a freeze on settlement construction.

This week, in a trial by fire in his new position as Bush administration Middle East troubleshooter, envoy William Burns braved new violence to convene security officials for the first time since April.

Gen. Rajoub said he welcomed Mr. Burns' efforts as moving in the right direction. "What we are looking for is negotiations, implementation of agreements through peaceful means," he said. "We do recognize the facts on the ground. We do recognize that we should make peace with the Israelis. But it's up to the Israelis to decide whether they want security and peace, or if they want occupation and more settlements."

He continued: "I believe the Americans have started understanding the importance of their being involved." Although there are those on both sides "that will not accept anything," he said, "we can contain our people, and it's up to the Israelis to contain their settlers and radical elements. If we have good intentions, both sides can assure security and peace for everybody. But not through bombs, not through attacks and settlements and closures. With such things, there will be no security, no peace agreements, and no co-existence."