After separate talks with President Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat met one on one in a White House session lasting three hours. Elizabeth Farnsworth provides a backgrounder, then moderates a panel discussion with Middle East watchers.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Gathered for the Washington summit are Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and Jordan's King Hussein. Their first joint meeting in the Oval Office was briefly open to reporters.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Let me say first that I am delighted to have King Hussein, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and Chairman Arafat here. I thank them for coming. We have had some good conversations already. This is our first meeting, all four of us together. But I think that their presence here clearly symbolizes our commitment to the end of violence and to get the peace process going again. And we've come a long way in the last three years. No one wants to turn back, and I'm personally quite gratified by this opportunity to have the chance to visit with you, and I thank you for coming.

HELEN THOMAS, UPI: Mr. Prime Minister, are you ready to abide by these agreements already made by Israel.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, Israel: Absolutely. And our commitment to peace is also evident in the presence. We took up the President's kind offer, important offer to come here and to try to put the peace process back on track. This is what we're doing.

REPORTER: Mr. Prime Minister, is there any prospect at all of your accepting some sort of international commissioners--commission of experts, archaeologists, religious leaders, take a look at what you've done by opening up this tunnel to simply reassure everyone that there is no potential violence in the Moslem holy places?

PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU: Well, you know our position, and I don't think it would be wise to open up a discussion here.

REPORTER: Have you had a chance to consider the king's suggestion of an independent commission to look at this problem and possibly cool tempers that way and come up with a--some sort of a bridging proposal?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Let me say this again this is our first opportunity to all meet together, and one of the things that I have learned over the last several years is that anything any of us say publicly can undermine our ability to make progress, which is the ultimate objective of this meeting, so I don't want to make any premature comments here until we have a chance to visit with each other and do some work. We're going to work yet today; we're going to work tomorrow; and then I'll be glad to answer the questions that you may have.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry later told reporters what happened after reporters left the Oval Office. McCurry said the President summarized his separate conversations with Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Arafat, describing their differences and how they might be bridged. Then King Hussein spoke.

MIKE McCURRY, White House Press Secretary: The king gave what everyone described as a very emotional appeal to these parties to honor the commitments both have made to peace and to try to do everything possible to erase the, the anger and the frustration of recent days and to move into a more constructive relationship that would allow them to deal with some of the differences that exist. He, he said he considered this in some ways almost a religious obligation and talked about he, himself, prays five times a day for peace and how all of the people in that room have that fundamental obligation.

It was very impressive and some said very emotional moment in that meeting. Prime Minister Netanyahu then made the presentation speaking alternatively to the group but sometimes directly addressing Chairman Arafat, sometimes directly addressing the king, and then Chairman Arafat spoke, addressing many of his remarks directly to the prime minister but sometimes to the larger group. I would describe all of these conversations as being sober but very constructive and very helpful.

You'll recall that our own assessment of the situation and the President's rationale for bringing these leaders here is that we're at a moment in this process in which a great deal of trust has been lost and a great deal of anger, frustration, suspicion had been begun to permeate the environment for the dialogue that must occur if the Middle East peace process is to deepen and to nurture the contacts that the parties have in the region. Certainly the discussions so far today have gone a long way towards reestablishing that notion of trust that must exist between the parties as they have their discussions.