Note: The translations of articles from the Hebrew press
are prepared by the Government Press Office
as a service to foreign journalists in Israel.
They express the views of the authors.
The First Goal: A "Peace Summit" at the White House
(Commentary by Shimon Shiffer, "Yediot Ahronot", May 18, 1999, p. A7)
In June 1996, Prime Minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu and US President
Bill Clinton faced journalists at the White House after their first
meeting. Clinton was asked how he felt standing beside the man whose
victory he had not wanted. Clinton flashed an embarrassed grin and said
that such is life.
The Administration was wrong this time, too. The Americans' preferred
candidate, Yitzhak Mordechai, will not stand alongside Clinton next month.
It will be Ehud Barak. For Clinton, this will be a partial comfort. As
long as it is not Netanyahu.
The United States, Europe and the Arab world have great expectations of
Barak, and they are counting on tremendous momentum in the peace process
-- but the disappointment could be as great as the expectations. Barak
does not represent Peace Now. He does not intend to form a narrow
left-wing government. Nor is he enamored of the Oslo Accords. As
chief-of-staff, he leveled harsh criticism at the "holes" in the security
agreements. As a freshman Knesset member, he abstained in the vote on Oslo
II, which was signed in Cairo in 1995.
Barak plans to implement the Wye Memorandum which Netanyahu froze, but
only after a White House summit. Who will come to a summit? Certainly
Arafat, probably King Abdullah of Jordan and maybe Egyptian President
Mubarak. The summit will aim to re-ignite the peace process, and will
address all those issues which consumed Israeli public opinion until
election fever took hold -- continuation of the withdrawal, safe passage
between Gaza and the West Bank, the Gaza port.
The Americans plan to work on an agreement that will be submitted to
Barak: Israel will release Palestinian prisoners "with blood on their
hands" and, in return, Jewish American spy Jonathan Pollard will be
released -- and Egypt will release Azzam Azzam, the Israeli convicted on
charges of espionage.
In terms of the schedule, Barak has very little room to maneuver. If he
does not produce political results within six months of taking office, he
will have a problem because the United States will already be engaged in
the 2000 presidential election campaign, with primary season beginning
early next year. Democrats and Republicans all contract domestic political
fever, and nobody will deal with the problems of the Middle East. Clinton
himself will be fully employed working for Al Gore's election so it will
be hard to count on his intensive involvement after January 2000. And the
clock is also ticking for the Palestinians, who have also postponed the
creation of their state until the start of 2000.
Barak is also trapped from another direction -- his promise to take the
IDF out of Lebanon "by June 2000." In order to do so, he will have to
resume the dialogue with Syria; this will be none too simple. The Syrians
insist upon starting negotiations from the point at which they were
interrupted, which, from their perspective, is paramount to an Israeli
commitment to withdraw from the entire Golan. In Israel's view, there was
no more than a working assumption that would allow for a discussion of
security arrangements and the nature of a peace treaty.
Barak expects that, in return for renewing the talks, Assad will make a
gesture toward Israel and bring calm to the war in Lebanon. Assad has not
consented to this in the past, explaining that Hizballah is an
organization fighting to liberate Lebanon, and not a band of murderers.
Likud propaganda portrayed Barak as a Beilin-Peres clone. This is not
entirely accurate. Barak mocks the idea of the Peres "New Middle East." He
intends to follow in the footsteps of Yitzhak Rabin -- slowly and
cautiously.