Behind the Looking Glass—Political Insights From The Israeli Press

By Nathan Jones

With Israeli-Syrian negotiations halted, U.S. President Bill Clinton grimly saying as little as possible, and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright airily talking about “taking a breather” after the first round of talks at Shepherdstown, West Virginia, some Israeli journalists blamed deceitful tactics by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak for the breakdown.

Editorialized Israel’s mass-circulation Yediot Ahronot on Jan. 19: “A few months ago, Prime Minister Barak told President Clinton about Israel’s agreement to determine the peace border with Syria on the basis of the June 4, 1967 line. President Clinton shared the information with President Hafez Al-Assad. Assad decided to return to the negotiating table. The problem is that after the first Shepherdstown round, Assad decided that he wanted Israel to come forward with a public announcement on the border issue.”

Independent Ha’aretz also criticized the Israeli prime minister, saying, “diplomatic and political circumstances do not permit Israel to choose between the tracks or to give one priority over the other.”

In the wake of the breakdown, other Israeli commentators criticized Barak for entering into the negotiations at all. “The possibility that the government would lose a Golan-for-peace referendum cannot be dismissed,” wrote liberal analyst Yechi’am Weizt on Jan. 16 in Ma’ariv. “If the government loses the referendum, the world would come to see Israel as a nation that prefers land to the termination of 100 years of hostilities. The world would then treat us accordingly—as a pariah whose caprices and folly threaten world peace.”

The Israeli press also discussed final borders in such an agreement, whether or not Israeli voters should approve in a referendum full withdrawal from the Golan, the amount of money the U.S. might be willing to pay for such an agreement, whether making an agreement with Syria but not with the Palestinians would provide Israel with real security, and whether or not it makes sense to strike the deal with a lame-duck Democratic U.S. president working with a Republican Congress, or wait for a new U.S. president and Congress.

Regarding the difference between Israeli willingness to withdraw only to the international borders of 1924, and Syrian insistence on further Israeli withdrawal to the borders of June 4, 1967, analyst Meron Benvenisti wrote Jan. 6 in independent Ha’aretz, “It takes a lot of Chutzpah for a country that lost three wars (1948, 1967 and 1973) to revise internationally recognized borders. If the Syrians keep insisting on their insolent position, we can wait until they change their attitude.” But only a week later, on Jan 14, reality had set in when diplomatic correspondent Shimon Shiffer wrote in mass-circulation Yediot Ahronot:

“The good news in the American working document is that Syria is prepared to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel, including open borders, trade ties, etc. Syria is also ready to support many of Israel’s security-related requests. The not-so-good news is that Israel will have to pull back to a line based on the June 4, 1967 border.”

The Israeli government floated ever-higher estimates of what the U.S. might pay.

Journalists themselves seemed astonished as the Israeli government floated ever-higher estimates of what the U.S. might pay in military aid for an Israeli withdrawal. On Jan. 3 conservative columnist David Weinberg wrote in the Jerusalem Post that “according to the press and hallucinating Israel Defense Forces officials, Uncle Sam will end up subventing our deal with Syria by some $20 billion. Someone in Congress will yet figure out that it would be cheaper to hire foreign legionnaires for 100 years to maintain Israel’s security zone in southern Lebanon.”

Only four days later, however, on Jan. 7, well-connected Ha’aretz analyst Ze’ev Schiff wrote that Israel will want $65 billion from the U.S. “to pay for peace.”

Wrote conservative analyst Yosef Goell in the Jerusalem Post of Jan. 10, “Just a few days ago, the bill to be presented to the Americans was a fantastic $17.4 billion dollars. There is no way the U.S. Congress (and in an election year the U.S. taxpayer) would, or should, agree to foot such bills. The great danger for Israel is that basing its negotiating stance on such astronomical claims on the U.S. could undermine the Americans’ deep-seated political and popular support for Israel in its conflict with the Arab and Muslim worlds.”

Fantasy Into Reality

On the same day conservative commentator Moshe Zak wrote in the pluralist Ma’ariv: “No pipe dreams about billions of dollars…can turn fantasy into reality. Israel will never receive hundreds of Tomahawk missiles, and chances are meager for the infusion of tens of billions of American money to bankroll a peace agreement.”

On Jan. 11 analyst Yoel Marcus wrote in Ha’aretz: “Here in Israel we consider it a self-evident fact, whose obviousness we regard with something bordering on audacity, that no matter what happens, America will pay. Don’t we ever stop to think what will a laid-off worker in Detroit or a homeless person in Chicago say about all the grandiose plans Israel is making at their expense? What possible explanation will congressional candidates give to voters in America’s disadvantaged constituencies regarding the tens of billions of dollars the U.S. is giving the Middle East in general and Israel in particular? The problem is the intolerable degree of self-confidence of our government that the big bucks are already in our pocket.”

Regarding President Bill Clinton’s motives for seeking to persuade a Republican Congress in an election year to come up with such sums, Israeli commentators were pragmatic: “Clinton’s staff is busy producing the ‘Peace Show,’” wrote nationalist Uri Dan in the Dec. 30 Jerusalem Post. “This show will help him enter history as a great peacemaker rather than…the Knight of Monica-dom. The director of the show is James Carville, Clinton’s campaign manager, who not coincidentally also served Barak. Carville believes the ‘Peace Show’ will also help Hillary in her election campaign in New York.”

Nationalist Uri Elitzur took the analogy further in mass-circulation Yediot Ahronot on Jan. 7. “The grand Shepherdstown production is intended to help President Clinton erase the Monica Lewinsky affair from the history books. And the Israelis at Shepherdstown are going out of their way to help Clinton achieve just that. But what is the point in investing in a president who is at the end of his career?”

Golan Heights hard-liner Kfir Lutzato wrote Jan. 13 in Ha’aretz: “Clinton is no worse than his predecessors, but he is smarter. What George Bush used to do with blatant rudeness, Clinton is doing with a soft and gentle touch. Clinton’s request of Israel to abdicate its national and security assets, and hand them over to an infirm dictator—which coming from Bush would have appeared as a deadly threat—sounds almost as an invitation to a ball. Clinton has managed to cast a spell on our leaders and our nation and steer us down a path which would lead to our demise as a sovereign nation.”

There was other nationalist rhetoric from commentators opposed to withdrawing from Golan. Wrote nationalist Israel Harel in Ha’aretz on Dec. 30: “The perpetuation of sovereignty over land that has been purchased in blood or in cash is one of the most basic principles of Zionism, but it will not be on the agenda of the Israeli delegation.”

In a slap at such thinking, former IDF intelligence chief Shlomo Gazit wrote Dec. 21 in the Jerusalem Post, “Those who delude themselves that an agreement can be reached with Syria in the foreseeable future on the principle of ‘peace for peace’ without territorial compromise are living in dreamland.”

Finally, the question of whether by reaching a relatively easy agreement with Syria Israel could circumvent a peace with the Palestinians was examined both by proponents and skeptics. Wrote nationalist commentator Yosef Goell on Dec. 13 in the Jerusalem Post: “There’s only one good thing about Hafez Al-Assad’s agreement to reopen negotiations: The threat of a competing negotiating track might just induce the Palestinians to speed up their own talks over the division of the West Bank…The U.S. is one of the major arenas in which the threat to the Golan and to Israel must be fought. There is no better time to pick such a fight with the misguided leaders of our most steadfast supporter than in the midst of an American election year.”

Israeli peace militant Uri Avnery, writing Dec. 20 in Ma’ariv, warned against leaving the Palestinians outside the peace. “Back in 1977, Prime Minister Begin returned all of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt and abandoned all Sinai settlements in the hope that, happy with its recovered land, Cairo would forget about the Palestinian problem. In 1999, Barak is copying Begin’s old strategy. He would let the Syrians regain control of the Golan Heights and dismantle all Golan settlements only to get Syria out of the circle of war and isolate the Palestinians. But unlike Begin, who thought he could eradicate the Palestinian problem altogether, Barak feels he can get it out of the way by giving the Palestinians a tiny mini-state, while keeping most of the West Bank and the Jewish settlements there under Israeli control…In fact, the Palestinians are going to want Israelis to do in the West Bank what they will eventually do in the Golan, namely, get out. Only then will a historic, Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation be possible.”

Barak critic Arie Caspi echoed this warning Dec. 24 in Ha’aretz:“Tearing Israel apart over withdrawal from the Golan means wasting vital energy on a secondary issue. Resolution with the Palestinians is Israel’s foremost interest because the Palestinians are at the heart of the Israel-Arab conflict. Peace with Syria will not lead to a comprehensive resolution with the entire Muslim world. Only an agreement addressing the issue of Jerusalem and granting the Palestinians genuine independence can give us real peace. If Barak wants to appear on the same page of history as Ben-Gurion, he must first reach a real and complete resolution with the Palestinians.”

On the same day in the Jerusalem Post, analyst Mark Heller wrote: “One of the more curious by-products of the resumption of Israeli-Syria negotiations is that both Bill Clinton and Ehud Barak have gone out of their way to assure Yasser Arafat, again and again, that the Palestinian track will not be neglected…It would take an almost superhuman effort by Israel to resist exploiting whatever opportunities Syrian-Palestinian suspicions might seem to present. But…peace on the northern border will do nothing to avert the immediate or longer–term consequences in the rest of the country of a failure to achieve peace with the Palestinians…In the political-psychological sense, the Palestinian issue is still the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

Poll Results

A poll released Dec. 17 by Israel’s mass-circulation Yediot Ahronot showed that when Israelis were asked if they favored giving up the entire Golan Heights in return for full peace, 51 percent opposed such a deal and 45 percent favored it. A Dec. 24 Ma’ariv poll on the same proposition showed 47 percent opposed and 44 percent in favor.

A Jan. 14 Ma’ariv poll after conclusion of the first round of Shepherdstown talks showed 48 percent of Israelis believed Syria does not want peace, 36 percent felt Syria does want peace, and 16 percent said they did not know.

Nathan Jones is a free-lance writer specializing in Israeli and North American Jewish affairs.