“Bibi and Bill” Act Assured a Successful Booking Until November

by Eugene Bird

When Binyamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu was deputy foreign minister under the Likud government of Yitzhak Shamir, he told Israeli journalist Akiva Eldar during the 1992 election (which Likud lost) that if Likud were re-elected, peace with Syria could be made in a matter of hours because the Golan was not “all that important” to Israel. In 1996, he said during his election campaign and continued to say after his victory that the Golan would not be returned because it was too important to Israeli strategic security.

His foreign policy adviser, former Ambassador to the U.S. Zalman Shoval, known to Israelis as “the second Netanyahu” because of his slick briefings, told a group of political pilgrims in 1994 that as Likud’s shadow foreign minister he could see the Palestinians acquiring their state in Jordan in some sort of confederation with the West Bank. Netanyahu has repeatedly said that the Palestinians will not have a state and will not have East Jerusalem as their capital.

Israel-watchers in Washington have been Bibi-watching throughout June, trying to guess what Netanyahu and whatever government he chooses to create will do. Most predict that the White House and the Department of State will try to maintain the tattered Oslo accords and move Netanyahu further down that road if they can, but by persuasion rather than arm-twisting.

Other Middle East specialists suggest that the election result provides an opportunity for the U.S. to declare its independence of Israeli policies, both on settlements and the Golan Heights.

That was not the impression given by Secretary of State Christopher during a June 2 television appearance, however. Asked about Netanyahu’s campaign statements that he would expand Jewish settlements, Christopher said that “the U.S. will have to adapt its policy.” Subsequently Department of State spokesperson Nick Burns sought to repair the damage, saying that U.S. policy had not changed, and that “land for peace” remained the basis for the Oslo accord and, therefore, for U.S. policy.

It is easy to predict, however, that Netanyahu will come to the White House not to be briefed about what has happened in the peace process by an administration that worked hard to prevent his election, but to present his own “peace agenda” that will maximize every loophole in the complex Oslo accords while still keeping President Clinton fully aboard and supportive of Israel’s new government.

Correspondents at the State Department are talking about a “honeymoon period” in which the U.S. peace team will try to nudge Netanyahu in directions leading to a comprehensive peace after all. But both Arab and Israeli reporters agree that the Clinton-Israeli honeymoon will be brief, and there are stormy days ahead over settlements, Hebron, and possibly over Jerusalem.

Some Middle East watchers claim to see in the Netanyahu flip-flops indications of at least limited flexibility. They speculate that he will come with his own proposals for:

Unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, a popular issue in Israel to reduce the death toll among Israeli soldiers. In fact, Peres is reported by one of Israel’s premier newsmen, who saw the archives of the Labor Party shortly before the election, to have had just such a unilateral withdrawal in mind. That would be a stunning adaptation of Labor policy by Likud which seems likely to happen.
Some sort of proposal to give the Palestinians an easing of the closure, at least until the next bombing, and even de facto independence for Gaza, the long-rumored “Gaza State” solution.
Attempting to re-start negotiations with Syria by offering to discuss new concepts of “security” for both nations.

Such policies might have resonance with the Clinton team, since they would give it a rationale to continue close relations with Israel, continue aid at least at present levels, provide a vehicle for additional U.S. aid for rationalizing the Palestinian economy, and give the Clinton administration an excuse not to walk away from the seemingly defeated “peace process” just before the November election in the United States.

The shock to Washington peacemakers is not over, of course, and there is also the shock to Israeli and American Jewish peace groups of going back into opposition for the first time in four years. They can hardly avoid criticizing an Israeli government that seems bent on stopping, if not totally reversing, the Oslo process.

An anomaly is Netanyahu’s continued talk about reducing or eliminating U.S. aid, partly by privatizing the public sector in Israel. Such a policy has real resonance with many members of Congress, but not with Jewish groups, who see any reduction in aid to Israel as a slackening of U.S. support.

Furthermore, while some Likud lobbyists are very close to the current Republican Congress, describing the Likud as the GOP of Israel, it is highly unlikely that Senator Bob Dole can compete successfully with the Democrats this year for the Jewish vote and for Jewish-American media support in November.

Friends of Israel are watching closely to see whether Netanyahu is forced to make a coaltion dependent on the friends of Ariel Sharon, the settlers and others who are unabashedly anti-American as well as anti-Palestinian.

There are other shoals through which Netanyahu must navigate in dealing with Israel’s varied American supporters. Reform Jews will be angered by concessions to the religious right in Israel that deny recognition of Reform and Conservative Judaism, movements to which most American Jews belong. Jewish investors in Israeli joint projects with Palestinians and with other Arab states also may see their plans dashed, including the prize project for Israeli purchase of natural gas from Qatar. Saudi King Fahd already has sent a letter to President Clinton saying, in essence, that his country will continue commitment to the peace process only so long as Israel’s new government demonstrated equal commitment.

It is certain, however, that the fall-out from the election in Israel will be contained at least through November, by an administration counting on repeating its 1992 success in obtaining 85 percent of U.S. Jewish votes. The consensus is that after that, Bibi’s policies may be too much to stomach, even by a White House and Department of State which have been described by Israelis as the most pro-Israel U.S. administration in history.

Assad vs. Christopher: Never the Same Again?

The Israeli shell-shocking of world opinion in Lebanon did more than threaten the peace process. It threatened the role of the U.S. as an honest broker in the crucial Syrian-Israeli track. The Assad-Christopher relationship was seriously fractured, according to State Department sources.

In a recent L.A. Times article by Jim Mann, Secretary of State Warren Christopher claimed, “I am more concerned than ever as to whether [Assad] will be able to execute his intention for peace because of his suspicion and fear. His hesitancy and mistrust is so deep that it causes apprehension, worrying that somehow he’s been taken advantage of by the Israelis.” This realization should not come as a surprise. Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad witnesses daily the unjust peace implemented in poor faith by the Israeli government with regard to the Palestinians. One must ask whether the U.S. government is supporting a peace worth having.

The current U.S.-mediated Israel-Syria negotiations are leading nowhere. Assad’s snub of Christopher when he arrived in Damascus to negotiate the cease-fire in Lebanon, and Christopher’s comment, “I’m not sure our [personal] relationship will ever be the same again,” highlight the deterioration in the American attempt to broker a peace treaty between Syria and Israel.

Assad’s requirement for a comprehensive peace is the implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which includes an Israeli return of the Golan Heights. Syrian policy has been unchanged for over 20 years. Most observers agree that Assad will wait for the right deal and is in no hurry. If Warren Christopher really wants peace in the near term he will have to press Tel Aviv to commit itself seriously to withdrawing from the Golan in accordance with U.N. Security Council Resolution 242.

State Department comments seem to reflect a willful ignoring of Resolution 242 and Assad’s goals, despite the fact that the U.S. president co-signed the Oslo-negotiated Declaration of Principles in 1993, which specifically cited 242 as the basis for peace with the Palestinians. Can Syria and Lebanon ask for less?

When asked about the recent cease-fire in Lebanon, one of Christopher’s senior aides stated, as if surprised, “The experience of negotiating that cease-fire was so tough it taught us something about Assad. We can go forward, but it will be tough.” It should have taught them something about Israeli refusal to apply lessons from its earlier disastrous adventures in Lebanon.

Gilman to Pollard to Peres to…Clinton?

Revelations that Congressman Ben Gilman (R-NY), chairman of the International Relations Committee, made a visit to Jonathan Pollard earlier this year indicate that a whole new campaign is underway to free Pollard before or after the November elections in the United States.

Spokespeople for the congressman refused to reveal the purpose of his visit, but it came just before then-Prime Minister Peres once again raised the subject with President Bill Clinton. Was Gilman trying to put a congressional cachet on the Israeli leader’s approach? Did Peres argue that freeing Pollard could be another assist from Clinton to re-election to complete the peace process? If Peres did, he seems to have failed.

The Israeli prime minister made a remarkable statement upon his return to Israel when asked about whether he had raised the Pollard case during his May 9 visit to the White House. The American administration, Peres said, takes umbrage at “the outspoken and noisy style Pollard and those close to him” have adopted in his fight for freedom. “If they will change their behaviour,” say sources in Washington, “it will be possible to re-evaluate the case.”

Correspondents are betting that this all means that there will be no consideration given to freeing Pollard until after American voters decide who will be president of the United States. Apparently, the Clinton administration decided that the negatives for the Clinton presidential campaign would outweigh any possible benefits to the Peres re-election campaign.