Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September 1999, pages 9-11

Affairs of State

Barak Seeking to Sell Bibi’s Peace to a Gullible U.S.

By Eugene Bird

What’s going on? Prime Minister Ehud Barak has an overwhelming mandate for peace and all you get from this former general are vague promises to unite Israel. He has succeeded in his first two months after the election in acting more like a musical chairs game host than the leader of the most powerful country in the Middle East, supposedly dedicated to finally making peace with its neighbors.

How different will Barak be from Binyamin Netanyahu? Well, not that different, even though he will negotiate and meet with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. Barak is, of course, an utterly different personality, a small guy in contrast to the towering Netanyahu, with a natural credibility, in contrast to the nimble-tongued con man.

Cool Leader, Unruly Coalition

Barak tried for a universal government, bringing all three major parties into a coalition headed by the Labor Party’s own mini-coalition, One Israel. He succeeded in putting together a coalition of overwhelming majority in the Knesset, but full of dissatisfied politicians who had been shunted off into ministries they did not want and were not qualified to run.

He then began a series of visits to Israel’s past partners in peace, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan. And his message became quite confusing. Arab-bashing Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland called it “fog,” but then went on to glorify such a policy in the face of Arab intransigence and double-dealing and prejudice. Intransigence? Hardly, for the message after May 17 came through loud and clear from circles around Arafat, Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad and Lebanese President Emile Lahoud: Thank the lord for the stunning victory of Barak; now we can get on with making peace with Israel.

A Government of Generals

There was no response of substance, however, from the new Israeli team of generals, and when it comes to making peace, one can almost ignore the peaceniks in Barak’s cabinet. He is excluding them all from peacemaking, so why should we take former Labor Party heavyweights Shimon Peres or Yossi Beilan seriously? Peace Now is in the same situation, with its leader, Yossi Sarid, in the cabinet but not the inner circle.

In interviews Barak has shown contempt for the soft left wing of Israeli politics, despite the fact that its leaders worked hard for his election and can claim, justly, that he is there because of their efforts. But Barak seems more comfortable at times with hard-liners who opposed him than with peaceniks who called on their followers to support him.

Further, Barak has given Zalman Shoval, who is sometimes referred to as the elder twin of Bibi Netanyahu, at least another four months as ambassador in Washington, for no known reason.

Leave Us Alone

When Barak flew to Cairo he took with him only his close military aides, leaving behind his foreign minister, David Levy. What role others may have in determining Israel’s stands in permanent status questions is not yet apparent. What is on display is Barak’s decree that the U.S. step back and limit its involvement to funding Israel, but not in negotiations, particularly with the Palestinians.

One of his aides is quoted as saying that “we know how to negotiate with Arafat.” They certainly do.

On his visit to Washington Barak stood on the White House lawn and indicated that any agreement signed by Israel will be carried out. But at the same time he suggested skipping implementing the Wye River agreement signed last October by Israel before moving on to permanent status negotiations. There is room enough in his remarks to never implement the minuscule withdrawals proposed at Wye River, leaving the Palestinians in full control of less than 3 percent of the original mandate of Palestine. Yet Barak claimed at the same time that nothing will be done without full agreement by Arafat, although the Palestinian leader already had turned down any permanent status negotiations until all aspects of the Wye River agreement are implemented.

Clearly while Arafat seeks to stand fast in the face of Israeli and American pressures on him, the game of using time to settle more Jewish Israelis on Arab lands will go on.

A Score Card for Peace

To evaluate where the prime minister is really coming from, one can lay down the following thumbnail guide to future negotiations:

With Syria, it will be a matter of what kind of maps are presented at the beginning, if any. Barak is known to be studying and is being briefed about Golan geography and water resources. A key factor will be what to do about the Mt. Hermon observation posts, dominating the communications of Syria. Clearly, Damascus cannot give ground on that issue.

With Lebanon, once the Syrian negotiations are far enough advanced to guarantee success, the issue is not just withdrawal but also the issue of what happens to the 350,000 Palestinian refugees. Barak will not take them back and probably would not permit Arafat to do so either.

Compensation? The amount needed would be staggering to the donor community, perhaps as much as $100 billion over 10 years. No Israeli leader has ever suggested that Israel would make more than a token contribution to such compensation.

With the Palestinians, Barak has laid down red lines that would certainly leave any Palestinian mini-state highly dependent on Israel. If he implements the Wye River agreement, besides withdrawal from another 11 percent of the West Bank, he would need to create two safe passages across Israel from Gaza and permit construction of a port in Gaza and the opening of an air freight terminal at the Gaza International Airport. But these are the kinds of actions generals in occupation of territory would find most difficult to implement.

On settlements, slowing if not halting the expansion of settlements would be a beginning, but it is not likely to happen, even within the East Jerusalem boundaries.

Regarding house demolitions, torture and release of prisoners, Barak has said not a word.

Final boundaries are so far down his agenda as to be ignored, even in the speculative press of Israel.

Access to Jerusalem for Palestinians is one of the easiest decisions Barak could take, but the topic does not even seem to be under discussion. Barak may ignore the previous government’s order to close Orient House, but he seems unlikely to cancel it entirely.

No American Referees

The Clinton administration already has agreed to step back from judging how well the Palestine Authority is carrying out security arrangements. Barak’s order to the U.S. to back off is consistent with Israel’s previous history. Israel has never wanted either the United Nations or the Americans to be involved in judging anything concerning armistice or peace arrangements, because all Israeli prime ministers have known objective evaluations would not provide Israel the opportunity it needs to expand across lines laid down in agreements. U.N. observer reports are never released, but the more than 50 years of massive U.N. truce and peace agreement observations are known from occasional leaks to be devastating to the Israeli case.

Barak is already being evaluated by political observers in Israel as trusting only his military instincts and defining the security of Israel from a purely military standpoint. Knesset member Yael Dayan, daughter of Israel’s late politician and general, Moshe Dayan, said after the election that the dream of a greater Israel was dead, but with Barak that dream is modified to mean that Israel must dominate the Middle East to survive.

Barak made the comparison in one interview in Israel between the power of the Syrian military and that of the Palestinians, suggesting that Syria had to be taken more seriously. Any threat to the security of Israel from the Palestinians was “ludicrous” in his eyes.

Is Barak so narrow in vision as not to see that the meaning of the intifada and of any reading of the demographic map would indicate that the balance of military forces is not the issue? It is the simple fact that there are more Palestinians than Israelis in the world, and half of the Palestinians still live in humbled circumstances within 30 minutes of Tel Aviv.

Contradictions

Barak wants separation from the Palestinians, but wants to maintain all the settlements. He wants peace with the Palestinians but wants to hold Jerusalem exclusively under Israeli sovereignty. Is there no one in Israel or the United States to tell him it will not work?

Barak also wants two things from America now: Full-scale involvement on the Syrian track and as few meetings between Arafat and Clinton as possible. And, of course, he wants the additional $1.2 billion in U.S. aid promised Israel for implementation of the Wye River agreement without implementing further the Israeli territorial withdrawals at the heart of the agreement.

This is General Chutzpah, seeking a Peace of the Cowed.

He could, of course, reverse course during the negotiations. But it would be difficult to negotiate a compromise with either Syria or the Palestinians that could combine his vaguely expressed yearning for peace and his firmly expressed demand for absolute security.

Warn the Terrorists: No Time Outs?

If, against all odds, there were another major blow-up on the Lebanese front or a successful bombing inside Israel, would Barak simply cut off all negotiations and call back the Americans? Both scenarios are possible during the next year and there seems neither an American plan nor an Israeli plan to prevent a breakdown. Instead it looks like both would be all too happy to blame the failure that presently seems inevitable on Palestinian “terrorism” rather than Israeli intransigence.

If Bill Clinton is serious about preserving the peace process, which was alive and well when it was bequeathed to him by President George Bush, it would make sense to announce that nothing, absolutely nothing, will stop the negotiations short of active aggression by one partner to the peace process against the other. That would make terrorism and cross-border incidents irrelevant and undercut those on both sides who are plotting such incidents.

Ehud Barak stands at a hinge moment in Middle East history. He could so easily turn his domestic political strength, ephemeral though it may be, into a real peace of the intelligent brave by recognizing that he holds the keys to peace with both the Palestinians and with Syria and Lebanon. Or he could continue to turn like a weathervane, first one direction and then another, shouting peace while making preparations for carrying on the occupation of Palestinian and Syrian lands in the name of military security.

Instead of welcoming American and even international involvement and taking Israel into the 21st century as a fully responsible member of the international community, Prime Minister Barak so far is playing the same old game. He seems to be ignoring that there is an absolute need for justice under law for the Palestinians and this is just as important as is security for Israel. In fact, the two are the same.

A General Peace…or a Peace of the Generals?

“Why do you think Ehud Barak has stayed so long in Washington and New York? This seems like the longest official visit in history,” a Gulf television news person asked in the middle of our interview on the sixth day of the visit by the newly elected Israeli minister.

I was tempted to reply, “The beds at Blair House are very comfortable and the living is good,” then thought better of it and said that there was a lot for U.S. officials to discuss with him after three years of dealing with his intransigent predecessor, Binyamin Netanyahu.

However, three questions should have been asked at the final presidential press conference held in the Old Executive Office Building: When is Israel going to end demolition of Palestinian homes being built on their own Arab land while Jewish settlements are allowed “natural growth” on Arab land?

When will Israel (and, to be fair, the Palestinian Authority) end torture of young Palestinian men in attempts to get them to confess to crimes they probably did not commit, and did President Bill Clinton raise the related question with the prime minister concerning detention and torture of American citizens of Palestinian ancestry?

Finally, Mr. Prime Minister, when are you going to invite Yasser Arafat to speak to the Knesset and accompany him to the Old City, where you both can pray at your respective holy places as a symbol of your New Age in Israeli-Palestinian relations?

Helen Thomas, veteran UPI correspondent and Arab-American dean of the White House press corps, asked a closely related question: “Mr. Prime Minister, there is an expression that if you walk a mile in someone’s moccasins, then you know how they really feel. If you were walking in a Palestinian’s shoes, how would you feel about occupation, annexation and incarceration for months, for years, without a charge, without a trial?”

Barak answered, “I was elected prime minister of the state of Israel. I am fully focused on the future and security of Israelis. I am aware in the same way that a person cannot choose his parents, a nation cannot choose its neighbors. They are there. They are Palestinians. We respect them. We want to build a peace with them that will put an end to the conflict, with all the suffering. Sufferings that have been on both sides of this conflict. I believe focusing on how to solve the problems in the future is a more, may I say, productive way to consume our time than dealing with analyzing past events or their interpretation.”

Thomas rejoined, “Well, they aren’t past, they are very current.”

“We are working on creating a peace that will create a different environment in the Middle East,” Barak said.

That same day, in Jerusalem, newly appointed Israeli Minister of Justice Yossi Beilin, the Labor Party’s foremost dove, was urging that the 50-year-old Emergency Regulations, which make possible much of the harassment, torture and use of secret evidence before special courts that is used against Palestinians and Palestinian Americans, should be eliminated.

But Beilin, who wanted in the worst way to be foreign minister in the Barak cabinet and who was a key personality in the peace talks at Oslo and afterward until Netanyahu arrived, is powerless to remove the Emergency Regulations, and probably lacks much influence with Barak.

It is apparent from the people he brought with him that the peace process will be an arena for the ex-generals. Negotiations will not only be tough, they will be acrimonious and periodically stall out.

On Syria, there is not the slightest hint in the Washington talks of what message President Clinton will send to President Assad. U.S. Jewish weeklies speculate that Israel will ask for U.S. troops to be stationed on the Syrian territory from which Israeli forces withdraw.

Barak sought and got substantial rewards, besides a Camp David weekend for himself, his wife, and the Clintons. He got new U.S. jet fighters, to be paid for out of U.S. military aid to Israel, a promise of early delivery of another $1.2 billion in aid for the still unimplemented Wye accord, and an Israeli astronaut in space.

The American side got very little in return. No confidence-building measures such as ending house demolitions and torture. Nothing on Jerusalem, in public at least. And, contrary to reports in the U.S. media, Israeli press sources say he actually asked for a higher level of peace process involvement by the Americans, more political, and let the “leaders not the clerks” propose solutions during negotiations, a direct slap at Ambassador Dennis Ross.

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat is also asking for a change in the American peace team. He wants a successful negotiator from the Kosovo-Serbian problem to be assigned to work intensively on the Israel-Palestinian track. But Barak wants less working level and detailed involvement by the Americans, confining the negotiations to higher level leaders on all sides.

During the Barak visit, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright first tentatively scheduled an immediate trip to the region, her first since last December, and then postponed it to August.

Now the question is, how soon will President Yasser Arafat and his wife, Suha, be given an official if not a state visit? How soon will Blair House be used to put an American imprimatur on a free Palestinian state?

Blair House was used during the ending of the colonial period, notably when rebel leader and future Zaire President Patrice Lumumba, over strong objections from the Belgians, was invited by President Eisenhower to use the facility as an indication that the U.S. wanted to recognize an independent Congo.

A Belgian diplomat protested to the Department of State. “You are inviting that man to sleep in the same bed that King Baudouin slept in only a few months ago?” Replied then-Belgian desk officer Dan Arzack, “We change the sheets.”

By any standards, Ehud Barak and his wife, Nava, were given all the pomp and circumstance and southern hospitality for which Clinton and his wife are famous. But the substance and bottom line seems to be: the generals now take over the three remaining tracks and do not expect a miracle in the roughly 15 months remaining before Clinton becomes a lame duck president.

Eugene Bird, a retired foreign service officer, is president of the Council for the National Interest and diplomatic correspondent for the Washington Report.

SIDEBAR

David Bonior Targeted by GOP’s Jewish Supporters

Congressman David Bonior, second-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives and House Whip, again is being targeted by the National Council for Jewish Republicans. Three million dollars is being raised to back a formidable Republican opponent, Candice Miller, Michigan secretary of state.

Bonior has been strongly opposed to the secret evidence clause in the Anti-Terror act of 1995, which has been used against Muslims and Arab Americans by the Immigration and Naturalization Service and which may well be unconstitutional. He is one of the sponsors of a bill that would amend the 1995 act and eliminate authority to keep evidence secret.

He also has been seeking the release of Arab Americans or Muslims being held without trial on unspecified charges, and he has fought to limit the use of “profiling” of air passengers. Bonior is seeking funds from all communities, traveling across the country to try and come up with a respectable counter to the effort to unseat him. Recently, in Falls Church, Virginia, a group invited to a fund-raiser for Bonior’s campaign by Abdul Rahman Alamoudi of the American Muslim Foundation raised a significant amount in one evening. Similar efforts are going forward elsewhere.

Political strategists say that this attempt to unseat Bonior is sophisticated and well- funded and Bonior is behind in Republican-sponsored polls. He comes from a relatively wealthy Detroit area district with a majority of Republicans, but no one is betting against the veteran campaigner.—E.B.