In the Shadow of Israel's Rotation
SALPETER, ELIAHU
HIGH-LEVEL MANEUVERS In the Shadow of Israel's Rotation BY ELIAHU SALPETER Tel Aviv Diplomatic initiatives have been preoccupying the Israeli press and public since midsummer. On July 22, Prime...
...Meanwhile, the visit of Vice President Bush had Israel basking once more in the glow of limitless expressions of American friendship...
...Rather, it is about how Israel will fare under the next President, whether Republican or Democrat...
...Peres may thus regain some of their votes when the next elections take place, in 1988 if not earlier...
...In addition, it has eased the pressure on President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt...
...Leaving aside the concern that certain Washington officials in the Justice Department and in Customs are "after Israel," the unusual play given to the recent arms smuggling stories—which, after all, are merely suspicions and have been denied by Jerusalem—has created the feeling here that things may be changing beneath the surface in the U. S. capital...
...Indeed, he seems largely to have confined himself to explaining the 1974 ten-point resolution drawn up by the Arab League at Fez...
...Interestingly, many academic Arab-ists in Israel maintain that is a wrong interpretation of Sadat's speech...
...As for Peres, he no doubt hoped his reception at the palace in Ifrane would make him an acceptable negotiating partner to Jordan's King Hussein, who has again broken with Arafat...
...Several Israeli correspondents have attributed the term "the spoiled brat status" to them...
...After that everything went downhill for Likud, from the unfortunate and unsuccessful war in Lebanon to the rapidly deterioriating economy...
...Now he is preparing to hand over the prime minister 's office to Shamir in October, when the first official Soviet delegation to visit Israel in 19 years may be arriving—mixed signals from Moscow notwithstanding...
...He has been under attack from domestic Moslem fundamentalists for continuing relations with Israel...
...That, many analysts believe, was Peres' big mistake...
...To this very moment, for example, it is not clear what the direct motivation was for the sessions at Hassan's summer palaceinlfrane...
...He was saying that ultimately there must be recognition of an independent Palestinian state, yet in the interim other agreements could be worked out between Israel and its neighbors...
...On the other hand, a few government officials in Israel recalled that Sadat's speech in the Knesset—before the peace talks started—was probably tougher and more demanding than the Fez resolution...
...It was former Labor "convert" Moshe Dayan who actually gave Menachem Begin's Likud its only real big accomplishment, the peace treaty with Egypt...
...He is thus courting two of the most virulent anti-Israel countries in the Middle East...
...Had he left Likud to stew in its own economic and political troubles, it would have had to call for early elections and would almost certainly have lost them...
...The unofficial contacts between Jerusalem and Rabat that have been fostered over the last two decades mostly by Labor politicians, culminating in the Peres trip, have now given Israeli "Moroccans" a new sense of importance and respectability...
...Peres, they estimate, has not sufficiently impressed the electorate with the benefits of his two years as prime minister...
...In recent months King Hassan, who is the current chairman of the Arab League, had told Peres he would be a welcome visitor—if he had something new to offer to the Arabs, especially on the Palestine issue...
...Hassan's deviation from the spirit of the Arab hardliners was his contending that Israel's acceptance in principle of the entire Fez resolution would "automatically" mean Arab recognition of Israel's right to exist...
...It appears as if some Washington circles have decided Israel's privileged status has gone too far...
...At least for the moment, that does not seem a likely development...
...At the same time, in sophisticated quarters in Jerusalem one senses an unease...
...are not acceptable to the great majority of Labor supporters—who are willing to trade some territories for full peace and deal with representatives of the local Palestinians, but not with PLO leader Yasir Arafat...
...There was no indication, before the trip or after it, that Peres did have any new offers, yet the invitation was issued and the meeting took place...
...He was presenting the ultimate, not the extreme, Arab position, they argue...
...Whatever the case, there is no question about the importance of the Morocco meeting...
...goodwill—plus the second installment of the special emergency assistance—created the impression that relations between the two countries have never been better...
...This included the demands for Israeli withdrawal from all territories occupied in 1967, and for direct negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO...
...Still, among the general public his effusions of U.S...
...Israeli commentators have noted that according to the monarch's confidants, he was deeply concerned about the momentum for another Arab-Israeli war building up in the absence of any progress toward peace, and was acutely aware of time running out because Likud's leader, Foreign Minister Yitzchak Shamir, is due to switch roles with Peres come October...
...In the 1984 elections Likud barely managed to keep abreast of Labor...
...But Peres could reap some domestic political benefits from his talks with Hassan...
...The results of all these comings and goings, however, remain somewhat obscure...
...Whatever happens on that front, Likud will be in a position to claim all the achievements of the past two years for itself until voting day comes around...
...A feeling of having been slighted and patronized by the Labor establishment in the' 50s and '60s led this community to vote for Begin and Likud in the '70s and '80s...
...Instead, Peres accomplished the withdrawal from Lebanon, put an end to the runaway inflation, and stabilized the economic situation...
...Moroccans make up the largest ethnic group in Israel today and even the generation born here is more attached to "the old country" than the children of any other immigrants...
...Nor could these issues even be discussed by Peres as head of a coalition embracing Likud...
...Adecadeago, theKing played an important role in preparing Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's historic visit to Jerusalem: It was in Morocco that then foreign minister Moshe Dayan and Cairo envoy Hassan Tou-hamy reached the basic agreement on an Egyptian peace treaty in exchange for Israel's withdrawal from Sinai...
...He must surely have realized, though, that Peres could under no circumstance avoid rejecting the two points that are crucial to the Arabs: complete withdrawal from the West Bank, and negotiations with the PLO...
...Nevertheless, Prime Minister Menachem Begin politely joined in the applause and everybody assumed that when someone was starting negotiations he stated his most extreme position, leaving ample room for retreat...
...He claims direct descent from the prophet Mohammed...
...Hussein is focusing all of his attention on trying to patch up Syria's long-festering rivalry with Iraq...
...It was faced with either forming a minority government (Labor permitting) or sharing power with its rival...
...Moreover, besides being the current chairman of the Arab League, he is chairman of the Islamic Conference Organization, made up of the heads of Moslem states...
...And on August 18 Soviet and Israeli delegations met in Helsinki—essentially to explore the possibilities for future discussions—marking the first official contact between the two countries since the USSR broke off relations with the Jewish state during the 1967 Six Day War...
...Certainly by receiving the Prime Minister at his palace the King violated the Arab extremists' taboo against talking to Israelis, but substantively he did not stray from the official Arab position...
...That was followed closely by Vice President George Bush's three-day visit here at the start of his latest Middle East tour...
...On July 22, Prime Minister Shimon Peres held a highly dramatized surprise meeting with King Hassan II in Morocco...
...Similarly, the academics contend, King Hassan was telling Peres that the Palestinians' right to self-determination would one day have to be recognized, yet until then there could perhaps be some movement on other issues...
...He thus felt obliged to try to set something in motion while Peres was still on top, the commentators have concluded...
...Now he has been openly joined by Hassan, and the King can hardly be dismissed as some fly-by-night Arab leader...
...Labor forced Likud to make the second choice...
...A number of the headlines in the popular press (bush will declare israel a parallel member of nato) reflected exaggerated expectations, regardless of the fact that Bush obviously was on a campaign warm-up tour...
...Such concessions Eliahu Salpeter reports regularly for The New Leader from Israel...
...The unease takes on added significance in the light of forebodings about the domestic situation...
...The worry is not so much what may or may not happen in the next two years, while Ronald Reagan is in the White House...
...To begin with, it constitutes a dramatic new public breach of Israel's pariah status in the Arab world...
...Despite public opinion polls favorable to Peres, political analysts suspect that in the next elections Labor will again fail to win a clear majority...
Vol. 69 • August 1986 • No. 11
