Shamir Gets Set for Washington

...This gave its supporters a green light to vote for Likud candidates if they deemed them more effective on municipal matters, and the results of the election were a near-disaster for Labor...

...opening a wedge for Israeli cultural and religious contacts with Soviet Jewry...

...Meetings between Israelis and PLO representatives—invariably in the presence of a third party to obviate violating the law against negotiating with the enemy—became quite frequent, gradually investing them with an air of the routine...

...It was part of an increased attempt by the Soviet Union to soften Israel's opposition to an international Middle East peace conference, while not angering the Arabs too much by resuming diplomatic relations as demanded by Jerusalem...

...In addition to holding on to Tel Aviv, Herzlia and Netanya, it took Holon, Ramat Gan, Beersheva and Petach Tikva from Labor, and Tiberias from the National Religious Party...

...Its campaign was not only badly organized but stressed the difference between national and local affairs...

...Britain and France have tried their hand at convincing Israel to deal with Arafat, too...

...Eliahu Salpeter reports regularly for The New Leader from Israel...

...It was obviously part of an all-out PLO effort to convince Israelis that the terrorist organization has really changed...

...The probable effect of the municipal elections aside, February was crammed with events pointing to movement on the diplomatic and political fronts...

...There also was a significant increase in ultraorthodox representation in several Jewish towns and cities...

...and PLO participation in the conference (something both the Likud and the Labor leadership oppose...

...Moreover, the need to bail out bankrupt Histadrut enterprises and the debt-ridden kibbutzim with loans guaranteed by the government has reduced to a minimum the credibility of any Labor threat to break up the Likud-led coalition...

...Likud came out on top in most major cities and virtually all developing towns...

...In several Arab towns—including Umm al-Fahm, second largest in Israel—the Islamic fundamentalists ousted the Communists...

...But there are those who argue that Shamir feels the situation is coming to a head, and what is crucial now is preventing the imposition of a Palestinian state because it would present a mortal danger to Israel...

...But 40 years of bloodshed and casualties have led the Palestinians to conclude "that we cannot destroy the Israelis...

...The main thrust of their message has been that the Kremlin's peacemaking efforts in the Middle East reflected Mikhail S. Gorbachev's global shift "from confrontational to cooperative foreign policy...

...and second, that it cannot usefully talk to the Israelis without addressing their existential fears—which are genuine and not a mere excuse...

...Although it failed to win Jerusalem and Haifa, Labor's control was weakened in both cases...

...True, Shamir had said he hoped a demonstration of firmness at home would have an impact on friends abroad...

...Ha'aretz, Israel's leading daily, has outlined the concessions at the top of its editorial page without evoking any denial from the Prime Minister's office...

...The Prime Minister was careful, though, not to trumpet his reactions before his scheduled meeting with President George Bush...

...An apparently well thought-out plan, the Soviet strategy has included: upgrading of the Israeli consular mission in Moscow, and the Soviet consular mission in Jerusalem, to conduct diplomatic business...

...A reversal in these areas would amount to a complete about-face for Shamir...

...that this authority should extend to the territories' land and water resources...

...The subject came up when Prime Minister Shamir met with President François Mitterrand in Paris, and when Foreign Minister Arens was received by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in London...

...Israel agreed to move the border a few hundred meters to the east, thereby placing the five-star Sonesta Beach Hotel and an adjacent beachcomber vacation village under Egyptian sovereignty...

...yet it was not only the Left that claimed the municipal vote did not mean a reversal of the glacially slow—but steady—move toward political realism...

...At the least, it is clear he sees the vote as negating the public opinion polls that have lately found a majority of Israelis favoring some kind of negotiations with the PLO...

...permitting Russian Jewish tourists to go to Israel, and even allowing former refuseniks to visit relatives in the USSR on Israeli passports...

...Or it may show that just as Menachem Begin could be persuaded to give up the Sinai, so Shamir is ready to accept genuine Palestinian self-rule but cannot be pressured into granting the Palestinians full independence...

...Nevertheless, during last month's municipal contests Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir decided to focus his Likud bloc's campaign on national issues...

...But he fully understands that the real test will be his forthcoming meeting with President Bush in Washington...

...Last but not least, Moscow has dispatched a number of officials on "private visits" to address Israeli officials and opinion-makers...

...Labor played into Likud's hands...

...Likud's victory was widely interpreted as consolidating its dominant political position in the country...

...prefers...

...Nor are they persuaded that it either wants to, or is able to exercise authority over its "rejectionist" components, which refuse to abide by Arafat's cease-fire and continue to dispatch terrorists to Israel's border...

...Its leader, Shimon Peres, was already up to his neck in the problems of his new post as Minister of Finance, leaving him little time for foreign policy endeavors...

...Israel's insistence on retaining control in these three spheres was the primary cause, many believe, for the stalemate in the Palestine autonomy talks after the signing of the peace treaty with Egypt...

...The Shevardnadze-Arens meeting was, of course, the most spectacular of the recent hectic activities...

...The economic slowdown has strengthened Likud's awareness of how critically important it is to maintain American good will and financial assistance, but this has always been an ancillary factor in the education of its leaders in political realism...

...This was intended to reduce the influence of national concerns on municipal balloting, since one's views about, say, the Israeli-Arab dispute have little to do with water rates, school construction or garbage collection...

...Shamir, meanwhile, left the impression that the rout will reinforce his determination to reject any foreign (or domestic) suggestions urging Israel toward a compromise that could ultimately lead to an independent Palestinian state...

...to give the outgoing proprietor and the Sonesta chain a 20-year management contract...

...Egypt, on its part, agreed to pay a totalof $41.5 million for the two properties...

...In the past we believed that this land is ours alone," he said...

...And a number of political observers believe one should not attach too much importance to Likud's success at the local level...

...One maintains that Shamir will show great flexibility on formulas and even timetables, but will not budge on substance: no recognition of the PLO, no land-for-peace arrangement...

...Without minimizing the importance of these gestures, Israeli experts have pointed out that Moscow has not abandoned the three fundamental elements of its Middle East policy: an international peace conference—rather than the direct Israeli-Arab negotiations Jerusalem wants and the U.S...

...and that an executive council, chosen by and responsible to the elected body, should run the daily affairs of the territories...

...Theother has Shamir making three dramatic concessions: that a freely elected Palestinian parliament (and not the Israeli military government) should be the "source of authority" for the administration of the West Bank and Gaza...

...no diplomatic relations with Israel before such a conference is agreed to...

...Nobody got very excited, for example, when a conference of doves in Jerusalem heard an address by Abu Iyad, PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat's second in command, delivered via videotape...

...It was a fair deal for Israel, and many observers believed that if not for Likud's ideological opposition to giving up any territory to the Arabs, the whole matter could have been settled two years ago...

...The hotel could not be supplied from far-away Egypt, nor could it operate without Israeli and foreign tourists practically all of whom come via Eilat...

...rather, recent indications of flexibility have been a consequence of recognizing that complete immobility was fast undermining Israel's support in the United States...

...The outcome did mean, however, that Labor's role in the process has been further diminished...

...and to let Israelis stay at the hotel for two-week periods without an Egyptian visa...

...Most observers here are therefore highly skeptical of the second scenario...

...to continue purchasing food, water, electricity, andservices for Taba from Eilat...

...Whatever the case, it is interesting that neither the Ha'aretz story nor the absence of a denial by the Prime Minister's office has raised any howls of outrage from Israel's ultranationalists—in Likud or on the extreme Right...

...Most people here feel the PLO still has not proved that its change of heart is indeed genuine...

...Last month also finally saw the settlement of the festering dispute between Israel and Egypt over the tiny Taba enclave on the Red Sea, about five miles south of Eilat...

...Others thought Israel's hard bargaining may have helped Cairo appreciate that it was getting a good deal as well...

...At the signing of the agreements, there were many heady speeches about Taba being only the first major example of Israeli-Egyptian economic cooperation...

...But Abu Iyad's message, and an unprecedented Arafat press conference held especially for Israeli journalists who were in Cairo to cover Foreign Minister Moshe Arens' meetings with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, seemed to indicate the PLO is beginning to understand two things: First, that it cannot make any progress by trying to obtain American and West European pressure on the Jewish State, instead of negotiating directly with the Israelis...

...But both realized that for Likud—and in this case read Israel—the PLO is the red line it is not yet ready to cross...

...Depending on the person in the Prime Minister's entourage that you speak to, you can hear two different predictions...

...Resolving the Taba dispute, enjoying the discreet yet public courtship of Moscow, trouncing Labor in the municipal elections— all these developments have considerably improved Shamir's self-confidence...

...This may only indicate that floating the idea suits the image Shamir wants to create as he prepares for his trip to Washington...

...Shamir and his associates have never changed their political convictions, they note...

...Repeating endlessly that a vote for Likud was a vote against the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), he presented the February 28 poll as a vote of confidence on his hawkish policy and urged the electorate to provide him with "a strong mandate on behalf of the people of Israel" for his April visit to Washington...

...But most Israelis, having learned from past Egyptian reluctance to warm up relations between the two countries, were rather skeptical...

...Thus, where for the past five years Labor mayors presided over municipalities with a total population twice as large as that led by Likud, now the ratio has been almost completely reversed...