Israel Takes Stock

...Consequently, it became virtually an article of Israeli faith that in any shootout between Arab and Jewish civilians, the Arabs would be the attackers, the Jews—who were given the right to carry arms for self-protection—the attacked...

...IN THE WAKE OF HEBRON Israel Takes Stock BY ELIAHU SALPETER TEL AVIV THE ESCALATION of Arab-Israeli violence that began with the massacre of 29 Muslims at the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron last February 25 has cast a shadow over more than the continuation of the Middle East peace talks...

...Thus did Dr...

...Assad apparently does not understand that since Israel is a democratic country, Rabin's room for maneuver on the Golan Heights issue depends on the public's trust here in Syria's peaceful intentions...

...Any consideration of the Hebron tragedy's impact must take into account the fundamental policy change in Jerusalem toward the Arabs following the Labor Party's return to power in 1992...

...Why did the few who were brought to trial receive farcically light sentences in local military courts...

...On one level, it has raised questions about PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat's leadership of the Palestinians, the future of Jewish West Bank settlements, and the imminent dangers of Jewish religious extremism...

...Muslim fundamentalism is gaining influence in many Arab countries...

...the assassin, Dr...

...and the closed-circuit surveillance camera was out of order...

...Where were the politicians of the Left and the peace activists, who could have seen what was going on if they had taken a 90-minute ride from their offices in Tel Aviv...

...They doubt that he wants to get down to the nitty-gritty of local government...

...Some who know the PLO Chairman maintain that his behavior might also be guided by a personal consideration...

...However, even Israelis who recognize the PLO chief's difficulties, and view the militant settlers in downtown Hebron as a burning fuse, reject the idea that the massacre gives the PLO the right to call for reopening the Washington and Cairo agreements...

...But even the most dovish Knesset members and commentators were inclined to dismiss them as exceptions the Army was surely responding to properly...

...A few weeks later, when a group of Arab notables from the Galilee expressed a desire to pay Assad a condolence visit after his son's sudden death, he set two conditions: First, they could not come straight from Israel (a two-hour drive), but would have to travel through Cairo...

...Palestinians are not willing to tolerate the Jewish settlers in their midst, nor are the settlers willing to live as a minority under an Arab government...

...Baruch Goldstein, was allowed to enter with arms and ammunition...

...Eliahu Salpeter, a regular NL contributor, is a correspondent for Ha'aretz...

...What most Israelis feared was an increase in Arab terrorism directed against Jews and moderate Palestinians, as well as Jewish extremist actions against the Labor government that would not exclude manipulations designed to arouse the anger of the Palestinians...

...Once the autonomy begins to be implemented, he will have to spend most of his time in Gaza or Jericho, where he will be more of a governor or mayor than a full-fledged president...

...Still, Assad continues to insist that Israel must first unconditionally announce its withdrawal, and only afterward will Syria spell out the details of peace it would be willing to give in return...

...Most Israeli Jews are more tolerant than the Palestinians, and Israeli Arabs accept the fact that they are a minority...

...In the eyes of the West, he is the good guy talking peace...

...The Hebron events have created an additional asymmetry...

...If not the Hebron tragedy, they caution, he may be tempted to seize upon a future crisis to try to bypass the inglorious five years of autonomy...

...For Arafat, the present situation is not entirely without advantages...

...Yet, as with Arafat, people in Jerusalem are beginning to ask whether President Hafez al-Assad wants to make a deal under terms Israel could accept...

...second, the members of the delegation could not arrive on Israeli passports, but would have to arrange for temporary Egyptian travel documents...

...In other words, he has clearly indicated that for full normalization of relations Israel would, over a number of years, completely give up the Golan Heights...

...Nevertheless, in their worst nightmares the authorities could not have imagined that one of those fanatics would commit mass murder to blow up the peace process...

...Assad cannot bring himself to make the slightest conciliatory gesture...

...and the presence of an international peacekeeping force similar to the one in Sinai...

...That Clinton agreed to this blatant display of discrimination did not add much to the credibility of what was hailed as his success in bringing Syria closer to peace...

...Watching the televised commission sessions and reading reports of the proceedings in the newspapers, Israel's mostly secular public has been repelled—if not totally surprised—by the ultra-Orthodox nationalists' violations of Judaism's basic moral precepts...

...On the critical morning, three soldiers arrived at their posts late...

...And on yet another level, it has at least temporarily weakened Israel's position vis-a-vis Syria...

...Why did Israel's Attorney General fail to act upon the occasional news stories charging that a Jewish militant had literally gotten away with murder by claiming he "felt in mortal danger...

...demilitarization of the areas vacated...

...In the case of Syria, the assumption is that Jerusalem has proposed the elements of an ultimate peace agreement to Damascus...

...Both Assad and Arafat must decide, therefore, whether they prefer to be confronted by a Likud government...

...True, from time to time there had been stories in the press about illegal acts committed by settlers on a rampage in an Arab town...

...Hundreds of past incidents had established a seemingly clear pattern: Jews in the territories were the repeated victims of Arab terrorism, while Arab casualties occurred when violent demonstrators clashed with Israeli troops...

...This enabled them to keep their weapons at home even when not on active duty...

...Why did Army commanders and reservists serving on the West Bank slip into a tacit acceptance of the settlers' behavior...

...its withdrawing from part of the territory, and undertaking to leave the rest gradually while testing the solidity of Syria's peace commitment...

...Although a large part of the Israeli public opposes the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state, the negotiations with the PLO have the support of a majority in the Knesset and in a democratic country that is decisive...

...They worry that he and the PLO leadership may repeat the old Palestinian mistake of holding out for much more than they can reasonably expect to obtain...

...People in Jerusalem are wondering whether Arafat has the qualities needed for the arduous process...

...And that can best be achieved, as Egypt's late President Anwar Sadat realized instinctively, by addressing the Israelis directly and convincing them of his intentions...

...Years of misuse of religion for political purposes, and of politics for religious ends, had already created a schism between Orthodox and secular Israelis that has been widened...

...Adding to the danger-ousnesss of such a situation, Likud had acceded to settler pressures and issued orders that they could do their reserve service in local defense units...

...Earlier, when it appeared that Assad had actually taken a "strategic decision" to pursue peace with Israel, it was reasoned that his stalling was merely a tactic to improve the terms of a future agreement Even though Syria has been Israel's most belligerent neighbor for the past 27 years, anti-Israel domestic public opinion could hardly have been a major factor in the Syrian dictator's calculations...

...In retrospect, it should have been evident that a time bomb was ticking in Hebron: Not only is the local Arab population fiercely religious, with a long history of anti-Jewish pogroms, but the Jewish settlers include a hard core of the most fanatic believers in restoring Israel's Biblical borders, whatever the price...

...The previous Likud government never made a secret of its opposition to an arrangement that could at some time in the future lead to the creation of an independent Palestinian state...

...By contrast, the Labor government's formal recognition of the PLO represented an implicit deal: The Palestinians would stop all attacks on Israel, and Israel would immediately start negotiating an interim Palestinian autonomy in the disputed territories, leaving open for further negotiation their final status five years from the conclusion of the initial agreement...

...Rabin has suggested lately that he is increasingly concerned that the "window of opportunity" for peace in the Middle East is closing again...

...It was only after the massacre that the real picture in the territories—the daily molestations of Arab shopkeepers, the daily insults to Arab pedestrians and, yes, the killing or wounding of scores of Arabs?fully emerged...

...Now, they note, he is received by heads of state in Washington, London and Moscow with all the panoply of flags and red carpets...

...A more significant contributing factor to the tragedy than the inexcusable negligence, though, was the basic concept that had taken hold concerning potential terrorist threats...

...What seems to be preventing Assad from making compromises, rather, is his own inherent inflexibility...

...On the Palestinian side, where no corresponding mechanism exists, there are strong indications that opinion has now shifted against an interim autonomy which would postpone sovereignty, and Arafat's ability—or desire—to cope with the new climate is open to doubt...

...The impact of Desert Storm is fading...

...His visceral enmity was exhibited once more when he refused to permit Israeli journalists to attend a joint press conference with President Bill Clinton after the two met in Geneva...

...Rabin has stated publicly on several occasions that "the extent of [Israel's] withdrawal depends on the extent of the peace" offered by Syria...

...These and other questions remain to be answered, but turning the spotlight on the dark side of the Israeli settlements appears to have confirmed what doves have been saying from the day the first one was opened: No matter what historic or moral right Jews have to live anywhere in the land of their forefathers just as a million Arabs can and do live in Israel, such coexistence on the West Bank and in Gaza is, in practice, impossible...

...To the Palestinians, he can present himself as the tough guy challenging the Israelis with stiff demands...

...Rabin knows that any revisions of the accepted conditions would provide a convincing argument against the whole attempt to achieve an Arab-Israeli reconciliation after hundreds of years of animosity...

...The automatic assumption was that the settlers were shooting in self-defense...

...Goldstein, a resident of the Kiryat Arba development on the outskirts of Hebron, use his Army-issue semiautomatic to kill the Muslim worshipers...

...Indeed, this was how a senior Army officer appearing before the inquiry commission explained the shocking revelation that in clashes between Jews and Arabs on the West Bank or in the Gaza Strip, Israeli soldiers were forbidden to fire at Jewish settlers...

...When that in effect became the text of the Declaration of Principles signed in Washington last September by the PLO and Israel, Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin warned that zealots on both sides would try to destroy the chances of peace...

...These are thought to include Israel's recognizing full Syrian sovereignty over the Golan Heights...

...and Russia is back to trying to pursue its separate interests in the region, stirring new hopes among Arab hard-liners...

...There is a fundamental principle at stake here: Israel insists that the PLO, too, must demonstrate it is determined to keep its word if there is to be a basis for negotiating the final Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement...

...Painful questions are also being asked about what has happened to Israel since the Six Day War in 1967...

...It is unlikely that Rabin's Labor government could survive the death of the peace process...

...From the very first session of the special judiciary commission appointed to investigate the Hebron events, it was evident that security at the Cave of Machpelah, a holy site for both Jews and Muslims, was notoriously lax...

...Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres have repeatedly stressed that both sides must be able and ready to overcome the inevitable obstacles they will encounter on the road to that objec-tive...

...In signing those documents the PLO agreed that the Jewish settlements could stay in place during the five-year interim period...

...On another, it has compelled many middle-of-the-road Israelis to ask themselves what 27 years of ruling over a million Arabs has done to their nation's moral sensitivities...

...All American and Egyptian efforts to break this deadlock by arranging a direct meeting between Assad and Rabin have been rejected by Damascus...

...There were signs that an offer of this kind could be the basis for a settlement...