Israel's Peace Problem

...GETTING OFF HOLD Israel's Peace Problem BY ELIAHU SALPETER YASIR ARAFAT TEL AVIV SINCE THE early weeks of the new year the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has pretty much ground to a halt, while talks with Syria appear to be on ice The direct cause of these setbacks, increased Arab fundamentalist terrorism has accentuated two basic questions Is Yasir Arafat and his Palestine Authority able and willing to crack down on the terrorists who oppose any compromise with Israel11 And, perhaps more important, did the formulators of the Oslo Agreement undei estimate the number of booby traps inherent in its implementation'' It is a ti uism that stopping the peace process plays into the hands of the terrorists, who have openly vowed to blow it up But when suicide bombers killed 21 people and wounded 40 at a busy bus-stop cafe, logic was not enough even for many cool-headed peace supporters Some joined militant Right-wingers in demanding the suspension of all discussions To Israelis peace means, above all, an end to violence Foreign friends and Is-raeli politicians may argue that only as the benefits of peace become evident to the Arabs will the fundamentalist movements loose ground The average Israeli asks, with growing impatience, what kind of peace is it that brings weekly funerals and scores of black-framed young faces on the front pages' On the Palestinian side, too, there is a sense of failed expectations They assumed that peace would mean, almost instantaneously, four things economic improvement, the pomp and ceremony of statehood, the departure of Israeli soldiers from their midst, and the beginnings of democracy and political freedom Not surprisingly, impioved income and better housing rank first with the have-nots packed into the Gaza Strip, which is already under Palestinian self-rule Political liberties and civil rights are higher priorities on the West Bank, where the overall economic and educational standards are higher, and where (except for the Jericho area) direct Israeli military rule still obtains The Arab fundamentalists are the biggest stumbling block to moving toward peace Their fear is that resolution of the conflict with Israel will eliminate their chance to take control of Palestinian society They are betting that in the shadow of mass murders of Jews, no Israeli government could make the concessions that would improve Arafat's rating among the Palestinians The Jewish settlers on the West Bank and in Gaza are also a serious impediment to achieving peace Everyone here knows that is a role the previous Likud governments intended them to play But its ramifications obviously were underestimated by Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres The Oslo Agreement calls for free elections to be held early in the five-year transition period leading to a final settlement Eliahu Salpeter, a regular NL con-tnbutoi, is a correspondent for Ha'aretz Before the balloting, the Israeli Army is supposed to withdraw from heavily populated Aiab areas Yet as terrorist attacks have multiplied, providing the security promised to tens of thousands of Jewish settleis on the West Bank and in Gaza during the transition has become increasingly difficult And it would be virtually impossible once Israeli troops withdrew from the main Arab towns The settlers in their drive to derail the establishment of Palestinian autonomy, have been taking full advantage of Israeli frustrations and mourning The fact that most of the violence has occurred m Israel proper, or m Arab areas that remain under Israeli control seems to give credence to their argument If this is happemng while Israeli troops are on the West Bank, what will happen after they pull out' Hamas and the Islamic Jihad understand the situation very well Of late, therefore, they have concentrated their bloodiest acts in or near Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and other major Israeli cities This has the greatest shock effect on the Jewish population and serves to exhaust its patience with Rabin's peace policy Concerned that protracted negotiations help the de facto congruence of Arab terrorist and Jewish Right-wing interests in thwarting the peace process some Israeli politicians and experts now advocate "jumping over Oslo " The two sides, they suggest, should immediately start negotiating permanent arrangements the nature of Palestinian sovereignty, final borders and constitutional relations with Israel on the West, and with the Kingdom of Jordan on the East But Rabin and Peres doubt that there is any hope of reaching a mutually acceptable compromise on the fate of the Jewish settlements or the future of a united Jerusalem in the current tense atmosphere Neither do they believe Yasir Arafat is the helpless bystander he pretends to be True, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad are becoming more popular among the Palestinians as the expected fruits of the peace process fail to materialize But even Israeli doves now suspect that Arafat is hardly disturbed by the fundamentalists' latest course, and consequently does not want to order the Palestine Secret Services (considered fairly efficient by their Israeli counterparts) to rein in the extremists and the teironsts Indeed, theie is agreement among all parties in the government coalition that Israel should tell him he must decide whethei he wants the peace process to go forward From Israel's perspective, in general terms peace has to include at least five basic components It should improve day-to-day security foi the individual, open up normal trade, tourism and cultural relations with the Arab countries, sharply reduce long-term military tin eats, lower the flame of fundamentalist hostility, and eliminate the feeling that Aiab and Muslim rejection of Israel is a continuation of 2,000 yeais of Jewish peise-cution Military experts and most politicians say that terrorism does not represent a threat to Israel's existence Nevertheless, most Israelis appear to want the government to put an end to all terror, even at the risk of a potential military confrontation with the Arabs This is the crux of the political crisis that casts doubt on the survival of the Rabin government until the mid-1996 elections In the case of all except one of Israel's neighbors, peace poses different specific problems To begin with the Palestinians, beyond such questions as bordeis, territorial contiguity and their rights in Jerusalem, the critical issue is separation or integration Any viable solution, Rabin keeps repeating, lequires 'separation between the two peoples' Interpreted as territorial separation, this is vehemently opposed by the Jewish settlers and by the parties on the Right In addition, many in business and on the political Left, as well as professional economists across the spectrum, oppose the notion Open borders would provide much needed labor for Israeli agriculture, industry and services Although it would admittedly be difficult to screen out terrorists, mass unemployment on the West Bank and in Gaza has been a breeding ground for violent fundamentalism Separation from Israel would result in a much slower growth rate for the Palestinian economy, and the PLO would lose out to Hamas and other terrorists in the ensuing unrest Egypt presents a more complicated picture Initially, it suffered political and economic ostracism in the Arab world because of its sepai ate peace with Israel But it soon gained both massive U S aid and new political weight as the only Arab country having direct access to Jerusalem After Israel shook hands with the PLO and established official or semiofficial diplomatic relations with Jordan, Tunisia, Moi occo, and several of the Gulf States, Egypt lost some of its privileged position It began to worry that m a Middle East at peace with Israel, Cairo would have to compete with Jerusalem for regional primacy The government here now realizes that it needs to reassure Egypt on this scoie There are many signs that the peace with Jordan will be much warmer than the ground-breaking and politically more important peace with Egypt Officials are already negotiating trade and tariff agreements, joint irrigation and tourist development projects, and the linking of the two nations' electric grids, particularly in the Jordan Valley and the Elat-Aqaba region In fact...

...King Hussein has been explaining to the Jordanians that the actual economic benefits of peace cannot pos-sibly come as quickly as they might like In Lebanon, Israel continues to be obliged to maintain a security zo.ie, to protect its northern border from Iran-financed and Syrian-supported Hezbollah attacks There are about40,000 Syrian soldiers in Lebanon, now essentially a Syrian protectorate Damascus will decide if and when Beirut can normalize relations with Jerusalem There appeals to be a thick veil of secrecy over the intermittent Israeli-Syrian negotiations The few glimpses permitted behind the curtain, though, indicate that not much pi actical progress toward peace has yet been made President Hafez al-Assad seems to have little interest in conclusive talks because he feels he is isolated and has a weak hand at the table Some observers think he is worried that peace could lead to calls for political liberalization that would endanger his Alawi clan's grip on power But for the moment Assad can relax The whole Middle East peace process is on hold...