BIBI'S ENDGAME
KRAUTHAMMER, CHARLES
BIBI'S ENDGAME Behind the Sound and Fury of the High-Stakes Peace Talks By Charles Krauthammer I. OPENING GAMBIT All through the night of January 15, 1997, the Israeli cabinet was in agonizing...
...membership, acceptance in all other international bodies, and undisputed legitimacy...
...The vital question is what the United States will do...
...They take Arafat at his word that the peace process is a struggle, a zero-sum game between adversaries, and not some magic of brotherhood and peace where Benelux breaks out in a land soaked with the blood of martyrs...
...Netanyahu was never a Greater Israel ideologue...
...Because American diplomats ignore and discount such clear expressions of Arafat's disdainfully contingent view of Oslo, they are puzzled by Netanyahu's strategy, a strategy designed to engage Arafat's zero-sum strategy on its own terms...
...The only path through this crisis is clear: Israel will have to knuckle under to Albright's 13 percent ultimatum, and Arafat will have to forgo any substantial third FRD and content himself for the time being with about 40 percent of the prize...
...Endgame The current impasse concerns what shape—literally—Israel and the Palestinian territory will have at the start of the endgame...
...But it has worked: Arafat now knows that he is not going to get 90 percent of the disputed territories in the middle game...
...Netanyahu understood that for Israel this is insanity...
...Sure, he'll get recognition from Zimbabwe and Malaysia, even France...
...When Arafat concludes that he will need to give in order to get, he'll deal...
...Mohammed broke it within two years, attacking and destroying the Koreish...
...And it has offered an FRD surrendering a further 9 percent of the West Bank to Arafat...
...What is Arafat's view of Oslo...
...the committee never met...
...A subsequent letter of assurance from Secretary of State Warren Christopher made clear that the "further redeployments" were an Israeli responsibility...
...The key question for U.S...
...Even Israeli doves, who welcome a Palestinian state, have always insisted that it be demilitarized and not permitted to station allied Arab armies on its soil...
...Indyk's midnight fax is less than a memory...
...Things were so much easier with Shimon Peres...
...Indeed, they could give Albright her cherished 13 percent by making the current FRD, say, 9 percent and making a final FRD of 4 percent...
...As far back as the 1980s he understood that in the end there would have to be "territorial compromise...
...Which is why Hillary Clinton's endorsement of a Palestinian state was so disastrous...
...But his direction is not hard to fathom...
...His cabinet understood full well what that meant...
...For its entire history, the Likud party had rejected the idea of giving up any part of the Land of Israel...
...So determined was Peres to let nothing stand in the way of his peace process that in 1996, for example, he welcomed a sham revision of the Palestinian National Charter as "the most important ideological change that has occurred in the Middle East in the past 100 years...
...And this was not just any land...
...It would be suicidal for Israel to permit an armed Palestine allied with, say, Syria and Iraq...
...Netanyahu and Likud, however, have another view of the peace process...
...Netanyahu's major achievement in his two years in office has been to lower Arafat's expectations...
...Statehood is America's to give...
...Netanyahu was proposing an ideological earthquake...
...They did not want to find themselves a few months down the road stampeded into giving away more land—Israel's bargaining chips—before even having reached the final-status talks...
...Whichever way the United States moves, Israel's response is foreordained...
...If he calculates in May 1999 that he can safely declare statehood, he will do it...
...Arafat's goal is clear...
...Like it or not, the Charles Krauthammer is a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD country had been committed to the Oslo peace agreement, and there was no way to turn back...
...Getting out of the middle game with some substantial part of the West Bank still in hand remains his considered strategy...
...Peres would blithely have given up the bulk of the West Bank to Arafat in interim FRDs and entered the final-status endgame quite naked of bargaining chips...
...ambassador Martin Indyk sent the cabinet secretary an urgent fax laying out the official U.S...
...Hebron was the Israeli hardliners' Rubicon, and Netanyahu made them cross it...
...He wants his state, and he wants it to encompass as much of the West Bank as possible...
...First, because she placed no restrictions on what it would look like and what it could do...
...If these assurances can be voided cavalierly, then every Israeli withdrawal becomes nothing more than an exercise in unilateral retreat...
...It clears the way for U.N...
...By the time Netanyahu came to power, the utter casualness of Peres's concessions had led Arafat to assume that he would come out of the Oslo middle game—the interim period, with its Israeli FRDs—with as much as 80-90 percent of the West Bank in his pocket...
...And not just, as conventional wisdom has it, for reasons of coalition politics...
...That night, however, the ministers were uneasy...
...This service to peace rendered by Netanyahu goes largely unrecognized and entirely unappreciated in the West...
...Under Oslo, the extent of the withdrawals ("further redeployments" or FRDs in diplospeak) was up to Israel...
...After five years of a poisonous middle game filled with terrorism and mistrust, it is even less likely that these conundrums will now be solved...
...It got so out of hand that one member of the peace camp wrote a celebrated and now notorious article in the leading liberal daily, Ha'aretz, entitled "The Year of Hating Bibi...
...It ended any serious representation of rejectionists in the Israeli ruling structure...
...Not bad, considering that five years ago the only real estate he controlled was in Tunisia...
...It is not for nothing that the original Oslo negotiators, who found such comity and common purpose, could themselves not even begin to decide such sensitive issues as Jerusalem, final borders, refugees, and water...
...This is not quite the beginning of the end...
...Everyone professes puzzlement at Netanyahu, always asking where he's going and whether he even knows where he is going...
...By the peculiar logic of the Middle East, the Arab claim to Jerusalem—Islam's third holiest city, it is said—is considered natural and just...
...III...
...If Arafat understands that he will get statehood and territory only in the context of successful final-status talks, his mind will be concentrated on the wisdom of (1) quickly concluding the current middle game and (2) making the concessions necessary to get a final-status deal with Israel...
...But a Palestinian state like all others—i.e., militarized and allied—is a prescription for war...
...He can be assured of immediate recognition from perhaps 150 countries, including all of Europe...
...Peres considered the very notion of bargaining chips and reciprocal obligations to be a remnant of "old thinking," obsolete and unnecessary in the new Middle East of peace and brotherhood that he and his partner Yasser Arafat had ushered in...
...It might therefore have given Arafat hope that if he does declare unilateral independence, Hillary's husband will follow suit with recognition...
...Ronald Reagan used to say that in the end what counts is not critics but box office...
...Having rejected Peres's easy downward path of giving it all away in the middle game, Israel has suffered diplomatically and Netanyahu politically...
...Arafat would bring in his perennial chit, peace (his threats of renewed violence are never far beneath the surface), and Israel would have already given up its chit, land...
...First, he brought the Right into Oslo...
...The Arab grant of legitimacy to Israel has largely been withdrawn...
...It meant that in "final-status" negotiations with the Palestinians, even larger pieces of territory would have to be given up...
...Yet on May 5 in London, Albright tells Netanyahu that 9 percent is unacceptable and demands 13 percent—no, 13.1 percent...
...Why, Arik Sharon, the hero of the Right and bugaboo of all correct-thinking peace lovers, is the one who came up with the current 9 percent withdrawal offer...
...Why are these principles so important...
...It may turn out that the endgame is unplayable...
...This dispute has been portrayed by the Clinton administration, and echoed in a compliant press, as an Israeli squabble over 4 percent (actually 2 percent: Netanyahu has indicated that he might go to 11 percent...
...Clinton launching a trial balloon on behalf of the administration...
...Of course, I do not compare myself to the prophet," says Arafat, "but I do say that we must learn from his steps and those of Saladin...
...On the other hand, his second service—injecting realism into Israel's negotiating position and, by lowering inflated Palestinian expectations, into Arafat's as well—has earned him nothing but opprobrium from the West...
...Critics blame this on Netanyahu's blundering...
...But under Oslo, Israel was committed to further unilateral withdrawals during the "interim period" leading up to final status...
...But it certainly is the end of the beginning...
...On May 4, 1999, the date on which these negotiations are supposed to have concluded, Arafat unilaterally declares a Palestinian state...
...Saladin made an armistice with the Crusaders, then declared a jihad and took Jerusalem...
...No one knows...
...They kicked all that into the safe and distant future...
...Who needs chips when you're talking to partners...
...Netanyahu is undeterred...
...She signaled to Arafat that he could have his state for free without having to make any concessions...
...BIBI'S ENDGAME Behind the Sound and Fury of the High-Stakes Peace Talks By Charles Krauthammer I. OPENING GAMBIT All through the night of January 15, 1997, the Israeli cabinet was in agonizing debate...
...What is at stake is, first, whether Israel gets to decide what is required for its own security, and, second and perhaps even more important, whether the Clinton administration's assurances to Israel can be believed...
...Under those circumstances, Israel would enter the life-and-death endgame—the final-status negotiations over permanent borders, Palestinian statehood, Jerusalem, water, refugees—entirely naked...
...Whether it will hold longer than Mohammed's Khudaibiya agreement, however, is another matter...
...Yes, they would prepare for even larger final-status concessions...
...The more likely scenario is the following: Israel and the Palestinian Authority negotiate fruitlessly for a year...
...A few hours later, in the small hours of the morning, the cabinet voted to withdraw from Hebron...
...Israel's claim to Hebron, Judaism's second holiest city, is deemed eccentric, indeed aggressive...
...The result would be an intense crisis and possibly war...
...There is a logic here...
...It is nothing of the sort...
...Netanyahu cited the Christopher assurance and told Albright no...
...This phrase has a very specific meaning in the Arab lexicon...
...Fast-forward sixteen months...
...This has understandably made Arafat cross and displeased the State Department...
...But the immediate problem for the cabinet that night was what lay between Hebron and the finalstatus talks...
...In fact, it demonstrates how flimsy and insubstantial these so easily reversible gestures were in the first place...
...Despite the current calculated gloom, with realism on all sides a deal is still very possible...
...No more FRDs...
...position: "Further redeployment phases are issues for implementation by Israel rather than issues for negotiation with the Palestinians...
...Middle Game The State Department is not very pleased with Netanyahu...
...Territory is Israel's...
...And he may not want to risk American ostracism with a step that Washington has made clear it will reject...
...But unilateral, as opposed to negotiated, statehood carries huge dangers...
...Arafat has threatened to do this...
...It will annex the 60 percent or so of the West Bank still under its military control...
...Hebron had to be relinquished...
...And it is popular...
...Netanyahu's case was clear...
...This is almost entirely empty land...
...Who would determine those withdrawals...
...And the Clinton administration had assured Israel in the Hebron negotiations that this remained the case...
...That and that alone will make Arafat pause before bringing on the whirlwind...
...What is wrong with Palestinian statehood...
...Netanyahu, despite his critics, leads in the polls...
...They wanted an unequivocal written reaffirmation from the United States that it would honor the Oslo agreement to leave the size of these FRDs to Israel...
...He has recently backed off under pressure from Albright, but this backing off, like his promises, is to be treated with skepticism...
...they got it...
...American recognition is the key to real statehood...
...This would establish for Israel a security belt between it and Palestine, a state with which Israel's relationship would be one of confrontation—and without Oslo or any other principles to guide that relationship...
...The Palestine National Council left the revision to a committee...
...It refers to the Khudaibiya peace pact which the prophet Mohammed made with the Koreish tribe...
...After Jerusalem, Hebron is the holiest city in Judaism...
...He reflects the realism of a very realistic Israeli public...
...The current bitter negotiations are over how close he will come to 40 percent...
...Indyk has climbed the greasy pole and is now assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs...
...Ari Shavit argued that the hostility of Israel's Left-dominated elites to Netanyahu had reached such pathological proportions that the phenomenon could be explained only as an irrational projection onto him of all the disappointments and frustrations felt by the Left as its illusions about Oslo had crumbled...
...Furthermore, from the days of Henry Kissinger and the Sinai withdrawals, the United States has encouraged Israel to take territorial risks by offering concrete compensation—jet fighters, early-warning stations, diplomatic commitments—to try to make up for the security assets being relinquished...
...Second, because she demanded no quid pro quo...
...She said explicitly that the Palestinian state should be "on the same footing as any other state...
...Understand: Netanyahu is prepared to swallow Albright's 13 percent...
...Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, barely six months in office, was asking his cabinet to approve giving up Hebron...
...Madeleine Albright is secretary of state...
...There is practically no politician of any real authority or following in the country who is talking about anything other than how much to return for what...
...The best way to forestall a unilaterally declared Palestinian state is for the United States to make absolutely clear that it will recognize no Palestinian state that is not the product of a negotiated settlement...
...The question is how much territory and for what kind of compromise...
...Israel is surrendering to its historic enemy—an enemy still committed to Israel's destruction—what are essentially the suburbs of its major cities...
...Yes, they would clench their teeth and give up Hebron...
...Israel has withdrawn from Hebron...
...But in the end, it is Washington that counts...
...Of course they do...
...On to final-status negotiations...
...The Palestinians would undoubtedly challenge this annexation and claim the 60 percent for themselves...
...Wouldn't this finally get one of the stumbling blocks to peace out of the way...
...It was Hebron today and much, much more tomorrow...
...Remember: 98 percent of Palestinians are under Arafat's rule today...
...Two of the immutable attributes of a state are its ability to arm itself as it pleases and its ability to conclude alliances as it pleases...
...He already has 27 percent...
...negotiators now is how to avoid this dread scenario...
...Technically, he is right...
...Netanyahu himself has been subject to personal attacks of a savagery rare even by Israeli standards...
...And then what...
...This achievement has come at high cost...
...She warns of unspecified consequences if Israel does not accede to this ultimatum...
...But her statement certainly was read that way in the Middle East...
...The endgame—final-status talks—can then begin...
...The problem is that Arafat is balking and the administration has maneuvered itself into the position of negotiating on Arafat's behalf...
...But only if that clearly puts an end to the middle game...
...How to keep the endgame from degenerating into mutual unilateralism next May...
...These are the two conditions that Israel cannot tolerate in a Palestinian state nestled up against its major cities...
...His goal is to confront Oslo as it is—not as it is imagined—and to bring realism to the fantasists of both the hard Right and the dreamy Left...
...To deny Israel at this stage the right to decide which hill or pass or wadi it can safely surrender is to summon it to an assisted suicide...
...The rub is that, whatever the extent of the current Israeli FRD—9 percent of the West Bank, or 13 percent, or something in between— Arafat insists that Israel owes him yet another FRD after that...
...Was Mrs...
...The peace agreement which we signed is an 'inferior peace,'" says Arafat, most recently on April 18 on Egyptian TV...
...But technically, too, the Israelis can make this third FRD as small as they want...
...The lovey-dovey multilateral conferences—the tip of the hat and the handshake from the likes of Qatar and Morocco that Peres so cherished—are in suspension...
...Accordingly, London did not go well...
...Don't even Israelis already know that there will be a Palestinian state...
...Because the land Israel is now giving up is as close to its major cities as Bethesda is to Washington, as close as Kennedy airport is to Manhattan...
...At 11:00 P.M...
Vol. 3 • June 1998 • No. 38
