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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 July 1999 Issue No. 438 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 15 - 21 July 1999 Issue No. 438
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters Barak's road of distrust
By Graham UsherWhatever else he may turn out to be, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak is no slouch when it comes to making the right diplomatic gestures. Two days after vigorously shaking the hand of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Barak was at the Erez Checkpoint in Gaza squeezing the palm of Yasser Arafat, the first meeting between the two men since the Israeli elections. By contrast, Barak's predecessor, Binyamin Netanyahu, dallied for two and a half months before deigning to touch the fingers of his Palestinian counterpart. But then Netanyahu did once describe Arafat (in March 1993) as "worse than Hitler".
On Sunday, Barak described Arafat as a "partner" with whom he seeks to work to "change the landscape of this region". Arafat called Barak "a dear friend", while PLO negotiator, Nabil Shaath, pronounced the chemistry between the two leaders as "excellent". Indeed the only blot on the landscape was when either man moved from hyperbole to matters of substance.
Arafat said he "expected the Israeli government" would "implement all its commitments under the Wye River Memorandum" signed in Washington on 23 October. Barak said Israel was "committed" to implement Wye, but sought a "way" in which the agreement could be "combined with advancing the final status negotiations". Arafat denounced Israel's settlement policies as "illegal and destructive to the peace process" and called on Barak to "stop them immediately". Barak answered with the same mantra he had used in Alexandria -- that, prior to a final agreement, Israel would neither build new settlements nor dismantle existing ones. But there was no mention of a freeze which, presumably, means that the 13,000 or so settlements units currently under construction in the Occupied Territories can proceed apace in line with the settlers "ongoing developmental needs".
Barak's antipathy to both a settlement freeze and the notion of a progressive Israeli redeployment in the West Bank is well known and long-standing (he was the only minister in Yitzak Rabin's cabinet who abstained on the vote for Oslo's 1995 interim agreement which authorised the three further Israeli redeployments in the West Bank). And, according to the Israeli press, it is precisely those parts of the Wye agreement which obligate Israel to transfer a further 11 per cent of West Bank to the Palestinian Authority that Barak now wants to "combine" with the final status talks on borders, settlements, Jerusalem and water resources. The official PA line is that Wye's implementation must be separate from and prior to the final status negotiations. "The only thing that will be simultaneous [with the final status talks] is the third redeployment," said Shaath after the Arafat-Barak meeting. "The rest of Wye [i.e. the second redeployment] must be implemented immediately."
Barak handing Arafat copies of the Qur'an and the Torah at the start of their first summit on Sunday (photo: AP)
The PA leadership has grounds for apprehension. During the entire tenure of his premiership, it was also Netanyahu's demand that the Palestinians "skip" the further redeployments and move instead to "accelerated" final status negotiations. The PA refused to do so because it suspected (accurately) that Netanyahu's aim was less to negotiate a final settlement than impose one from the position of having 97 per cent of the West Bank under Israel's full or partial control. In making essentially the same request, the Palestinians fear that Barak has the same goal in view -- a disconnected Palestinian "entity" in about 50 per cent of the West Bank.
There was also another anxiety lurking behind the broad PA smiles that greeted Barak in Gaza. Both sides are aware that among the toughest nuts to be cracked in the final status talks are those to do with territory, especially given the chasm that presently divides the maximum that Israel appears ready to give and the minimum any Palestinian leadership could possibly accept. By shunting off all territorial matters to the final status talks (which, according to Israeli press accounts, are unlikely to begin in earnest until autumn and perhaps later), Barak may thus be trying to clear his deck for what many Israeli and Palestinian commentators believe is his true foreign policy priority -- an Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon in the context of a peace agreement with Syria about the occupied Golan Heights. "Any deferral on the full implementation of Wye would suggest that Barak is stalling on the Palestinian track in favour of the Syrian," says Palestinian political analyst, Ali Jarbawi.
Nor is the Palestinian concern simply that any swift movement on the Syrian "track" would come at the expense of the Palestinian. The greater fear, says Jarbawi, is that a peace deal with Syria and Lebanon concluded before a resolution of the final status issues with the Palestinians would leave Arafat and the PA isolated at the very moment when truly historic decisions are to be made on the future of their people. At that point, Israel may well feel it can concede recognition of a Palestinian state. But it would be under minimal international pressure to concede much more.
This is why PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat is probably sincere when he "urges Mr Barak not even to suggest" combining parts of the Wye agreement with the final status talks. Should the new Israeli leader ignore such pleas, the "new road of trust" Barak promised in Gaza may turn into its precise reverse
