Good soldier Barak wanted Clinton to condemn Arafat
By Steve Rodan, Middle East Newsline
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Thursday, October 12, 2000
JERUSALEM — More than a year ago, Ehud Barak abandoned the
50-year-old alliance between Jews and Serbs and declared his support for the
NATO offensive against Yugoslavia.
Over and over, Barak, then a candidate for prime minister, called on
Israel to support the United States campaign against the regime of Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade. Barak praised the United States
for its effort to protect minorities and battle despotism.
Now, Barak as prime minister, wants to call in his chips. Barak has
appealed to U.S. President Bill Clinton to declare Palestinian Authority
Chairman Yasser Arafat a pariah who is leading the Middle East to war. The
prime minister has urged that peace efforts be suspended until after
Arafat's passing and a new more moderate Palestinian leadership emerges.
Barak aides acknowledge, however, that the effort has failed. "When
Barak supported the United States in the war against Yugoslavia, he was
trying to set a precedent that force is needed and recognized to stop
aggression," an aide said. "This is exactly what Barak now faces with
Arafat."
But aides said Clinton does not regard Arafat as Milosevic. Milosevic
was isolated on the eve of the NATO offensive in April 1999. Arafat is
supported by the entire Arab, Islamic world and virtually all of Europe.
The images of the two men are also different. In 1999, the world saw
television footage of Muslims fleeing Kosovo amid attacks by Milosevic's
troops. Today, the world sees Israeli troops shooting Palestinian
stonethrowers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The result is more than mere Israeli disappointment with the Clinton
administration. It has led to a virtual paralysis in decision-making by the
Barak government. Barak has already backed down from threats to end the
peace process and attack the PA. He has dropped his opposition to an
international committee of inquiry that will be composed of the United
Nations, Norway and other states.
Barak aides said the prime minister believes his bluff to launch a
military campaign worked. "There was no ultimatum," Barak's chief aide,
Danny Yatom, said. "Since he [Barak] said this, the violence has subsided.
Not a few world leaders have arrived."
The military is also waiting for orders from Barak. So far, defense
sources said, the orders are unclear and often contradictory. On early
Tuesday, the Israeli Cabinet announced restrictions on Palestinians from
entering Israel. Hours later, military sources said at least 10,000
Palestinian laborers would be allowed to enter on a daily basis. By early
Wednesday, that decision was reversed as well.
"The army is ready," a military source said. "It was ready for this
violence for several months and prepared specific plans on what to attack
and how. The rest is not up to us."
The sources add that Barak's failure to honor his ultimatum is simply
encouraging Palestinian violence and eroding Israel's deterrence. They said
this is also upping Hizbullah's price for any release of three Israeli
soldiers captured on Saturday.
For their part, U.S. officials acknowledge that the latest violence
threatens many of the assumptions of the 1993 Oslo process. The key
assumption was that the Palestinian leadership would gradually end violence
and foster a pro-Western and moderate society ready to reconcile with the
Jewish state.
This has not taken place, the officials said. Still, they said, the
Clinton administration cannot come to Israel's side without eroding any
credibility Washington has left with the Palestinians and its Arab allies.
Egypt and Syria have rejected Clinton's proposal for a summit with the
participation of Arafat, Barak and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that
would take place before the Arab summit on Oct. 21.
The officials said the most important step now is to end the violence
and establish a mechanism to renew the peace process, even if this awaits a
new administration next year. They said Clinton has contacted world leaders
on the Middle East situation but remains uncertain of whether he will launch
a diplomatic offensive that will include a visit to Gaza and Jerusalem.
"We've been working like crazy for the last several days to help do our
part," Clinton said on Tuesday. "I just have to believe they're not going to
let this thing spin out of control. There are lots of things going on there,
including things that are not apparent -- developments in other countries
that are having an impact on this."
Robert Satloff, director of the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy, said Clinton will spend the last months of his administration trying
to save the Arab-Israeli peace process. In a study for the institute,
Satloff said Clinton's choices are either to proceed with efforts to achieve
a comprehensive peace treaty; reach another interim accord; recognize a
truncated Palestinian state currently in areas under full PA control in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip; or withdraw involvement. Satloff said all but the
third choice appears unrealistic.
"To the Clinton administration, engrossed in the peace process since
1993, this [Israeli-Palestinian mini-war] came as a painful setback,"
Satloff said. "Chances are high, however, that the president will wade into
Arab-Israeli diplomacy at least once again before leaving office -- either
for one last push toward agreement or to ward off the accusation that he
focused on peace when opportunity beckoned but left a mess to his
successor."
The diplomatic offensive being considered by Clinton would include the
formal presentation of a U.S. document to bridge the gap between Israel and
the Palestinians. U.S. officials said the document addresses such issues as
the future of Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees.
Palestinian sources said the Clinton plan calls on the UN Security
Council to maintain control over Jerusalem's Temple Mount until Israel and
the Palestinians reach agreement. The United States envisions the mount
under Palestinian sovereignty and the Western Wall below under Israeli
sovereignty. The UN would also help maintain order in the Old City of
Jerusalem and allocate authority to Israel and the Palestinians in the rest
of the city.
The sources said Clinton has also prepared an alternative proposal. This
would consist of an interim accord on Jerusalem. Under such an agreement,
the Palestinians would not be pressed to declare an end of their conflict
with Israel, a key demand by Barak.
The United States would recognize a Palestinian state that would contain
the entire Gaza Strip and 95 percent of the West Bank, according to the
Clinton proposal. Under the plan, Israel would cede territory in the Negev
desert so that the Palestinians could obtain an area equivalent to that of
the entire West Bank.
So far, the Palestinian sources said, Arafat has rejected Clinton's
plan. They said Arafat has concluded that the White House is simply
pandering to the Jewish vote.
"The positions of the U.S. secretary of state are worse than those of
Barak and his government," PA Cabinet secretary Ahmed Abdul Rahman said.
"They are engaging in a campaign to blacken the good name of the Palestinian
people. Albright is not secretary of state of the United States, but of the
Zionist lobby."
Israeli officials said under these circumstances Barak has few choices.
Instead, they envision at least several more weeks, if not months, of
violence and tension. The officials said Arafat wants to capitalize on the
international support to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state and then
return for negotiations with Israel on expanding the borders of the new
entity.
"We want as a first step for the establishment of an international
committee that will investigate the violence against us," PA minister and
senior negotiator Saeb Erekat said. "The heart of the investigation should
be why the Israelis are deployed around our villages and towns."
A senior Israeli intelligence officer said Arafat will continue to
encourage violence against Jewish settlers and Israeli soldiers. The officer
said Arafat feels Clinton no longer has the political strength to complete
any peace agreement and that instead the president is only concerned with
winning the Jewish vote required by his vice president, Al Gore, and his
wife, Hilary.
As a result, the officer said, Arafat tells Western leaders that he has
ordered a ceasefire while his aides continue to deny this. The latest denial
came on Wednesday by Abdul Rahman, the PA Cabinet secretary.
Still, Arafat will not support Islamic suicide bombings that rocked
Israel in 1995 and 1996. This, the intelligence officer said, will harm
Arafat's image of a leader of a victimized people and threaten to erode his
authority with Palestinians.
Israeli intelligence sources are convinced that Arafat is losing control
over his armed cadres in the ruling Fatah movement. Many of the estimated
20,000 Fatah gunmen see Arafat as an aging and ill leader enswirled by a
power struggle for his succession led by more militant Palestinians
and encouraged by Hizbullah's success in achieving an Israeli withdrawal
from
Lebanon in May. A key rival for power, they said, is Fatah chief Marwan
Barghouti.
"It's clear that he [Arafat] has lost control," Knesset member Uzi
Baram, a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said.
Arafat is so worried that the Palestinian violence will be directed
against him that he has ordered his security forces to be on alert for any
intention by the Islamic opposition to attack PA institutions, the
intelligence sources said. At the same time, however, Arafat does not want
to be seen by the Arab
world and Palestinians as ending the current mini-war without achieving a
clear diplomatic victory.
The intelligence sources said Arafat will maintain attacks against
Israel until at least the scheduled Arab League summit on Oct. 21 in Cairo.
The approach of the summit has been accompanied by violent anti-Israeli
demonstrations throughout Arab capitals in the Middle East.
The sources said Arafat has ordered Fatah gunmen not to fire during the
day, when they could be photographed by Western cameramen. The result is
that the gunmen have resort to nightly attacks on Israeli troops and
civilians.
Already, Arafat's refusal to stop violence against Israel has led to an
improvement in relations with longtime foe Syria. On Tuesday, Arafat
telephoned Syrian President Bashar Assad in the first direct contact between
the two since the death of Assad's father in June. Moreover, Kuwait has
decided to shelve its longtime enmity to Arafat to allow a brief stopover by
PLO Central Committee chairman Salim Zaanoun later this month.
"He [Arafat] wants to take advantage of the uprising in order to return
to the negotiating table with the West's support," the officer said. "On the
other, he wants to boost his own personal support among the Palestinian
people."