World Tribune.com

Clinton's peace plan: Barak buys it but one minister raises specter of nation's 'suicide'

By Steve Rodan, Middle East Newsline
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Wednesday, December 27, 2000

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Ehud Barak is facing opposition by several of his ministers to proposals by U.S. President Bill Clinton regarding a peace treaty with the Palestinians. One characterized the potential of Israel's acceptance of the plan as national 'suicide.'

Barak has accepted Clinton's proposals, saying he has no other choice should Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat agree to the U.S. peace plan.

"If Arafat agrees to the Clinton proposals, then it will be very difficult for Israel to say no because it will have a high international isolation," Barak told a television interview on late Monday. "I am telling you I am torn up inside over the substance of these ideas."

Several ministers have expressed dismay over Clinton's bridging proposals that would end Israeli rule over virtually the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip and eastern Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount, holy to both Jews and Muslims. The plan also calls for a corridor that would link the West Bank and Gaza Strip as well as the transfer of territory within Israel's pre-1967 borders.

The ministers, disputing previous reports said, the Clinton plan does not call on the Palestinians to end their demand for the return of refugees. Instead, they said, Clinton appears to have left open the Palestinian demand for the return of millions of refugees to Israel.

"We are talking about a framework agreement that is vague and that leaves open several key issues except one — an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders," a senior Israeli government source said.

But aides said Barak will not convene his Cabinet for a vote before he responds to Clinton. Instead, he plans to convene his ministerial committee on security on Wednesday to discuss the plan.

The president has set a deadline for Wednesday. But Israeli officials raised the prospect of a delay as several ministers have expressed opposition to the plan.

"We can't give a clear-cut yes," Science Minister Matan Vilnai said. "Absolutely not. Because there is a world view that we, at least I, am not willing to compromise. For example, sovereignty over the Temple Mount is an issue of principles that they have to explain to me why we must concede on this."

The Clinton plan is essentially a framework agreement that envisions a five-year interim period that will allow for continued negotiations on such issues as the future of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees. In the meanwhile, Israel will withdraw from the entire Gaza Strip, up to 97 percent of the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem.

The ministers dispute the endorsement of the Clinton proposals by Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, who headed the Israeli delegation last week in talks with the Palestinians in a U.S. air force base outside Washington. Ben-Ami said the U.S. plan serves Israel's interests and is meant to end the conflict with the Palestinians.

Barak is said to agree with his foreign minister. At a meeting of his so-called "peace Cabinet" on late Sunday, Barak appeared tense, telling Ben-Ami, Regional Cooperation Minister Shimon Peres and former Education Minister Yossi Sarid that Israel must accept the plan despite the cost of the concessions. Barak said the framework accord would be followed by difficult negotiations.

But except for Ben-Ami, the other members of the peace Cabinet were not as enthusiastic. Peres, who had criticized Barak's approach to the Palestinians, said Israel had made too many concessions, government sources said. Sarid, while supporting the idea of a settlement, expressed concern over the prospect that Israel might be pressured into accepting the Palestinian demand for the return of millions of refugees.

"There is one issue that can topple everything, and that is the right of return," Sarid said later. "It is very important that they understand and internalize this. The meaning of the right of return means Israel's suicide. As far as I know, we don't have any plans to commit suicide."

What appears most unsettling to both senior Israeli officials and some ministers is that the prospect that after a U.S.-proposed five-year negotiating period, the Palestinians will resume the conflict with Israel unless it agrees to all their demands. By that time, Israel will have withdrawn from virtually all of the territories it captured in the 1967 war.

Several ministers appear uneasy over what they term the rush to complete negotiations before the end of Clinton's term on Jan. 20. They point to the current mini-war with the Palestinian Authority and Barak's pledge to draw conclusions from PA attacks on Israeli civilians and military outposts amid unprecedented concessions by the government.

They added that any Israeli agreement on a proposed framework accord will bound the Jewish state for years to come — regardless of whether the Palestinians endorse the U.S. plan. Already, the Palestinians are arguing over what constitutes the Temple Mount and the Western Wall and the amount of pre-1967 Israeli territory to be transferred to any Palestinian state.

Israeli government sources said Ben-Ami conducted the negotiations with the Palestinians in accordance with Barak's reelection campaign. When Barak was being threatened by a challenge from Regional Cooperation Minister Shimon Peres, Ben-Ami offered Israeli concessions. When Peres withdrew his candidacy, then Ben-Ami stuck to the proposals submitted at the Camp David summit in July.

"Even the Americans were amazed," a senior government source said.

The sources said the Palestinians threatened to walk out of the negotiations after Israel did not fulfill their expectations for significant concessions. At that point, Ben-Ami, ordered by Barak, raised new proposals that offered the Palestinians 97 percent of the West Bank and the entire Gaza Strip.

For his part, Clinton has relayed to Arafat and Barak that the U.S. president would not object to slight modifications of his proposals, Israeli sources said. The sources said Barak has received messages from the incoming administration of President-elect George W. Bush that expressed the hope that Clinton will wrap up an accord before Jan. 20.

Still, the two sides were apart on most issues. But the Israeli sources said Clinton felt the delegations had make sufficient progress to offer his bridging proposals.

The sources said Barak expects Arafat to accept the Clinton plan. They said Egypt and Jordan — in contrast to the aftermath of the Camp David summit — are urging Arafat to endorse the U.S. bridging proposals. Barak is expected to fly to Amman and Cairo on Wednesday to discuss the plan with King Abdullah and President Hosni Mubarak.

Several ministers, such as Finance Minister Avraham Shohat and Deputy Prime Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, are demanding that Barak seek Cabinet endorsement before he responds to Clinton. Ben-Eliezer, regarded as one of the closest allies to Barak, said he felt foolish when Ben-Ami returned from Washington with the Clinton plan.

"I thought we were discussing the reduction of the violence [with the Palestinians]," Ben-Eliezer told the Cabinet.

For his part, Barak has already begun selling the accord to Israel, although he would not detail the Clinton plan. The prime minister has already ordered the launch of a 74-kilometer security barrier along the old 1967 borders in a $25 million project.

Barak's pitch: rejection of the Clinton plan will lead to war and thousands of Israel's casualties.

"What will happen after the war?" Barak asked in the television interview. "We will bury 3,000 people and we will go back to the same issues."

Wednesday, December 27, 2000

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