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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