William Safire: October Surprise
ESSAY / By WILLIAM SAFIRE
WASHINGTON -- President Clinton has invited Benjamin Netanyahu and Yasir Arafat back to Washington about two weeks before Election Day. At that time they are expected to reach interim agreement on another transfer of West Bank land, with Palestinian reciprocity, and thereby begin final-settlement talks.
I asked the Israeli Prime Minister if he was familiar with the American political term "October surprise" -- a Presidential announcement designed to influence an election. Bibi seemed genuinely taken aback: "I checked my schedule to make sure it didn't conflict with Succoth," he replied, referring to the Jewish fall festival. "I wasn't thinking about your elections."
Bill Clinton was, of course; progress toward peacemaking would enhance his standing the week before voters choose representatives who will vote on impeachment. His timing, after a long stalemate, is hardly coincidental, nor is his possible choice of site: Camp David, scene of President Carter's only historic legacy.
But the ability to fine-tune the making of world news is an edge all our campaigning Presidents have. More to the point is what lies behind what Secretary Madeleine Albright calls "the new urgency."
For Arafat, urgency comes from his failure to get America to pressure Israel to cede almost all the West Bank to him on the installment plan before he makes his final-settlement demand to partition Jerusalem. His threat to declare a Palestinian state next May backfired when it became evident that Israel alone would then decide on borders, annexing what it needed for security.
For Netanyahu, who successfully resisted the salami-slicing of his bargaining position, urgency to make peace on the local front is strategic: Iran is building long-range missiles and nuclear devices, Iraq is shutting down U.N. inspections. He sees mass-destruction technologists "gushing" out of crumbling Russia to rogue nations, and up to a million more Jewish immigrants to be absorbed.
For Clinton, the urgency is not only to divert attention from impeachment, but to make history in a hurry -- or at least to be at center stage when it is made.
What good end may this confluence of urgencies produce?
The President has learned from his diplomatic blunder. Israel properly
ignored his diktat of an additional 13 percent salami slice of the West Bank because it was too loosely connected to reciprocal P.L.O. action against Hamas and Hezbollah terrorism, and because interim handovers stole the land sweetener needed to close the final deal.
Clinton has changed his proposal to 10 percent plus 3 percent set aside in what is euphemized as a "nature preserve" -- in effect, buffer zones with joint patrols to deny bases to terrorists within hand-held-missile distance of Tel Aviv, airports and Israeli (and Palestinian) settlements. Both sides find this acceptable.
That should bring us through Succoth next week to Camp David 1 1/2. Clinton, though allergic to the Catoctin Mountain air, is primed to labor mightily there to announce what will be headlined as a breakthrough: the launch of final-settlement talks.
As the punch line about the Jewish matchmaker goes, "Now for the hard part." For the Israelis, it will mean giving up more of the West Bank than many think is wise for the small nation's territorial security, and risking the conferring of statehood on an ally of Saddam. For Palestinians, it will mean permanent crackdown on terror and renunciation of unrealistic and inflammatory claims on part of Israel's capital.
For Clinton, a secure final settlement means a new look at coordinated
missile defense. He told Netanyahu he'd been thinking about it. Israel's Arrow antimissile missile shows promise, but its U.S.-financed "bullet to hit a bullet" is a last line of defense against weaponry now threatening Israel and American forces near the Persian Gulf -- and soon to threaten Paris and New York. Only future U.S. space technology and defense investment will be able to stop nuclear missiles in their launch phase.
A facile facilitator will do for Camp David 1 1/2. An American President with a grasp of both the local and strategic security needs of Israelis and Arabs is required to clamp together a historic handshake at Camp David II.
Thursday, October 1, 1998
Copyright 1998 The New York Times |
