Monday, November 12, 2001 Cheshvan 26, 5762 Israel Time: 18:18 (GMT+2)
haaretzdaily.com
Signs that Likud leaders willing to weigh Palestinian state, but is Arafat ready to play ball?
By Bradley Burston, Ha'aretz Correspondent
As leaders of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Likud party found themselves weighing the prospect of agreeing to Palestinian statehood, there were indications that one obstacle in the path of an independent Palestine was none other than Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat himself.
President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell have in recent days begun getting the world at large accustomed to the concept of an independent nation called "Palestine" - a departure from past U.S. practice. The references to Palestine came as Powell held separate but direct talks with Arafat and his erstwhile if, of late, exasperated, peace-making partner, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.
Echoing a plan he first advanced decades ago, Peres has been quietly lobbying for a "Gaza First" approach to the creation of a Palestinian state. Once the mortal enemy of Palestinian statehood, Sharon recently spoke of statehood as a real possibility - subject to a cessation of violence. Sharon has also pointedly avoided direct criticism of the Peres plan.
At the same time, Likud figures have accepted with acquiescence, and even a curious quiet satifaction, U.S. President George W. Bush's calls for an independent Palestine to stand alongside a secure Israel - a position that would once have been unthinkable for Israeli hawks, for whom the indivisability of the biblical Land of Israel was once the cornerstone and keystone of all rightist belief.
Arafat, for his part, seems to be mired in the past, resurrecting, in another echo of the 1980s, threats to declare unilateral statehood in what would amount to a baleful archipelago of Bantustans. He also continues to defy close associates' calls for pragmatism in the face of an uprising that could in the end turn against his own PA.
"Arafat's advisers have concluded that Palestinian terrorism can also jeopardize the achievements of the Oslo agreement as well as the standing of the elite group in the Palestinian regime," according to Ha'aretz commentator Akiva Eldar.
Eldar notes that while PA officials and regional powers like Egypt have tried to pressure Arafat to show flexibility, Washington has bided its time, believing that the Sharon government has yet to prove that it can itself constitute so much as "half a partner" for peace.
Could Sharon turn his back on hawkish ideology and turn into a full peace-making partner? Several weeks ago, the prime minister raised eyebrows by stating publicly that, "The State of Israel wants to give the Palestinians what no one else has heretofore given them: the possibility of establishing a state. Neither the Turks, the English, the Egyptians nor the Jordanians gave them such a possibility."
Highlighting the apparent shift in Sharon's positions, Army Radio Monday broadcast old archive tapes of Sharon declaring, to resounding rightist applause: "A Palestinian state already exists in Jordan - Jordan is the Palestinian state!"
Likud talk of Palestinian statehood has been viewed by some as a ploy to undercut threats by Arafat to declare unilateral statehood - again an echo of the 1980s, when Arafat capped years of statehood talk with a symbolic declaration of independence-in-exile.
Likud officials have hinted that if Arafat were to declare a state, Israel would be more than happy to accept the current borders, at the same time annexing all of the some 150 settlements of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, leaving a Palestine that was a smattering of disconnected land masses with little in common other than painful poverty.
The statehood hints have also been interpreted as a Sharon bid for middle-of-the-road Israeli support in the face of fiercely hawkish statements by former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Sharon's chief rival for Likud leadership.
But there were signs Monday that that there may be more to the Likud statehood discussion than a mere tactical gambit to counter a familiar Arafat move. Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit, a Likud centrist, added to the speculation over possible peace proposals, saying that he had seen two proposals that were "entirely fresh" for a solution to statehood issues.
"On principle, [the Palestinians'] aspiration for establishing a country is a demand that the prime minister has said can be met under conditions of true peace. There are all sorts of fresh ideas on the borders of a Palestinian state and other arrangements, that don't necessarily jibe with what people think today."
Sheetrit said that under the "Middle East paradox of 'hawks of peace' and 'doves of war,' only hawks of Sharon's stripe can make peace under a national consensus. The Palestinians are erring big-time by not taking
advantage of the opportunity afforded by having a Likud leader in power."
Long-time Sharon political confidante Eli Landau, asked to reconcile Sharon's past and present statements, indicated that over the years, the prime minister had come a long way on the statehood issue. "Sharon has changed in the interim, and the Middle East has changed," said Landau, who 20 years ago threatened to bolt the Likud over his advocacy of holding contacts with Arafat, then a crime under Israeli law. Using Sharon's nickname, Landau added: "I have no doubt that Arik has reached the conclusion that we must converse with [the Palestinians], and find a way to satify their wishes as well as ours."
Landau said Sharon could "take a dramatic step to change the Middle East, both in terms of dialogue and in concessions regarding the Palestinians." But he declined to elaborate.
Cabinet minister Tzachi Hanegbi, a dyed-in-the-wool Likud hawk, begged to differ. He said a truly independent Palestinian state represented a threat to Israel's existence, no matter how many conditions Sharon might set for demilitarizing it. Hanegbi added that he believed most Likud leaders agreed with him.
In any case, Hanegbi concluded, the current uprising had set the Palestininians back at least a decade diplomatically. "Today, most of the Israeli public understands that the chance of reaching a real accord with
the current Palestinian leadership is close to zero, so that the Palestinians have moved back perhaps 10 years, back to before the 1993 Oslo agreements." |
