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He
repeats constantly that he was elected "by the people" in order to make
peace. Indeed, that was the one task that was on the public's mind.
Everything else was secondary.
But during all his first year in
office, Barak has not made one single step towards peace. Not one.
On the contrary, he has destroyed
the confidence that the Palestinians initially had in him. He has broken
nearly all his obligations towards them. He has intensified the building
of settlement beyond the record of Netanyahu. Even now he is building
"by-pass roads", whose only purpose is to cut off great slices of
Palestinian territory and annex them to his "settlement blocs". The saga
of the return of Abu Dis has become a joke. He has not set free the
Palestinian prisoners-of-war. He continues to use the old language of
war. (For example, he never uses the term "the Palestinian people",
always speaking of "Palestinians" instead. He never uses the word
"peace" in connection with the Palestinians, speaking instead of a
"permanent status".)
Already at the very beginning of
his term, his decisions were odd. He took into his coalition the Mafdal,
the party of the settlers, sworn enemies of peace, and the racist band
of Sharansky. He left the Arab parties out. Some saw in this a brilliant
machiavellian manipulation. Today one sees what it was: a stupid
gimmick.
The bulk of his secular voters, who
shouted on election day "Only Not Shass!" were ready, nevertheless, to
have Shass in the government, in order to ensure a big majority for
peace. Many (including myself) were ready to pay the orthodox a huge
bribe for their support of a peace policy. Now it appears that Barak
paid them a whore's reward without getting anything in return. As in the
old joke, the orthodox sold their grandmother but refuse to deliver the
goods.
Throughout the year, Barak has
pampered the settlers, who are spitting in his face now, while treating
the peace movements with contempt. Now he complains that the streets are
flooded with anti-peace posters without any peace posters in sight. The
peaceniks have gone home. (The radical peace movements, like Gush
Shalom, who have continued to act in spite of everything, were ignored
by the so-called "leftist" media, which gave big publicity to every
demonstration of a handful of right-wing settlers.)
The whole strategy of the famous
general has come crushing down. He has no government, there is no
mobilized force of peace activists, neither is there any confidence that
he can bring peace. There is no enthusiasm for peace, no vision of
peace. Barak, too, has no such vision. He goes to the summit in order to
induce President Clinton to compel Arafat to accept an Israeli
diktat, an agreement that no Palestinian can accept. His
foreign minister, David Levy, a serial peace-killer, complains that
"Arafat wants everything". "Everything" means all the territories beyond
the Green Line, which constitute a mere 22% of the territory of
Palestine under the British mandate. What Palestinian impertinence!
If the summit comes to nothing, it
is clear that Barak will put on Arafat all the blame for the bloody
confrontation that will surely follow. What next? Either Barak will
invite Ariel Sharon into a National Unity government, in which Sharon
will be dominant and Barak himself will be superfluous, or the
government will fall and Netanyahu will be elected again. There will be
no obvious reason for electing a man who has failed in making peace,
turned the state over to the orthodox and empowered the settlers, a
Prime Minister who has not succeeded in anything, except a tiny
improvement in the economy and the quickly forgotten withdrawal from
South Lebanon.
There is, of course, another
possibility. Barak can go to Camp David, throw into the waste-paper bin
all the plans he is taking with him and do as Begin did there 22 years
ago: Return all the territories beyond the June 4, 1967 border,
dismantle all the settlements and make a peace based on mutual respect
between the two peoples and the two states.
If Barak returns from Camp David
with such an agreement and exhibits it with courage and conviction, at
the helm of a government devoted to peace and including Meretz, the Arab
factions, Amir Peretz, the Center and perhaps Lapid, supported by the
United States, all of Europe and most of the Arab states - he will
regain his lost public and get a big majority in a referendum.
But for this, Ehud Barak has to
overcome Ehud Barak. Let's hope he can do this.
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