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July 14, 2000/11 Tammuz 5760, Vol. 52, No.44
Barak plays to bleachers
HOWARD LOVY
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
NEW YORK - Babe Ruth was the strikeout king. To him, it was all or nothing.
Ever since Ehud Barak took his turn at bat as Middle East peacemaker a little over a year ago, he, too, has been aiming for nothing short of the centerfield wall.
To the Israeli prime minister, this week's noise in the Knesset - the exodus of allies from his government, the no-confidence motions that nearly toppled his rule - is merely the chatter of hecklers from the opposing bleachers.
The former general says he takes his orders directly from the Israeli people, and it is them he has in mind when he sits across from his old foe Yasser Arafat at Camp David this week.
Barak believes he's on a mission from the people, and that sets him above what he sees as petty politics.
Senior Israeli officials sent by Barak to the United States this week to present his negotiating stance to the media laid out his "big picture" strategy.
They gave overarching reasons why Barak believes he has the force of history and his electorate behind him.
The fact that Barak is suffering politically at home only strengthens his contention that he is going the extra mile for peace and is willing to risk his political life for peace.
Barak firmly believes that his 56 percent majority in the last election represents a mandate from the Israeli people to pursue peace in his own way, and that approval or rejection of a peace deal should come from the Israeli electorate, not its politicians.
As Barak sees it, 40,000 Palestinian police officers with AK-47s do not represent a security threat to Israel, much less a threat to Israel's existence.
However, a "nuclear Mideast" is another story.
The fall of the Soviet Union and the victory over Iraq in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, he believes, gave Israel a window of opportunity to make peace with its neighbors. Israel cannot afford to remain bogged down in the Palestinian conflict when Iran and Iraq both threaten to develop nuclear weapons.
Israelis never wanted the burden of rule over the Palestinians - a situation they found themselves in after the conquest of eastern Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Six-Day War. Barak's view, say his advisers, is that rule over another people destroys the cohesion of society, and a society that's not cohesive is not secure.
That is a large reason why Barak believes he will win a referendum by a landslide.
The goal of the elusive "end of conflict" is located in the grandstands, with the people.
Barak is pointing his bat toward the center field wall, as the pitcher winds up.
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