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August 24, 2001/Elul 5, 5761, Vol. 53, No.46
Peres, Arafat to try again for cease-fire
DAVID LANDAU
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - Next week in Berlin.
That is the new mantra for the shrinking number of Israelis who still hold out a slender hope that Israel and the Palestinians can negotiate a peaceful end to the last 11 months of violence.
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, Israel's indefatigable peacemaker, and Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian Authority president, are to meet in Berlin under the aegis of the German government.
Peres has proposed a "graduated" or phased cease-fire, to be implemented region by region across the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with Israeli troop withdrawals in response.
Arafat has proposed nothing, but has told the visiting German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, that he is ready to listen.
The German statesman is one of the few international figures respected by both sides.
Fischer was in the region this week trying to fill what some observers feel is a yawning diplomatic gap left by the Bush administration's reluctance to commit too much of its prestige and credibility to the often thankless task of Middle East peacemaking.
Increasingly, a ghastly wisdom seems to be taking hold both here and abroad that the Palestinians' "Al-Aksa Intifada" needs to shed more blood, cause more pain and poverty and further run its course before a diplomatic resolution is possible.
Peres has to contend not only with despairingly low expectation of success but with hostile criticism from within his own party.
The latest broadside came Aug. 20, when former Prime Minister Ehud Barak publicly upbraided Peres for seeking to engage Arafat.
Peres hit back, recalling the magnitude of Barak's electoral defeat to Sharon.
Beyond the verbal sparring, the arguments highlight a basic fault line within the peace camp. It runs between those who still believe in negotiating with Arafat, and those who believe Israel must act unilaterally to end the violence or at least to better contain it.
In his speech to the kibbutz movement leadership, Barak pointedly noted that he was the father of the "unilateral separation" concept.
Barak claims that his intention was to test Arafat by making him a most generous offer, one that met virtually all Palestinian demands.
If Arafat accepted, well and good. But if he rejected Israel's condition to declare an end to the conflict, then Arafat would be "exposed in his true colors," Barak said.
This is precisely what happened, Barak contends, resulting in Arafat's resort to violence beginning in late September.
Increasingly, politicians across a wide spectrum are adopting the logic of the Barak thesis, arguing that no deal can be negotiated in the foreseeable future and that Israel now must unilaterally redeploy its troops and move settlements.
Public opinion is not entirely in favor of unilateralism, however. A sizable segment of the population and the political echelon fears that if Israel withdraws from settlements without an agreement, it will in effect be offering a "prize" for Palestinian violence.
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