|
|
Talks resume amid internal wrangling
DAVID LANDAU
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - The political game of bluff and counter-bluff picked up speed in Israel this week. In the view of Israeli politicians at least, this provided palpable evidence that the peace process is moving at last toward its moment of truth.
The quickening pace of the domestic political wrangling was triggered by the resumption of long-suspended direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. In talks strongly urged by the United States, Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's top deputy, Mahmoud Abbas, met Sunday in Tel Aviv, and since then small teams of officials have been convening in an attempt to narrow the outstanding gaps.
All this has heartened Israeli moderates and rattled the hard-liners. On the right flank of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition, the National Religious Party debated whether to issue a formal call for early elections - as a way of signaling to the prime minister that it would rather bring him down than accede to a redeployment accord with the Palestinians. Also on the right, hawkish Infrastructure Minister Ariel Sharon warned that concessions by the prime minister and the defense minister could spell disaster for the country - and would definitely spell the downfall of the government.
Another powerful voice of opposition from the right came from Rafael Eitan, the minister of agriculture and head of the Tsomet Party, which ran with Likud in the 1996 elections. Eitan threatened Tuesday to bolt the government if Netanyahu handed over more than 7 percent of the West Bank.
The U.S. proposal currently being negotiated calls for a 13 further redeployment, coupled with concrete steps by the Palestinians on security issues. The Palestinians have already accepted the proposal. Now, Netanyahu must decide whether he will defy his hard-liners and accept it, too.
Meanwhile, on the left flank of the governing coalition, the four-member Third Way Party recently issued an ultimatum: Either a redeployment deal is reached by July 29 or it would secede from the government. This threat was later softened by one member of the party, Emanuel Zismann, who told the prime minister Tuesday that his party would "consider seceding"' if the deadline was not met.
Also active among the moderate coalition members was the fervently Orthodox Shas Party, which pronounced itself anxious to see the negotiations with the Palestinians wrapped up as soon as possible. Other ministers and prominent coalition Knesset members on the moderate wing of the government also weighed in, behind a thin veil of anonymity, in favor of concluding the deal with the Palestinians along the lines of the American proposal.
Despite the resumption of direct talks, however, and despite the heightened domestic political activity, the prospect of a substantive breakthrough remained uncertain. The Palestinians glumly insisted that the meeting with Mordechai and the subsequent lower-level negotiations had produced no meaningful progress. Yet on Tuesday, Arafat made an unannounced trip to Cairo to report on the talks with the Israelis to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Presumably, if there had been no progress, there would have been nothing to report and no reason to go to Cairo.
On the Israeli side, meanwhile, officials were making a concerted effort to depict the negotiations in a positive light. Their efforts were especially designed to downplay differences between Netanyahu and Washington, and similarly to paper over disagreements within the Cabinet.
|
