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September 10, 1999/29 Elul 5759, Vol. 52, No. 1
Arafat, Barak proved they're tough in latest pact
DOUGLAS DAVIS
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Glittering ceremonies and lofty rhetoric are the essential byproducts of every milestone in Middle East peacemaking. And the Sept. 4 gala at Sharm el-Sheik - significantly, on territory that Israel had withdrawn from in the context of an earlier peace agreement with Egypt - was no exception.
That evening's signing ceremony was a party with a purpose, designed to deliver a raft of political messages: It signaled that the United States continues to perform a critical role; that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is a major player in the peace process; and that the new Jordanian King Abdullah, like his late father, Hussein, takes a close interest in Israeli-Palestinian developments.
Not least, it provided an important platform for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. For Barak, it was an opportunity to demonstrate that he is not only serious about peace in general, but that he is in earnest about accelerating the pace of negotiations with the Palestinians in particular.
For Arafat, the occasion assumed a more complex and nuanced significance. On one level, the assembled dignitaries - notably Mubarak and Abdullah - provided him with an essential umbrella of Arab legitimacy for his latest agreement. On another level, Arafat achieved a slew of tactical objectives by creating a last-minute crisis - over the number of Palestinian security prisoners Israel would release - and deliberately delaying the high-profile signing ceremony from its Sept. 2 scheduled date to Sept. 4.
First, the on-again, off-again talks preceding the agreement provided Arafat with an exercise in diplomatic arm-wrestling with the new Israeli premier. Barak, he knew, is a tough one-on-one negotiator, and when Arafat tested him under pressure over the issue of prisoner releases, the new Israeli leader did not blink. Second, the pre-signing standoff allowed Arafat to demonstrate to his domestic constituency - particularly over the prisoner-release issue - that he is a tenacious, if not always successful, negotiator.
Third, it ensured that the Palestinian track continued to command attention throughout the side-visit to Syria and Lebanon on Sept. 4 by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Fourth, and most important of all, it ensured that Albright played a role- however marginal - in the negotiations; that she was not the mere "handmaiden" of the peace process, as she and Barak would have preferred.
Looking down the long and bumpy road of final-status talks - and the truly formidable issues that Israeli and Palestinian negotiators will confront on the way toward a final peace agreement - Arafat was anxious to halt Washington's retreat from the role of intrusive mediator it adopted during the less-propitious tenure of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Arafat, the veteran Palestinian campaigner who plays political chess two or three moves ahead of everyone else, knows that no other party can come close to matching the array of carrots and sticks that Washington would be able to deploy in the face of a reluctant Israel. He was determined to establish the principle of continued U.S. involvement in the negotiations themselves, to lock American officials inside the negotiating room, where they can lean on Israel when the issues become intractable.
The ceremony at Sharm el-Sheik went far beyond the mundane business of celebrating another step on the path to peace: it provided an Arab imprimatur for the agreement, it set a time line for further progress and it created the contours for future negotiations.
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