Behind the Headlines: Labor Party Having Trouble Selling ‘land-for-peace’ Idea

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin has run into difficulty convincing Israelis and supporters of Israel abroad that the “land-for-peace” concept, long derided by the opposition Likud party, could provide the Jewish state with true security.

Rabin’s predicament was illustrated by two incidents this week, one involving settlers on the Golan Heights and the other involving the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

In recent months, Golan residents have stepped up their efforts to sway public opinion and government officials against making territorial concessions on the strategic plateau in exchange for peace with Syria. Some Golan settlers have even suggested they would take up arms to resist such a withdrawal.

Rabin, reacting to their statements, angered Golan residents this week by declaring they could “spin around like propellers” as far as he was concerned, but they would not influence the public against the government.

Rabin made the caustic comment before his Labor Party’s Knesset faction in reply to Knesset member Avi Yehezkel, who claimed that the political right seemed to be making its mark on public opinion in recent weeks.

The prime minister also said he was opposed to a proposed bill that would require the government to hold a nationwide referendum before trading land for peace.

When Golan settlers loudly protested his remarks about them, Rabin backpedaled and said he was referring only to a small minority in the Golan who, together with rightist groups, had behaved excessively during recent demonstrations.

The prime minister said he “regards the settlers on the Golan Heights as pioneers,” according to a statement released by his office Tuesday. “Their presence on the Heights gives strength to Israel’s position in the negotiations — whatever decisions are ultimately taken.”

Clarifying statements and apologies were also the upshot of an unrelated episode this week when a member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, accompanying a congressional delegation from Florida, sharply criticized Rabin’s land-for-peace policy at a session in Jerusalem.

The AIPAC member, Harvey Friedman, was quoted as saying, “Where does Rabin get the chutzpah to give up territory?”

TALK OF PERES MEETING WITH SYRIAN

Friedman made his remark in the presence of Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin, a leading government dove who reacted with vehemence.

Both Tom Dine, AIPAC’s executive director, and Steve Grossman, its president, sent hasty messages to Israel assuring the government Friedman was not speaking on behalf of the pro-Israel lobby and did not represent its positions.

Some political observers here saw these two incidents as part of the same process of educating the public at home and abroad to regard land-for-peace as a policy that could eventually bring Israel true security, rather than as the heretical proposition that past Likud-led governments have always described it to be.

With Syria seen to be moving slowly but inexorably toward a readiness to sign a peace agreement with Israel, the government is intent on building up public support for a painful territorial concession that will shear away much of the Heights from Israel.

On Tuesday, Syria’s deputy president, Abdel Khalim Khaddam, said the idea of American guarantees for peace between the two countries was a negotiable issue.

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said the same day that this idea had been broached in the ongoing negotiations and that the United States had implied it was ready to provide interim security arrangements on the Golan Heights. He said though that no formal discussions on the proposal had taken place.

Peres also confirmed that there were “some attempts” to arrange meetings between him and his Syrian counterpart, but he dampened speculation in the Israeli news media that the two ministers planned to meet next week at a U.N. human rights conference in Vienna.

Similar to the Golan, the present government’s policy regarding Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip also implies an extensive withdrawal of Israeli control over the territories and an open-minded posture regarding their eventual status.

Peres, in an interview this week with the newspaper Davar, urged a “federation or confederation” between Jordan and these Palestinian areas. “Confederation” would imply a large measure of independence.

Here, too, a sharp change of direction is required both among Israel’s supporters abroad and among Israelis at home, who have been conditioned by 15 years of government policy to regard Palestinian political ambitions with animosity.