The sudden prospect of real peace talks with the Arabs has not enveloped Israel in the dreamlike euphoria that greeted Anwar Sadat’s surprise announcement in 1977 that he was coming to Jerusalem.
There has been no explosive drama, no consciousness of a historic event such as over-whelmed the populace when Sadat’s plane taxied to a halt on the tarmac at Ben-Gurion Airport and Menachem Begin stepped forward to greet his old enemy, the president of Egypt.
There has been no dancing in the streets. But that does not mean that people are not happy. It is just that everyone, from Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir to the ordinary Israeli, is taking time to absorb the significance of this week’s diplomacy.
Without the accompanying theatricals, it takes a little longer to comprehend that now, once again, the Middle East is on the verge of a momentous turning-point.
If the negotiations being assembled succeed as planned, they will be no less cataclysmic than Sadat’s personal odyssey, which resulted in peace between Israel and Egypt.
But a big “if” hovers over the unfolding developments. Not all the elements are in place that would allow President Bush to realize his desire to announce a Middle East peace conference during his summit with Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow next week.
Beyond the procedural technicalities, doubts still gnaw at the participants in the peace process about whether the key figures in this game genuinely want to reach the negotiating table.
UNRESOLVED PROCEDURAL ISSUES
The two regional strongmen, Syria’s President Hafez Assad and Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, have each aroused suspicion by suddenly relaxing positions on which they had long refused to compromise.
Assad has unexpectedly backed the idea of direct negotiations. And while Shamir has not given a final response, he has indicated that he is prepared to support a peace conference with international involvement.
But several procedural issues remain unresolved.
First, there is the question of a United Nations role at the proposed peace conference. The Syrians and the other Arab parties have agreed to the U.S. compromise proposal that a U.N. official attend the plenary with observer status, on par with the diplomat who will represent the European Community.
Though Israel has not yet formally replied, observers expect Shamir to set aside his longstanding reservations over a U.N. role, as long as it remains a minor one.
Similarly, Shamir is likely to consent to the U.S. proposal that the conference reconvene periodically after direct negotiations have begun, to hear reports from the working groups. This would occur only with the consent of the negotiating parties.
Until now, Shamir has insisted that the plenary disband after the initial opening session, while the Syrians wanted it to stay in continuous session for the duration of the talks.
But Israel can hardly reject the U.S. compromise now that Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon have accepted it.
A last major sticking point is the vexed issue of Palestinian representation.
Shamir claimed Monday that he had a solid agreement with Washington that only Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be allowed to participate in the conference as members of a Jordanian-Palestinian delegation.
PALESTINIANS COULD BALK
He remains opposed to any “diaspora Palestinians,” meaning those living outside the territories or in East Jerusalem cannot be included.
That would rule out the most prominent local Palestinian leader, Faisal Husseini, who has been the Palestinians’ senior representative at meetings with Secretary of State James Baker on all of his visits to Jerusalem, but whom Israel sees as a Palestine Liberation Organization pawn.
Husseini himself proclaimed Monday that if there were no spokesman for East Jerusalem, the conference would not take place. He meant, presumably, that the Palestinians would refuse to attend on those terms.
But two of Baker’s top aides stayed on in Jerusalem this week to help nudge the parties over the final hurdles. They were said to be applying severe pressure on the Palestinians, here and in Tunis, not to be the spoilers.
The important thing, in the U.S. view, is to get the conference off the ground. Therefore, the Americans were telling all parties this week to pay no heed to public statements by other parties.
That might account for the silence in Damascus that followed a string of declarations by Israeli leaders, including former Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Labor Party politicians, that Israel would never give up the Golan Heights.
The remaining obstacles seem to be relatively minor. But they could give Shamir, Assad or indeed the fragmented Palestinian leadership sufficient grounds to scuttle the entire process.
Shamir faces internal instability. Within his own coalition, the hard-liners warned this week that at the first sign of wavering, they will walk out of his government.
But that is an ineffective threat. Unless Shamir wants his government to fall and call early elections, he knows he can count on the Labor opposition to support him as long as he pursues a peace policy.
MANY UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
There are bigger questions:
Is Shamir prepared to make any territorial concession at all to win peace, whether on the Golan or in the West Bank and Gaza Strip?
Does Assad genuinely believe his chances of conducting a successful war against Israel have evaporated? Or is he playing for time, seeking to improve his political standing in the West, in order to gain aid while steadily building up his military forces for a future test of strength?
Do the mainstream Palestinians comprehend their less-than-enviable position in the wake of Saddam Hussein’s defeat? Or are they still trapped in their bitter fantasies?
Pundits can mull over these unknowns. But ultimately it is for the protagonists themselves, Shamir, Assad and the other main players, to come up with the answers. If those answers are positive, the Israeli-Arab conflict may be closer to a negotiated solution than it ever has been.
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