The louder the trumpetings that peace is possible, the more Israel’s opposition groups increase their efforts to bring down the government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
The atmosphere of brisk optimism that characterized U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher’s latest round of regional shuttle diplomacy has set powerful alarm bells ringing among opposition parties and settlers groups.
Galvanized by the accelerating momentum of the peace process, the opposition wants to force a test of public support now for Rabin’s peace policies, rather than wait for the prime minister to decide on the propitious moment for a referendum or new elections.
This means bringing the Rabin government down and dissolving the Knesset in order to trigger early elections, which are not officially scheduled until the fall of 1996.
Both the Golan Heights settlers and their political supporters, as well as the West Bank settlers and their camp, have each gone into high gear — in the Knesset and on the streets — in their efforts to topple the government.
For its part, the Rabin government is anxious to conclude a full draft of a peace treaty with Syria and to put in place the second phase of the peace process with the Palestinians, before it is required to face the judgment of the electorate.
The feverish activity comes amid renewed optimism for the peace process, especially on the Israeli-Syrian track, in the wake of Christopher’s visit to the region.
Christopher announced that Israel and Syria would resume negotiations in Washington between top military officials to discuss security arrangements for an eventual Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights.
Rabin firmly believes that a large majority of the Israeli public, once confronted with a clear choice of withdrawal for full peace with Syria, would give its blessing, however sadly and reluctantly, to the pullback from the Golan Heights.
And on the Palestinian track, Rabin similarly believes that he could shore up the pro-peace camp and win over the waverers if he is able to effect a smooth transfer of authority to the Palestinians in major West Bank towns.
Above all, to win additional support for the Palestinian track, he needs a stretch of time without any additional terror attacks from Islamic fundamentalist groups.
Some two months have passed since the last such attack. The period clearly has represented a much-needed breathing spell.
In an effort to keep the momentum going, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were working this week almost around the clock to meet their July 1 target date for reaching agreement on the next phase of Palestinian self-rule.
The Israel Defense Force, meanwhile, is building new facilities west of the pre-1967 Green Line, which separates Israel from the West Bank, to house several training camps due to be moved out of the territories.
But despite these moves, there always hovers in the background the worry that one of the fundamentalist groups vying for the hearts of the Palestinians will lash out again.
One attack by fundamentalist terrorists, Rabin told his Cabinet on Sunday, could derail the entire process.
The problem, he continued in a rare comment on public trends, is that many Israelis do not yet understand the changes wrought in the region.
The enemies of yesterday are not the enemies of tomorrow, he suggested, adding that Syria need no longer be Israel’s enemy.
“There is one strategic enemy now: Iranian fundamentalism,” Rabin said. “The groups carrying out terror actions against us, like Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, are supported by Iran. These are not the PLO.”
To demonstrate this distinction, the prime minister last week permitted publication of the fact that he had personally met with the chiefs of security of the Palestinian Authority.
However, many Israelis are not buying it,
The various opposition groups within Israeli politics are united in their determination to reject Rabin’s distinction between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel’s “enemies” and to persuade the public to reject it as well.
“The PLO,” says Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, “is a corrupt organization that has failed to live up to any of its commitments under the [self-rule] accord. It will use international funds in order to build up its terrorist army, which will then be used against Israel.”
Netanyahu, in fact, has called on the United States to cut off all aid to the Palestinians in the territories.
“No money should go to Gaza or Jericho because today all of the funds, whether given directory of indirectly, will end up in PLO hands,” Netanyahu said.
Israel’s opposition groups, in addition to gearing up for a pitched political battle over the Golan and West Bank, are also drawing a sharp focus on Jerusalem.
Rightist demonstrators, led by Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Yitzhak Meir of the National Religious Party, have pitched their tents outside Orient House, the PLO’s de facto headquarters in eastern Jerusalem that has long been the focus of tension between Israel and the PLO.
The demonstrators, seeking to close Orient House down, cite the ongoing diplomatic and administrative activities there as proof of the Palestinian Authority’s intent to make eastern Jerusalem its capital.
And the Palestinian Authority played directly into their hands last weekend by resolving, at a session held in Jericho, to revive the 12-member council that administered eastern Jerusalem until the 1967 Six-Day War.
Throughout the West Bank, meanwhile, settler activists have pledged to take over any military facilities vacated by the IDF.
There is also talk of an armed Jewish militia patrolling areas that the settlers feel the IDF is abandoning.
The Likud’s Tzachi Hanegbi and Tsomet’s Moshe Peled voiced support for such preparations this week, although Netanyahu took a more circumspect line.
With the July 1 target fast approaching on the Palestinian track, all the ingredients are in place for dramatic and potentially dangerous confrontations.
Politically, though, it is the Israel-Syria track on which the government’s domestic position is most immediately threatened.
Secretary Christopher asserted over the weekend that never during his two-and- a-half years in office have the chances of reaching an Israeli-Syrian peace agreement seemed better.
But “better” in the view of the anti-withdrawal groups, only means “worse.”
Rabin’s battle to stay in office long enough “to finish the job” with Syria went through some nerve-racking moments in the Knesset this week.
Three Labor Party rebels, led by war hero and Knesset member Avigdor Kahalani, are determined to support legislation that would require a so-called “super majority” of 70 of the Knesset’s 120 members to enable the government to give up any territory currently under Israeli rule.
The Labor Party scrambled this week to prevent the Knesset from voting on the bill, but Kahalani said he was undeterred, maintaining that he would vote for such a bill even if it were introduced by one of the opposition parties.
Rabin says such legislation would effectively undermine the ongoing peace talks with Syria — which is precisely the purpose of the bill’s advocates.
Rabin has threatened to drum Kahalani and his colleagues out of the Labor Party. But they say they are leaving anyway — to join the newly formed “Third Force” movement, which opposes withdrawal from the Golan Heights.
The “Third Force, ” led by Kahalani, former IDF chief of staff Dan Shomron and ex-Laborite and Golan settler Yehuda Harel, has adopted “Elections Now” as its rallying cry.
What remains to be seen is whether a majority of the Knesset’s members are ready to go along with that demand and bring down the Rabin government.
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