Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, battling for all he is worth to retain power in the upcoming elections, is trying to put a favorable spin on this week’s diplomatic maneuvering between the United States and the Palestinians.
As President Clinton sent off a letter to Yasser Arafat urging both sides to “avoid unilateral acts and declarations,” the Israeli premier was hailing his own steadfastness in facing down the threat of a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence.
Netanyahu is seeking to make Arafat’s stance on statehood a central issue of his campaign. This issue, along with his Cabinet’s decision to reassert control over Jerusalem by closing the Palestinians’ offices at Orient House in eastern Jerusalem, gives the prime minister what he sees as a no-lose situation in the elections.
If Arafat goes ahead and declares independence, then Netanyahu will argue that “a strong leader” — his election slogan — is required to face down the Palestinians. “[Ehud] Barak [the Labor Party candidate for premier] will sell out to Arafat,” is another Likud Party election slogan, plastered on billboards across the nation.
If Arafat takes the advice of the international community and defers a declaration for now, Netanyahu will trumpet the victory in forcing the Palestinian leader to climb down from his widely publicized assertions that May 4 will be the Palestinians’ independence day.
Similarly, if the Israeli High Court permits the closure of offices in Orient House, and such action passes off without violence — Netanyahu will argue that he has kept his promise, originally made in the 1996 election campaign, to close down Orient House.
The government is seeking closure of Orient House on the grounds that the Palestinians conduct official Palestinian Authority business from there, which is forbidden by Israeli law and a violation of the Oslo accords.
If the police encounter resistance and mass violence ensues, Netanyahu, again, will underscore the “strong leader” rhetoric and point to Labor’s alleged equivocation on the future of Jerusalem.
Aware of these considerations, Arafat is expected to bob and weave his way past May 4, and indeed past May 17, Israel’s election day, without sustaining a knockout punch either from Netanyahu or from his own formidable domestic opposition.
On Tuesday, Arafat gave an indication that he will postpone a unilateral declaration.
“We are going through a very delicate period in the history of our people, a period during which we cannot afford making any mistakes,” he said. “We don’t need to affirm our state because we are actually exercising statehood.”
Some observers on the Palestinian side predicted this week that the Palestinian Central Council’s deliberations on a state declaration — which began on Tuesday — would drag on for many weeks without a decision, precisely to bypass the danger dates.
Others suggested the veteran Palestinian leader would succeed in persuading his tense and divided constituency that the American president’s letter, with its broad hints at eventual Palestinian independence with U.S. support, is worth another year’s delay.
The U.S. letter, along with similar coaxing by governments in the Mideast and around the world — and tough threats from Netanyahu — are expected to persuade Arafat to agree to defer the planned declaration.
Clinton’s letter, leaked in the Israeli newspapers Ha’aretz and Yediot Achronot on Monday, is reported to contain a new target date: May 2000. The U.S. reportedly pledges in the letter to work for a quick resumption of accelerated final-status negotiations after the Israeli elections next month.
The Yediot report of the letter was particularly resonant: It had Clinton paraphrasing the words of “Hatikvah,” the Israeli national anthem: “Am hofshi b’artzam” (a free people in their land), to define Washington’s vision of the Palestinian future.
“It’s a Balfour Declaration to the Palestinians,” said Knesset Member Shlomo Ben-Ami of the Labor Party, congratulating Netanyahu on his role in the creation of Palestinian sovereignty.
But government officials signaled they could live with the letter, since the target date seemed more in the nature of a hope than a binding deadline. The Israeli position is that the final-status talks have no binding cutoff date, and that Palestinian rule in parts of the West Bank and Gaza continues in effect unless and until replaced by a new agreement.
Official sources also point to the apparent fact that Arafat’s negotiators in Washington failed to get from the U.S. administration what it most wanted — a commitment to recognize a Palestinian state if it is declared in May 2000, or indeed whenever it is declared. The Americans insist, apparently, on leaving their options open at this stage and Clinton’s letter carefully avoids pre- empting future decisions.
The ruling Likud, under Netanyahu, opposes Palestinian statehood, though some of its members have conceded that this is the likely outcome of future peace negotiations.
The main opposition Labor Party does not oppose statehood, though it would only agree to an effectively unarmed state hedged with security constraints.
Beneath the surface, however, there was consternation among government officials here at the extent of Clinton’s reported presidential promises to Arafat.
Observers here noted that this was the first instance of such a letter of assurances from Washington to the Palestinians without parallel assurances being offered to the Israeli side.
These observers saw this as evidence of the poor state of relations between the Netanyahu government and the Clinton administration.
Netanyahu, however, insists that it was he who brought about the recent diplomatic events in the first place. He assured a radio interviewer on Monday that Arafat’s apparent decision not to make a unilateral declaration was the result of his own dire threats to take swift and tough action in response if Arafat went ahead with his proposed declaration.
“As a result of this statement and our stance for the past few months, the Palestinian Authority realized that it had to back down,” Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu’s Likud Party reiterated that determination Sunday in its official election manifesto, asserting that a unilateral declaration of independence by the Palestinian Authority would constitute a material breach of the Oslo and Wye accords and would effectively nullify them.
The platform stopped short, however, of previous statements by party leaders that Israel’s response would be to unilaterally annex parts of the West Bank.
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