News Analysis: Rabin Says Not to Hold Sacred Deadlines for Troop Withdrawal

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had been warning for weeks that Dec. 13 was “not holy.”

Now that the deadline for the start of Israeli withdrawals from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho has-come and gone, the Rabin government is anxiously assuring itself and others that the peace process is not in the throes of a major crisis.

“There are no more holy dates,” the prime minister declared Sunday, hours after his eve-of-deadline summit in Cairo with Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat.

Arafat had referred to the date for the beginning of Israeli troop withdrawals as “sacred.”

Rabin also said that the 10-day reassessment period the two leaders gave themselves before they would meet again in the Egyptian capital was not holy.

“It might be nine days and it might be 11,” he said, showing that he knows how to play diplomatic brinksmanship with the best of them.

Despite the stiff upper lip and the word play, the two sides’ failure to meet their first rendezvous along the road to peace has naturally introduced an element of concern and uncertainty into Middle East peacemaking.

Sunday’s 10-day postponement represented the first serious setback to the self-rule accord since Rabin and Arafat’s historic handshake on the lawn of the White House on Sept. 13.

Although Israeli and PLO officials are attempting to dismiss the postponement as being of minor importance, the delay will inevitably provoke further tension and more danger on the ground.

It will give additional opportunities for the rejectionists on both sides to erode public support for the accord.

The Israel Defense Force and other Israeli security forces, at the highest state of alert following Sunday’s downturn in Cairo, were poised like a coiled spring throughout the territories as they waited for the next act of terrorism.

Among Israeli rejectionists, the post-Dec. 13 respite is being used by the hard-line right to intensify its public campaign against the government and its peace policy.

A groundbreaking ceremony for the new town of Modi’in on Tuesday turned into a near-riot as demonstrators heckled the prime minister with cries of “Traitor, traitor” and got into a shoving match with his guards.

Modi’in, inside Israel proper and being touted as a bargain in living costs, appears meant to attract people who might otherwise gravitate to the West Bank for affordable housing.

Meanwhile, the Likud has called on Rabin to “recognize the mistake — and turn back while there is still time.”

The Likud was presumably talking about Israel’s self-rule accord with the PLO and not the cornerstone-laying at Modi’in.

In a related event, Knesset members from the National Religious Party held a weeklong protest vigil outside Rabin’s office, and members of the right-wing Tsomet party vowed to boycott Knesset plenary sessions until the prime minister admits the patent failure of his peace policy.

WIDE GAPS BETWEEN ISRAEL AND PLO

But Rabin was not about to change his course.

In a Cabinet session Monday, during which Rabin briefed his ministers on the summit with Arafat, he spoke firmly of his determination not to back down on the issues of security that have led to the stalemated negotiations with the PLO.

To Rabin, Israeli control of the border crossings between Jericho and Jordan and between Gaza and Egypt — one of the issues that led to the deadlock — would not be compromised.

Rabin maintained that the border issue represented the very embodiment of “external security” matters dealt with in explicit terms in the self-rule accord.

He also said that control over the borders should therefore remain in Israel’s hands for the duration of the five-year interim period.

As for the size of the Jericho area to fall under Palestinian authority — another key sticking point in the present impasse — Rabin seemed to indicate some possible flexibility on his part.

This could mean he would allow his negotiators to hand over more land than the 18 square miles they were previously offering.

But he made it clear he would not agree to Arafat’s sweeping demand that the Jericho district comprise an area of some 133 square miles.

Rabin told his Cabinet that he had been surprised by the breadth of the gaps between himself and the PLO chairman.

After all the months of secret negotiations in Oslo, Norway, that led to the accord, and after all the official talks in the wake of the Washington handshake, the two sides are still far apart on key issues.

Arafat, according to Israeli sources, argued that the border crossing points are a matter of national pride for the Palestinians.

Arafat said that Israel, which possesses the lands in question, holds all the cards. It is Israel, therefore, that must make the concessions.

The setback in Cairo has predictably set nasty tongues wagging in government circles.

Foreign Ministry officials said off the record that they could have handled the talks better than Rabin’s delegation. They said advance diplomacy should ensure successful summit meetings.

It is better, their reasoning goes, to find some pretext to cancel a summit than to let it go ahead without firm prior assurance of its success.

Rabin’s international political reputation, not brilliant before Dec. 13, has hardly been improved by the latest turn of events. Nor will the two leaders be able to strengthen their respective positions by arguing between themselves — as they did in Cairo — over which of them is in a deeper political hole.

Essentially, they are in the same hole, and their only escape is to climb out together.