With the myriad disputes and differences of interpretation finally whittled away in laborious negotiations, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization embarked this week on a new phase of their historic peace process.
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat signed a final agreement in Cairo on Wednesday to inaugurate an era of self-government for close to 900,000 Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho.
The actual areas are tiny, but the significance of this accord is vast.
In the view of most observers — and despite official Israeli protestations to the contrary — implementation of the self-rule accord marks the first tangible step toward eventual Palestinian sovereignty over much, if not all, of the West Bank and Gaza.
For all the excitement the signing ceremony has already generated, the accord must be seen in a much broader context than that of the immediate security and administrative problems that implementation of Palestinian self-rule will entail.
Under the terms of the declaration of principles signed last fall in Washington, implementation of the accord triggers a five-year interim period of Palestinian self-rule.
Even if no further steps are taken to broaden Palestinian autonomy to the rest of the territories, the clock is ticking as of now: Israel and the PLO are committed to begin negotiating on the permanent status of the territories within two years at the latest.
They are also required by the terms of the declaration of principles to end the interim period in favor of a permanent Palestinian settlement within five years.
In historical terms, this "triggering" mechanism is perhaps the single most important aspect of this week’s signing ceremony.
VOICES RAISED FOR CUTTING 5-YEAR TERM
Voices have already been raised on both sides in favor of cutting short the five-year interim term and moving more swiftly toward permanent-status talks.
Those voices are likely to grow stronger once the "trigger" has taken effect and the two sides’ international legal commitment has entered upon its irreversible course.
Advocates of a quicker schedule argue that the rocky September-to-May experience that followed the signing ceremony in Washington does not augur well for the coming years — particularly if they are to be years of partial and interim arrangements and ongoing negotiations.
These arguments, however, will doubtless not be settled solely with reference to the Israel-PLO track, but rather in the context of the broader peace process.
In this context there was a special significance to U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher’s "mini-shuttle" between Jerusalem and Damascus this week in the days prior to Wednesday’s Israel-PLO signing.
The secretary proclaimed "a new, substantive" phase in the Israeli-Syrian negotiating track following his lengthy talks with Syrian President Hafez Assad and Rabin.
But the broader context of the peace process includes other, farther-flung countries as well — though by no means as intensely as it involves Israel and its immediate neighbors.
There was in this respect special importance to this week’s session in Qatar, an oil-rich Persian Gulf emirate that is host to the multilateral negotiations on regional arms control.
That session was a "first" not only in that the official Israeli delegation — led by Gen. David Ivri, director-general of the Defense Ministry — was warmly welcomed in Qatar.
It was just as novel, and hardly less significant, that Qatar allowed Israeli reporters and photographers to accompany the delegation and report back to a fascinated public.
Coming hard on the heels of multilateral water talks in Oman last month, the session in Qatar reinforces the trend toward Israel’s gradual acceptance in the region.
Meanwhile, Israel’s "enfant terrible," Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin, was reported Monday in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz as making another one of his controversial statements, this one in reference to the Arab boycott.
The boycott, said Beilin, is effectively dead — a point that perhaps needs little defense, since Israel’s exports to the Arab world are close to $1 billion annually.
Whether Beilin is guilty of over-optimism or not, there is no doubt that for the Israeli government the self-rule accord, coming as it does after many months of nerve-wracking frustrations, marks a new and buoyant point of departure.
"The future looks good," Environment Minister Yossi Sarid, one of the five Israeli ministers accompanying Rabin to the Cairo signing ceremony, said Monday.
FORCIBLE OCCUPATION ‘COSTS BLOOD’
Rabin, less given to declaratory bombast, put his position in more somber terms to his Labor Knesset faction Monday.
Forcibly occupying an alien people "costs blood," the premier said, referring to the Palestinian issue.
"I know only too well the dangers of diplomatic stagnation," he said, referring to the talks with Syria. Such stagnation, Rabin warned, could lead to the evolution of a hostile axis linking Damascus to Teheran and Baghdad.
Those possibilities aside, the immediate next worry is the takeover itself of Palestinian authority in Gaza and Jericho.
The IDF has undertaken to complete its withdrawal within 10 days of the signing in Cairo. But a terrorist attack on an IDF patrol near Rafah in Gaza on Monday that left two men badly wounded was a searing reminder of the dangers still facing Israeli troops from rejectionist forces within the Palestinian community.
After the withdrawal, any such attacks from Gaza and Jericho will severely weaken Israeli public support — waning and fragile already — for the peace process.
The PLO has argued that it cannot curb terrorists until it takes direct control of its areas of self-government. This is about to be tested.
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