Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s nearly unqualified acceptance of U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s five-point proposal for an Israeli-Palestinian dialogue has clearly enraged the hard-line faction in his Likud bloc.
But it has also given political pundits here a feast of speculation.
The question being asked is why Shamir, who prides himself on his leathery toughness, backed off from a position to which he had held firmly during weeks of long-distance jousting with the Bush administration.
The answers offered range from a desire to keep the Likud-led coalition government intact awhile longer to a notion that the Palestinians themselves can be counted on to wreck the process, thereby getting Israel off the hook.
The Inner Cabinet’s 9-3 vote Sunday to accept the Baker plan was indeed a retreat by Shamir, given the importance diplomacy attaches to the nuance of language.
Israel’s acceptance was made contingent “on the understanding” that the United States would soon provide assurances that it will rule out any Israeli negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization.
It was understood there would be U.S. assurances on other Israeli concerns. But an “understanding” was not what Shamir had fought for this past month.
He had insisted until last week that Israel’s acceptance of Baker’s five points would be “conditional” on certain U.S. undertakings.
FEARED BREAKUP OF GOVERNMENT
In the world of diplomacy, there is a vast difference between the two. As Vice Premier Shimon Peres, Shamir’s Labor coalition partner pointed out, setting conditions would have been tantamount to rejection of the American proposal.
Labor was perfectly content to accept Baker’s points without amendment. A Likud rejection could have precipitated a potentially fatal government crisis.
According to the political analysts, that was one factor behind Shamir’s decision.
The prime minister and his aides, they say, were genuinely worried that Peres would be able to put together a narrowly based, Labor-led governing coalition with some of the ultra-Orthodox parties.
Likud was seeking the same hedge against collapse of the unity government. But its talks with the Agudat Yisrael party were going badly.
Agudah is at the point of seceding from the coalition unless its demands for concessions in the religious sphere are met. Should it defect, its five Knesset votes would be available to support a no-confidence motion against the present government and join a narrow government under Labor.
Another religious faction, Degel HaTorah, is considered firmly in Labor’s camp, and Likud fears the Shas party might jump on the Labor bandwagon if other ultra-Orthodox parties did.
Another possible motive for Shamir’s decision was that he and his close associates — Foreign Minister Moshe Arens among others — had concluded that a showdown with Likud’s hard-line dissenters is unavoidable.
It is widely admitted in the Shamir-Arens camp that the prime minister made a grave mistake at the July 5 meeting of Likud’s Central Committee, when he yielded to hard-line demands that he attach rigid conditions to his initiative for Palestinian elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
IMPACT OF U.S. PRESSURE
They placed constraints on Israel’s peacemaking ability, weakened Shamir’s political clout and strengthened the hands of his chief rivals: Ariel Sharon, David Levy and Yitzhak Moda’i.
The three say Shamir’s pledges of last July have been “flagrantly breached,” and they vow vengeance.
Shamir believes he and the party faithful can face down his detractors in his own good time.
U.S. pressure was another possible factor. According to the pundits, it was becoming increasingly insistent and discomfiting.
Shamir and his aides realized, perhaps belatedly, that Baker and President Bush had taken his elections initiative more seriously than, perhaps, some of Israel’s policy-makers themselves did.
At any rate, the U.S. administration invested a good deal of effort and prestige in the proposal, which the Israeli Cabinet endorsed last May 14. They were therefore irritated that Israel’s recalcitrance might bring their efforts to naught.
After mighty efforts to secure the best possible wording from his viewpoint, Shamir gave in to American pressure. According to this theory, he sensed that Israel’s position would not be especially strong in an all-out confrontation with Washington at this time.
Analysts say he probably calculates he can make his stand against the PLO’s involvement in the peace process somewhat farther down the road.
Therefore he prefers to go along with Baker now, keeping Israel’s guard up against substantive encroachments on its basic positions later, so the speculation goes.
ARABS MAY BALK YET
Finally, according to some analysts, the prime minister believes, and even hopes, that the Arab side will balk and bring the whole risky enterprise to a halt.
Some in Likud are convinced that the “assumptions” around which the Inner Cabinet hedged its acceptance of the Baker plan are enough to deter the PLO from giving its tacit assent to a dialogue with Israel and to the proposed elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The flaw in that thinking is that the Palestinians and Egyptians are demanding their own “assurances” from the United States to counterbalance what Washington gives Israel.
Within the realm of what former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger often referred to as “constructive ambiguity,” there may yet be room for an Israeli-Palestinian dialogue.
But if that does take place, Israeli observers are unanimous in predicting that a crisis will erupt when the talks open, and it may pervade them for the duration.
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