BACKGROUND
As Cairo Plays Its Card,
Peace Process Looks Better
HELEN DAVIS
Foreign Correspondent
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Dr. M. Gottesman
Dr. M. Weishaus
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36
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1989
hile Israeli Finance
Minister Shimon
Peres and Foreign
Minister Moshe Arens were
strutting their stuff in the
United States, a potentially
historic step toward peace
was being taken a lot closer
to home. .
With Israel's national uni-
ty government once again
gripped by deadlock and cri-
sis, entangled in a web of
personal ' and ideological ri-
valry, Defense Minister Yit-
Zhak Rabin flew to Cairo
Monday in a bold attempt to
break the impasse and get
the peace process back on
track.
The focus of his attention
was a 10-point plan, au-
thored by Egyptian Presi-
dent Hosni Mubarak, which
lays out a formula for elec-
tions — proposed by Israeli
Prime Minister Yitzhak
Shamir five months ago —
among Palestinians in the
occupied West Bank and
Gaza Strip.
The original - 10 points
were presented to a group of
visiting U.S. congressmen
by the Egyptian leader in
Cairo on July 3, and last
Friday a revised version was
formally handed to the Is-
raeli government by Egyp-
tia.n Ambassador Mohamm-
ed Bassiouny.
The revised plan failed to
win the unanimous support
of four key ministers in the
national unity government,
but senior political sources
said in Jerusalem at the
weekend that Rabin's jour-
ney to Cairo might neverthe-
less be the prelude to the
first official, substantial ne-
gotiations between Israel
and the Palestinians aimed
at securing a settlement of
the conflict.
The sense of anticipation
was heightened by the Egyp-
tian ambassador, who pre-
dicted that "exploratory
talks" could start in Cairo
early next month. He also
held out the prospect of a
summit meeting between
Mubarak and Shamir, which
the Egyptian leader has
spurned over the past eight
years.
A key role in the activity
has been played by Swedish
Foreign Minister Sten
Andersson, who was respon-
sible for engineering the
rapprochement between
Washington and the Pales-
Yitzhak Rabin: Part of the glue. -
tine Liberation Organiza-
tion following Yassir Arafat
appearance at a special ses-
sion of the United Nations
General Assembly in
Geneva in December.
Last weekend, Andersson
met in Cairo with Egyptian
and PLO leaders in a bid to
narrow the gap between
them and persuade Arafat to
accept the Mubarak formula
for elections.
Andersson, whose current
efforts are understood to
have been endorsed by both
the United States and the
Soviet Union, told the Jor-
danian daily Al-Rai: "I can-
not reveal all the cards now,
but if we succeed there will
be a new phase of peace ef-
forts in the fall."
Then he added a barb that
was directed as much at Is-
rael as at the PLO: "We are
at a crucial stage now. - If
there is no real progress to-
ward peace, the situation is
going to get much worse."
Following his meetings
with Mubarak and Arafat,
however, Andersson sound-
ed a more upbeat note.
While acknowledging that
the balance of negotiations
was at a very sensitive
stage, he told a press confer-
ence: "I judge the situation
— and the future — to be
much more hopeful than,
say, two weeks ago."
The Mubarak plan calls for
elections in the territories
following Israeli acceptance
of the principle of territorial
concessions and a halt to
fresh Jewish settlements in
the West bank and Gaza
Strip. It also calls for the
participation of East Jerusa-
lem Arabs in the elections,
the withdrawal of Israeli
troops from Palestinian pop-
ulation centers and some
form of linkage between the
elections and a final settle-
ment.
However, the heart of the
Mubarak initiative is an of-
fer to host face-to-face nego-
tiations in Cairo between Is-
raelis and a delegation of
Palestinians from both in-
side and outside the occupied
territories.
While there is profound
disquiet in Israel, particu-.
larly within the Likud bloc
of the national unity gov-
ernment, over most of the 10
points in the Mubarak plan,
one of the major bones of
contention concerns the
identity of Palestinian rep-
resentatives who might at-
tend such a preliminary
meeting.
The Egyptians are work-
ing hard to ameliorate Israe-
li' anxieties on this score by
offering to suggest names of
Palestinian interlocutors,
hinting broadly that these
would not be entirely objec-
tionable to Israel.
Beyond that, the Egyp-
tians have proposed a simple
Mubarak perceives
himself as being
the only realistic
mediator between
Israel and the
Palestinians.
expedient for overcoming Is-
raeli objections to the plan
itself: The Palestinians, they
say, could attend the talks
on the basis of Mubarak's 10
points, while the Israelis
could attend on the basis of
Shamir's initiative for elec-
tions in the territories.
The sudden burst of diplo-
matic activity has been
prompted by fears that Ara-
fat might be losing control of
the Palestinian uprising and
that there could be a sudden,
irreversible escalation of vi-
olence hi the occupied ter-
ritories as disenchanted
young Palestinians abandon
all hope of a diplomatic set-
tlement and turn increasing-
ly to uncompromising reli-
gious and political ex-
tremism.
The timing is also believed
to be dictated by Mubarak's
keynote speech to the United
Nations General Assembly
on Friday, Sept. 29, when he
hopes invite Israeli and Pal-
estinians formally to meet in
Cairo.
At the same time, the
Egyptian leader would like
to be perceived as the
peacemaker — the initiator
of the breakthrough in the