SPECIAL REPORT MIDEAST PEACE CONFERENCE Continued from preceding page The status of Jerusalem, and whether it will remain unified, is the most controversial and potentially explosive issue of all to be resolved. Israel To Syria: A Long Road To Peace Jerusalem trusts President Assad the least of all its Arab adversaries. HELEN DAVIS I Foreign Correspondent f peace between Israel and Egypt is described as "cold," relations between Damascus and Jerusalem are positively frigid. Israeli negotiators' are not em- barking on the peace process with any of the euphoria that marked the early stages of their engagement with the late President Anwar Sadat of Egypt in 1977. Last week, Syrian Foreign Minis- ter Farouk a-Shara declared he 28 FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1991 would not shake hands with his Is- raeli counterpart and this week, just hours after Israel's cabinet formally accepted the invitation to the Mid- dle East peace conference, a senior Israeli official launched a verbal broadside at Syria. Yossi Ben-Aharon, senior person- al aide to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and mooted leader of Isra- el's negotiating team in bilateral talks with Syria, accused Syrian President Hafez Assad of being "underhanded and vicious." Mr. Ben-Aharon had good reason for his outburst, which followed an incident in South Lebanon where three Israeli soldiers were killed When their armored personnel car- rier was blown up by a roadside bomb. The explosion occurred while the Israeli cabinet was engaged. in a heated seven-hour debate on wheth- it appears increasingly likely that the Palestinians will settle for the autonomy plan they rejected so ve- hemently 12 years ago, an indica- tion of their acute political and eco- nomic weakness in the aftermath of the Gulf War and the disintegration of their Soviet patron. The Camp David Accords provid- ed for a three-year period of auton- omy, to be followed by a two-year period of negotiations over the final status of the territories. It is likely that in exchange for this breathing space — and to se- cure its full quota of U.S. aid — the Israelis will, after all, agree to freeze its settlement activity. Having reached this stage, the exhausted parties will take what they can get and agree to disagree on that most intractable of all issues, Jerusalem, which will be- come .a subject for negotiations in the context of the final status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. According to Tzahi Hanegbi, Chief Whip of the ruling Likud bloc, the "main issue is where will the borders of Israel be when we achieve an agreement... and this is why the idea of autonomy was proposed. "We need years of coexistence be- fore we can trust those people be- cause they have tried over again to put an end to the existence of our country. We don't want to have an- ything to do with the final ar- rangements of our country at the moment. After three years, we will start negotiating that question." He also rejected any suggestion of an immediate halt to Jewish settle- ments: "If we freeze settlements now it will mean we are ready to give away those territories." The Israelis are keenly aware that they have more to lose than gain once they start dealing their negoti- ating cards, and there are strong hints that any further hardening of attitudes by the Bush administra- tion will reduce Israel's flexibility. "If the United States does not serve as an honelt broker, it will not only lose our confidence but it will not be able to convince us to make concessions," said Mr. Hanegbi, who insisted that Israel is "ready to make concessions" but not prepared "to commit suicide." ❑ er to accept the U.S.- Soviet invita- tion to the peace talks in Madrid, but it is not certain that President Assad was the appropriate target for Israel's wrath. The attack did not involve any obvious Syrian complicity and the pro-Iranian Hizbollah fundamental- ist movement claimed responsibility for the explosion in a statement which pledged that "the honorable strugglers will continue their holy war against Zionism." The Iranian regime is bitterly opposed to the peace process and this week hosted a meeting of the most radical and uncompromising elements in the Palestinian firma- ment, including Abu Nidal and Ahmed Jibril, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Pales- tine-General Command. Mr. Ben-Aharon, however, ig- nored the Iranian dimension and went straight for the Syrian jugular. He charged that Syria was respon- sible for "all terrorism in Lebanon" and said that when the two sides meet in Madrid, Israel will call Syria to account for the action of "all ter- rorist groups in Lebanon." For good measure, it will also raise the question of "Syria's takeover of Lebanon, the plight of Syrian Jews and Syrian involve- ment in drug-trafficking," which he claims is worth $2 billion a year. According to Mr. Ben-Aharon, these matters are "more important than the Golan Heights," which Is- rael conquered from Syria in the 1967 Six Day War and which will form the substance of negotiations between Israel and Syria in Madrid. Senior Israeli officials are re- ported to be concerned that Presi- dent Assad and PLO chairman Yassir Arafat have effected a recon- ciliation after an eight-year es- trangement and the Israelis are un- easy about Syrian attempts to or- ganize an Arab summit to coordi- nate negotiating strategies in ad- vance of the talks. ❑ Syrian President Hafez Assad, whom Israeli officials blame for Syria's role in terrorist attacks.