In Review

The Peace Talks
Become A Reality

In fits and starts, the Madrid conference
has given way to the slow grind
of negotiations.

Of 5752

sidered a shoo-in in November faces an uphill battle,
primarily because the economic recession that finan-
cial experts said would soon end, hasn't.
In all, a typically tumultuous 12 months for the Jewish
people. Following are sketches of the 10 most important
Jewish news stories of the past year:

GARY ROSENBLATT

Editor

erhaps the greatest mira-
cle of the Arab-Israeli
peace talks is that, though
not quite a year old, they
seem quite ordinary. Re-
ports of the talks do not al-
ways make front page
news as observers have come to under-
stand that progress,' if it happens at all,
takes place far from the glare of televi-
sion lights.
But it was not so at the beginning.
Last October, after eight months of in-
tricate negotiations and arm twisting
by Secretary of State James Baker,
when Israel and its Arab enemies sat
down face to face in direct negotiations
for the first time since the Jewish state
was founded in 1948, the world media
was there in Madrid to record every end-
less speech.
There were problems and conflicts ev-
ery step of the way, including the for-
mat and site of the historic talks. The
fact that the peace talks came about at
all said more about the clout of the Unit-
ed States, now the world's only super-
power, than the, willingness of the
participants to negotiate. No one want-
ed to say yes, but no one could afford
to say no.
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak
Shamir held out until it was agreed that
the talks would be direct and that the
Palestinians would be represented by a
joint delegation with Jordan, but the Is-
raelis made it clear that they felt pres-
sured by the U.S.
The talks took place on two levels,
with bilateral and multilateral negoti-
ations on a number of fronts, over a pe-
riod of months, in Madrid, Moscow and,
most often, Washington.

The early belief was that progress was
most likely on the Palestinian front, now
that Hanan Ashrawi and her fellow ne-
gotiators had come to realize that the
talks represented a real opportunity for
Palestinian progress. It was also thought
that the Syrian-Israeli talks would be
the least productive, since Syrian Pres-
ident Assad was demanding total Israeli
withdrawal from the Golan Heights and
Prime Minister Shamir pledged not to
give in an inch.
But nothing is certain in the Mideast,
and the election of Yitzhak Rabin in
June changed the equation. Within a
period of weeks this summer, Israel
turned the tables on the Arabs who had
complained all year that Jerusalem was
stalling and not serious about the ne-
gotiations.
At year's end, the Palestinians were
slow to respond to Mr. Rabin's chal-
lenges, boxed in by those who demand-
ed statehood, opposing others who
would settle for autonomy. But negoti-
ations with Syria were moving forward
more rapidly than anyone had imagined
after Mr. Rabin, to the concern of many
back home, said that the formula of ter-
ritory-for-peace applied to the Golan as
well.
That is not to say that peace is at
hand. But already the negotiations have
shattered a number of Mideast myths.
One is that Israel has no one to talk to
on the Arab side. Another is that Yas-
sir Arafat must be the central figure in
the Palestinian delegation. Whether or
not the final myth — that the Arabs will
never make a real peace with Israel —
will also vanish, remains to be seen in
the weeks and months ahead.

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