0110
A Distant Topic
I

For most Israelis,
the daily grind
takes precedence
over the peace
talks.

LARRY DERFNER

ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT

sraelis see the same
thing on the TV news
night after night. It's
become a joke already:
Arab and Israeli negotia-
tors in Washington get out
of their limousines, stop at
the microphone for a few
words, then wave to the
cameras on their way
inside to talk with each
other some more.
A year-and-a-half of
this, nine rounds, with
results so hard to decipher
that the slightest proce-
dural nudge forward is
called a breakthrough.
"I stopped thinking
about the day-to-day peace
process a long time ago,"
said Amos Pick of north
Tel Aviv. At 40, he is pub-
lisher of business maga-
zines. "Nothing happens;
it's like they're chewing
the same piece of gum over
and over. But the ultimate
results, what's going to
happen here - this I do
think about."
Israelis are too busy
with their personal lives to
care whether Tuesday was
a day for "cautious opti-
mism," or if Wednesday
was a day for "grave con-
cern" — that's the diplo-
mats' business. There are
those citizens, however,
who are obsessed by the
talks - the settlers of the
West Bank, Gaza and the
Golan Heights, who fear
they will lose their actual
homes in this deal.
Along with their most
dedicated sympathizers,
they demonstrate, and a
few even go on hunger
strikes. They have the
loudest voices in the
Israeli vox populi, but they
do not have the biggest
numbers.
"Over 50 percent of the
Israeli people are willing
to trade some of the terri-
tories for peace. This level
has been very stable for a
number of years now," said
Dr. Mina Tsemach, Israel's
leading public opinion poll-
ster.
It seems that their
increasing concern with
their own personal lives,
their fatigue over the end-
lessness of their conflict
with the Arabs, and their
fear of the consequences of
another war have driven a
majority of Israelis to the
conclusion Dr. Tsemach
speaks of.
"There's no peace with-
out giving up territory,"
said Uri Zafrani, 32, who

Warren Christopher presides over a session of Mideast peace talks.

owns a grocery store owner
in south Tel Aviv. "That's
the way it was with Egypt.
This peace process is going
to go in one of two direc-
tions: either Israel is going
to give up territory and
come to an agreement —
and then we'll have to see
what happens — or there's
going to be a big war."
Mr. Zafrani is one of the
•many Sephardim who
switched to Labor in the
last election after a life-
time of voting Likud. But
this is not to say that the
Israeli majority in favor of
territorial compromise is
sanguine about the whole
affair. There are a million
questions, a million
doubts: How much to give
up?
Can the Arabs be trust-
ed not to try for more?
What are the consequences
of uprooting tens of thou-
sands of settlers from their
homes?
Even if the peace process
is hardly a topic of casual
conversation among
Israelis, these anxieties
are there under the sur-
face. Even among many of
those who, in the right
conditions, might be will-
ing to give up land, there
is skepticism about the
terms of the deal: an Arab
promise of peace in return
for real Israeli lands which
real Israelis call home.
"I work like a dog, and
for the last two weeks I
haven't had time to read a

newspaper and I hardly
watch the news on TV. But
the peace talks worry me,"
said Amir Kafri, 51, a
farmer in the Galilee. "I
don't know which way
we're going. No doubt that
if we give up part of the
Golan, some of the settlers
are going to have to leave,
and that hurts me." He
said he feel less strongly
about the settlers in Judea
and Samaria, "but that
hurts as well, to tear up
settlements that people

One businessman
says he doesn't
talk about
the peace
negotiations with
his colleagues;
it just doesn't
come up.

have built and risked their
lives for."
Mr. Kafri worries about
the end results. "Look at
the peace with Egypt," he
said. "If there's an Islamic
revolution there, where
will we be then?"
Distrust of the Arab
interlocutors at the peace
talks, and the people they
represent, runs deep. It
couldn't be any other way:
The killings in this country

have been going on too
long, and people carry
memories of anti-Semitism
from other countries,
either passed on from their
families or experienced
first-hand.
"For real peace, yes, I
would give up territory,
but we have to be sure,
and I don't know if we can
trust [Syrian president]
Assad or the Palestinians,"
said Bella Gulko, a 54-
year-old unemployed engi-
neer in Jerusalem who
emigrated from Moscow
four years ago.
She said she doesn't
think Israel's Arab neigh-
bors are ready to live in
peace. "I lived in the Soviet
Union for 50 years, and
Russians and Jews all
lived in the same land; I
went to school with them, I
worked in the same factory
with them, but they
always thought of the Jews
as the enemy, there was
always hatred towards us."
Sometimes even religion
won't help. "The Torah
says that if there's
chance to save the life of
even one Jew, you have to
sacrifice land," said
Pinchas Cohen, 35, a fish
seller in the Orthodox
neighborhood of Bnei
Brak. "But on the other
hand our enemies are very
cruel, and they will take
Jaffa and Ramlah and
Jerusalem if they have the
chance, and the Torah says

DISTANT page 56

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