Bibi's Left Hand

ERIC SILVER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

Top adviser David

Bar-Illan has

created a storm of

controversy

by interrupting his

boss' evolving

vision.

David Bar-Illan: Soon to be "ex"?

THE DETROIT JEWIS H NEWS

Binyamin Netanyahu:
Embarrassed by friend.

W

n America, where he lived for 30 years, David
Bar-Illan, Prime Minister Binyamin Ne-
tanyahu's chief of planning and communi-
cations, is an ex-Israeli. In Israel, since his
return a decade ago, he is an ex-American. He
also is an ex-concert pianist and an ex-editor of
the Jerusalem Post.
But the question in Israel this week is
whether he will soon be an ex-aide to his old
friend Bibi.
The charge is that he talks too much and has
a mind of his own. He is a super-nationalist. As
a journalist, he was always a polemicist, rather
than a reporter or an analyst. The Arabs, espe-
cially the Palestinians, had not changed their
spots, he claimed. Their strategic aim was still
to kill Jews and uproot the Zionist state. The
left, too, had not evolved since Stalin. And the
media, locally and abroad, were a bunch of
craven, ill-informed "Israel bashers."
Over the last couple of months, he has em-
barrassed the prime minister when:
* A Jerusalem high-tech company owned by
the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch was accused
of massive tax evasion, Mr. Bar-Illan told a ra-
dio reporter that Mr. Murdoch would be "inca-

I

pable" of such a scam. It sounded like govern-
ment interference in the investigation, not least
because Mr. Murdoch had once helped finance
a Hebrew weekly magazine (long defunct) which
Mr. Bar-Illan launched before joining the
Jerusalem Post.
* The Zionist Organization of America de-
nounced the Anti-Defamation League for invit-
ing Tom Friedman to address a Los Angeles
fund-raiser, Mr. Bar-Illan demanded that the ADL
withdraw the invitation since theNew York Times
columnist was a notorious anti-Zionist. This time,
it sounded as if the spokesman for a foreign gov-
ernment was interfering in the right of Americans
to hear a critical voice.
* Recently, after President Bill Clinton con-
demned settlement expansion as an "obstacle
to peace," Mr. Bar-Illan accused him of "ver-
bal escalation" and "semantic posturing." The
White House and the State Department protest-
ed that this was no way for an official of a friend-
ly government to talk about the president of the
United States.
After each indiscretions, Mr. Bar-Illan was
forced to backtrack. To his credit, he didn't gener-
ally claim that he had been "quoted out of context."
But last weekend's episode was different. Mr.
Bar-Illan gave a remarkably frank interview to
the Jerusalem Post's diplomatic correspondent,
David Makovsky, in which he acquiesced, how-
ever conditionally, in the creation of a Pales-
tinian state.
It would have to be demilitarized and not free
to sign a military alliance with Iran or Iraq. The
bottom line: "I want a state, but I want it to be
limited here and there." Six months ago, the
same idea, whispered by Shimon Peres, was lit-
tle short of treason in the ears of Mr. Bar-Illan
and his current boss.

Further, asked now to define Mr. Netanyahu's
ideological position, Mr. Bar-Ban replied: "I think
in general he is not any longer [in favor of] a
whole-land-of-Israel movement. I don't think he
feels that there is any chance of the Land of Is-
rael remaining completely under the exclusive
rule of Israel."
The next day, Mr. Bar-Illan issued a state-
ment distancing Mr. Netanyahu from his aide's
"private opinion." The prime minister, he said,
had made his principles known on many occa-
sions. "These principles are: protecting a unit-
ed Jerusalem, standing for Israel's security, the
right of Jews to settle in every part of the Land
of Israel, a wide Palestinian autonomy which
will not endanger the State of Israel."
David Makovsky, the original Jerusalem Post
interviewer, noted that neither the prime min-
ister nor any member of the Likud publicly dis-
avowed Mr. Bar-Illan's remarks.
Mr. Bar-Illan's conversion is not the only
straw in the wind. National Infrastructure Min-
ister and Likud maverick Ariel Sharon is back-
ing the call for a national-unity government, or
at least Of a consensus of ideas, to negotiate a
final settlement with the Palestinians. Israel
needed to agree, he argued this week, on what
it was prepared to give up and what it would in-
sist on keeping. Mr. Sharon, the master settle-
ment-builder of the 1970s and 1980s, was
talking territory.
Further, an informal group of Likud and La-
bor leaders has been meeting regularly to thrash
out the terms of such a consensus. Likud
leaders, it seems, recognize that they cannot go
back. They are committed, however grudging-
ly; to completing the Oslo peace process.
But they feel they can only make the necessary
painful concessions with bipartisan support. ❑

