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February and a full accord by Sept.
13, 2000.
Even such prominent peaceniks as
Justice Minister Yossi Beilin and
Public Security Minister Shlomo Ben-
Ami have been saying that the
timetable is too tight.
More hawkish ministers have said
openly they do not believe nor expect
that these targets can be met and they
anticipate a return to "partial" or
"step-by-step" peacemaking in which
the toughest problems are deferred
rather than confronted.
Barak himself has been consistently
circumspect on this key question of
whether, at last, Israel is preparing to
dive into the most intractable final-
status issues — Jerusalem, Jewish set-
tlements, Palestinian refugees, final
borders — or whether he, too, intends
to parlay the permanent-status talks
into another open-ended series of
non-permanent arrangements.
On the one hand, Barak's own elec-
tion campaign pledges held out the
promise of a permanent settlement,
"without loose ends," as he put it, that
could become unraveled later and
cause renewed conflict.
Barak spoke repeatedly of the need
to end a century-long conflict between
the two nations.
He spoke — and still speaks — of
separation" between them, which is
obvious shorthand for an independent
Palestinian state living, presumably
demilitarized, alongside Israel.
Yet officials in his entourage have
recently seen fit to add their voices to
those in government airing the "inter-
im" option in which the "permanent-
status" talks give way to new interim
agreements, with some core conflict
issues postponed once again.
The unannounced meeting with
Arafat may well have been Barak's way
of signaling, to the skeptics in his own
camp as much as to his political oppo-
nents at home and his negotiating
partners abroad, that his original, bold
strategy to reach a full peace with the
Palestinians is still his policy.
Plainly, the only way to cut
through the daunting core issues is by
direct and personal negotiations at the
top.
U.S. officials have raised the idea of
a new Camp David-like retreat in
February to clinch a framework agree-
ment.
But Barak showed by his invitation
to Arafat that he wants top-level dis-
cussions on an ongoing basis and avail-
able more easily and more frequently
than Washington has in mind. fl

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9/24
1999

Detroit Jewish News

33