This Week

When talks with
Syria went sour,
Barak moved
seamlessly to
Arafat.

Two Tracks
Of Peace

.1

DAVID LANDAU

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Jerusalem
sraeli Prime Minister Ehud
Barak did not waste any time
bemoaning Syria's decision to.,.
postpone indefinitely the next
round of peace talks.
Instead, within hours of formally
.acknowledging the postponement,
Barak and Foreign Minister David
Levy met Monday with Palestinian
Authority President Yasser Arafat and
his top deputies for a four-hour meet-
ing.
Little of substance was divulged
from this meeting, beyond the infor-
mation that it had been held in a cor-
dial atmosphere and that, in the words
of an Israeli source, the spirit of mutu-
al confidence between the two leaders
had been enhanced.
The immediate interpretation put
on the Barak-Arafat meeting by Israeli
and Arab commentators was that
Barak was "playing off" the
Palestinians against the Syrians.
Arafat has in recent weeks called on
Israel not to forget the Palestinian
track as Barak renews negotiations
with Syria — and Arafat was expected
to reiterate the theme at a meeting this
week in Washington with President
Bill Clinton.
Barak has already lost some of his
credit with Arafat after announcing
earlier this week that Israel would
postpone a redeployment from an
additional 6.1 percent of the West
Bank, a move originally slated to take
place this week.
Lending credence to the playing-off
theory is the fact that after Syria deliv-
ered Barak an ultimatum — either
commit in advance to a full Israeli
withdrawal from the Golan Heights or
Syria would not turn up for this
week's round of high-level talks — •
Barak instantly tried to outflank Syria.
Beaming with confidence, he told
reporters Monday night that Syria
should "take all the time it needs"

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before returning to the conference
table.
By Tuesday morning, Barak's aides
were reporting a long and pleasant
meeting with the Palestinians.
Barak has consistently denied any
desire or intention to play the
Palestinian and Syrian negotiating
tracks against each other.
On the contrary, Barak claims, he is
trying to meet all the deadlines he set
for himself at the start of his tenure.
He seeks a framework agreement with
the Palestinians by mid-February; a
withdrawal from southern Lebanon by
July; a full peace agreement with Syria
in the summer; and a peace agreement
with the Palestinians by September.
As the end of January looms, the
mid-February date seems unattainable.
Indeed, most Israeli observers
assume that Barak and Arafat spent at
least part of their Monday evening
meeting discussing ways of extending
the deadline without allowing the
Israeli-Palestinian peace process to lose
momentum.
But Barak's team insists that,

despite minor juggling with the calen-
dar, the broad strategy is still on tar-
get.
They also maintain that the Syrian
postponement is no more than a tacti-
cal delay. The talks, they predict, will
resume very soon.
They point to the fact that Syria, as
well as Israel, agreed to send lower-
level experts to Washington in the
coming days in an effort to keep the
peace process moving forward.
Barak's aides also point to the draft
of an evolving peace treaty between
Israel and Syria, leaked in the Israeli
daily Ha'aretz last week, as evidence of
the solid progress that has been made.
The draft, while registering diver-
gent Israeli and Syrian positions on
several key issues, represents a great
deal of progress that had not been
reflected in the public sparring
between Jerusalem and Damascus, or
by the coldness radiated by Syrian
Foreign Minister Farouk Sharaa dur-
ing the first two rounds of the talks.
At the same time, the draft disclo-
sure may have led to the Syrian post-

Israeli tourists look
toward Syria from atop
bunkers at Mt. Bental in
the Golan Heights, which
has posted signs indicating
the close proximity
of Damascus to the
Israeli towns of Haifa
and Tiberias.

ponement. While the draft showed
that Israel had gained several impor-
tant concessions during the negotia-
tions, including a Syrian willingness to
create full diplomatic relations and
open their borders to trade, it did not
indicate that Syria had won in return
any concessions — particularly an
Israeli commitment to withdraw from
the Golan.
According to several reports, the
leak embarrassed and irritated the
Syrians, and prompted their latest
demand that Israeli commit to a full
withdrawal from the Golan as a pre-
condition for resuming the Barak-
Sharaa negotiations.
On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright called the leak
"unhelpful," but declined to say who
might be responsible.
Meanwhile, Barak's aides are claim-
ing that any difficulties that erupt
with the Palestinians will not ultimate-
ly provoke a crisis, but rather will spur
both sides to keep the peace process
on track.
Arafat may grumble, they say, but

