%Irearing

Once "everybody's prime
ministen" Ehud Barak
is increasingly alone.

Israelis still credit him with genuinely seeking peace
and with a readiness to pay a heavy price for it. But
Barak is starting to suffer from the Bibi syndrome.
0
The professional politicians, whom he treated with
a_. ill-concealed contempt when he was forming his
administration, are rubbing their hands. His junior
coalition parties are flexing their muscles. The heads
of three of them — Shas, the National Religious
Party and Natan Sharansky's Yisrael B'Aliya — have
signed a Likud draft bill that would block any com-
promise with the Palestinians over Jerusalem. So has
Roni Milo of the Center Party. Sharansky and the
NRP's Yitzhak Levy are also campaigning against
withdrawal from the Golan Heights.
At the beginning of this week, Shas backbenchers
voted against the prime minister on a Likud no-con-
fidence motion. Ostensibly, they were warning
Barak not to tamper with Israeli sovereignty in
Jerusalem. In fact, they were protesting because the
leftist Meretz education
minister, Yossi Sarid, has
Le • Israeli Prime
refused to give his Shas
Minister Ehud Barak
deputy minister, Meshulam
gestures while
Nahari, any work to do.
addressing a delegation
With an aura of success
from the Conference of
and the peace process mov-
Presidents of Major
ing forward, Barak could
American Jewish
stifle many of these chal-
Organizations Feb. 21.
lenges. His trouble is that
peace is floundering on
every front. The much-decorated ex-chief of staff set
targets and timetables for the Syrians, the
Palestinians and the Lebanese. He thought that if he
tempted them enough, they would let him write the
script. It hasn't worked that way. They have their
own agendas, and they are rigorously pursuing them.
Syrian President Hafez al-Assad is sticking to his
maximalist demand. Israel, he insists, must with-
draw not just from the Golan plateau, but to the
eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. And he is mak-
ing it daily more difficult for Barak to sell a deal to
the Israeli public — by forbidding his diplomats to
shake Israeli hands, by accusing Israel of behaving
like Nazis, by hinting that peace would be no more
than a staging post toward the ultimate Arab goal
of destroying the Zionist state.
For their part, the Palestinians are declining to
accept whatever slices of the West Bank Barak
deigns to give them under the delayed Oslo accords.
They want areas closer to Jerusalem. They want to
be consulted. They want to bargain. Otherwise, they
won't play ball — and the security services are
already warning of renewed Palestinian violence.
This week, Yasser Arafat publicly accused Barak of
being no better than Netanyahu. The Palestinian
leader is reported to have told Miguel Moratinos, the
European Union's roving Middle East troubleshoot-
er: "Barak tried and failed to assassinate me three

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ERIC SILVER

Israel Correspondent

N

ine months after Ehud Barak took office
as "everybody's prime minister," the hon-
eymoon is over — with his voters, with
his coalition allies and with his Arab part-
ners in the quest for peace. It is too early to write
him off, but the Labor leader can no longer rely on
loyalty or goodwill to see him through.
On the domestic front, he shows no sign of deliv-
ering to the neglected, mainly Sephardi, citizens in
the rundown "development" towns and city slums to
whom he promised jobs and a fair share of the
national cake. Unemployment is still running in
double figures in these backwaters. Firms are still
closing unprofitable textile factories. The old women
in overcrowded hospitals, a potent symbol in Barak's
election campaign, are still sleeping in the corridors.
To the dismay of Internal Security Minister
Shlomo Ben-Ami, who tried to persuade him to
reactivate Labor's social agenda, the prime minister
and the Treasury conservatives are relying on a
"peace dividend" to stimulate the economy. In the
best Reagan-Thatcher mode, they put their faith in
a "trickle-down" effect. The rich will get richer, the
poor will be a little less poor. But not yet.
Barak is not, as some of his detractors would have
us believe, a Bibi Netanyahu clone. For starters, most

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2/25
2000

24

Giving Ground?

JerusalemilTA
rime Minister Ehud Barak told U.S. Middle
East peace envoy Dennis Ross that he could
be "flexible" if that would restart the suspended
Israeli-Palestinian talks.
Barak said he is willing to reconsider Israeli
maps detailing the next withdrawal -from 6.1
percent of the West Bank. But at the same time
he made it dear that he would not include villages
near Jerusalem — a key Palesthnian demand.
Barak also suggested May as a new target date
for reaching agreement on a framework for a final
Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. The original dead-
line, Feb. 13, came and went with little progress
achieved on the host of difficult issues involved in
a final peace agreement, including the status of
Jerusalem, Jewish settlements, Palestinian refugees
and final borders.
But Palestinian spokesmen were quick to say
that his concessions were not nearly enough.
And the always reticent Ross seemed more
tight-lipped than ever after his meeting with the
premier. "There is a lot of work to be done,"
Ross said after a meeting with Israeli Foreign
Minister David Levy this week. 0

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