This Week

Wearing Thin

Ehud Barak, once 'everybody's prime
minister,' is increasingly alone.

ERIC SILVER
Israel Correspondent

Jerusalem

E

hud Barak is going for
broke on the Golan
Heights. Israel's prime
minister wants peace
with Syria. He is prepared to pay a
heavy price. He seems to believe
that a deal is imminent.
The trouble is that no one —
not Syrian President Hafez Assad,
not the Lebanese, not the resurgent
Hamas suicide bombers, not his
own coalition partners, and cer-
tainly not the parliamentary oppo-
sition — is making it easy for him.
Two weeks ago, Barak "remind-
ed" his cabinet that four previous
prime ministers — Yitzhak
Shamir, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon
Peres and Binyamin Netanyahu
— had been ready, following the
1991 Madrid conference, to with-
draw to the line of June 4, 1967, in
return for full peace with Damascus.
Shamir and Netanyahu instantly denied it, the
former more convincingly than the latter. But what
mattered was what Barak was signaling to Assad:
The present Israeli leader is in earnest about full
withdrawal. If Syria shows flexibility on security
arrangements and normalization, a deal is on.
Similarly, a few days later, after the Knesset voted
to weight the promised referendum against a
Golan evacuation, Barak reasserted his deter-
mination to soldier on. "No parliamentary
trick will be able to stop the will of the peo-
ple," he said, recalling that he had been elect-
ed less than a year ago with a clear mandate to bring
security and peace. For Israelis, that seemed to beg a.
lot of questions, but the target once again was Assad.
Even in persuading his cabinet, by a rare unani-
mous vote, to endorse withdrawal from Lebanon by
July, Barak stressed last weekend that he would much
rather "bring the boys home" by agreement than uni-
laterally. At the same time, however, he was caution-
ing Assad that he would not allow Israeli soldiers to
remain in southern Lebanon as Syria's hostages. If no
alternative presented itself in the next few weeks,
unilateral withdrawal it would have to be.
The Syrian president's nightmare is that Israel will
get out of Lebanon, but stay forever on the Golan.
Barak was saying it doesn't have to be like that.
Lebanon can be a card to be played, but not an arm
to be twisted. Poker yes, blackmail no.
Neither public opinion nor his own election
pledge would allow the loss of life to drag on indefi-

Terrorist Cell: Israeli soldiers killed four terrorists
at an explosive-laden hideout in Taibeh.

nitely at the whim of Syria and Iran, which are
shipping the arms the Hezbollah guerrillas
need to keep on fighting.
According to well-informed reports, most of
the details of a Golan pact have been worked out
in discrete contacts between military and other
specialist teams, though they have still to agree
on the new border and on an Israeli early-warn-
ing presence on Mount Hermon, which
overlooks the plain of Damascus. The
June 4 line — reflecting the boundaries at
the time of the 1967 war — does not
appear on any official map.
Barak is not committing Israel to with-
draw to the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee
(which would extend Syrian sovereignty half-
way across the lake). Not yet, anyway.
What is needed now is the political will —
and a change in the signals coming back from
the Syrian capital. Assad has been lectured
often enough that he has to convince the
Israeli street that peace really does mean peace.
For all his bravado, Barak will not win a refer-
endum if Syrian ministers and the govern-
ment-controlled media go on calling Israelis
"Nazis" and projecting a peace treaty as a stage
on the way to driving the Jews into the sea.
Now it's time for Assad to decide.
The odds against a "yes" vote are stacking
up. Three coalition parties — Shas, the
National Religious and Nathan Sharansky's
Yisrael B'aliya — gave the Likud a preliminary

Related Editorial: page 37

majority for an opposition bill requiring a tally of
more than 50 percent of the total eligible voters for
a referendum to pass. Political scientists estimate
that 62.5 percent of those actually voting would
have to back a Golan deal for it to go through.
This is because thousands of Israelis living abroad
still have the vote. Since Israel does not have an
absentee ballot, most of them would simply not regis-
ter an opinion. Nor would the estimated 8,000 likely
to die in the three months before referendum day
who would remain on the voting list. Coincidentally,
the difference between a straight 51 percent majority
and the proposed 62.5 percent would exactly neutral-
ize the Arab vote, which is expected to be overwhelm-
ingly in favor of an agreement.
The bill's Likud sponsor, Silvan Shalom, denies any
racist intent, but his backers talk openly about the need
for a "Jewish" majority, as if Israel's 20 percent Arab
minority has no interest in war, peace and relations with
the neighbors. The right's aim is to prevent a withdraw-
al from the Golan, conquered by Moshe Dayan in 1967
and annexed by Menachem Begin in 1981.
The legislative initiative may yet backfire. If the
Barak loyalists have their way, it will be stuck indefi-
nitely in committee. But it could spur Hafez Assad to
make up his mind. If, that is, the ailing Syrian presi-
dent is still in control — and if he truly wants to
make a credible peace with the "Zionist enemy." ❑

Alert For Terror Attacks

JerusalemIJTA
Israel's prime minister says the public should stay alert
because Islamic militants opposed to the peace process
may try to carry out terrorist
- attacks in the coming
months.
Ehud Barak's remarks before the cabinet on Sunday
came as Israeli security forces went on heightened alert
for possible attacks in central Israel after four
Palestinian terrorists were killed and another appre-
hended in a shootout last week.
The head of the Palestinian security forces in the
West Bank, Jibril Rajoub, said the Palestinian
Authority would•do its part to 1144rt any attacks —
e to uphold his
despite what he termed Barak 's'
overnment.
end of the agreeMents with the
asis to
"We should not exaggerate,
the warnings. There are certain
stop the process by killing innocent people
t(-)1d Israel Radio.
Four terrorists were killed and anot
in a day-long siege by Israeli security for
the building in the northern Israeli Arab vi
that the cell had chosen as a base for att<1
At least one of the cell members was
arrived in Israel on forged documen.,
route between the Gala Strip and WestWiiiiiks
Palestinian security forces were conducting
with possible links to the cell.
Police t-oadblocks hindered e4m.mu
Sunday morning around Tel
areas. Security was also steppe
shopping centers. ❑

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3/10
2000

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