This Week

Death Blow

Assads death may sound the end
of Israel's peace coalition.

DAVID LANDAU
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Jerusalem

T

0114

6/16
2000

20

he coincidence could
hardly have been lost
on Ehud Barak: As
President Hafez al-
Assad was laid to rest in Syria,
Israel's Shas Party appeared to
lay the premier's "peace coali-
tion" to rest.
The Orthodox party's
Council of Sages, headed by
spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia
Yosef, sounded what could be
the first notes of the prime min-
ister's coalition's death knell
Tuesday. The council ordered Shas ministers to
hand in their resignations at Sunday's Cabinet
meeting.
If Shas, which holds 17 of the Knesset's 120
seats, keeps to its decision, it would undo Barak's
68-52 majority in Parliament.
At midweek, it appeared that the shaky political
partnership between Shas and the secular Meretz
Party, Barak's other major coalition partner, was
going to collapse.
The prime minister never concealed his desire to
keep Shas inside his peace camp and somehow iron
out its differences with Meretz's leader,
Education Minister
Yossi Sarid, over the
funding of Shas' finan-
cially troubled school
network.
With Shas as his
largest coalition part-
ner, Barak had come
close to peace with
How do you think
Assad's Syria earlier
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this year.
President
Hafez
A sliver of land
al-Assad
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alongside the north-
Middle
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eastern shore of the Sea
peace talks?
of Galilee was all that
separated the two sides
Give your opinion on
JN Online at
in January, when talks
www.detroit
between the two coun-
jewishnews.com
tries ran aground.
Shas, despite mur-

murings among its rank-and-file
members, stood firmly beside
Barak during that period, as did
Meretz.
Another Orthodox coalition
partner, the Natiojnal Religious
Party, threatened to quit if a deal
was signed with Syria for Israel to
withdraw from the Golan Heights.
The Russian immigrant party
Yisrael Ba'Aliyah also showed
'signs of strain as Barak moved
toward sweeping land concessions
to Syria.
Together with his own One
Israel bloc, and with the Israeli
Arab parties' support from out-
side the coalition, Barak was con-
fident that he would win majorities in the Cabinet
and in the Knesset for the evolving land-for-peace
deal with Syria, and then successfully present it to
the Israeli people in a referendum.

Death Knell

But with Assad's death, the conventional wisdom is
that any prospects of reviving peace talks with Syria
have been dealt a severe blow. Assad's son and heir
apparent, Bashar, will need time to stabilize his gov-
ernment.
But the secession of Shas would be a blow of

Bottom left: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak,
center, looks across the table at Interior Minister
Natan Sharansky right,' and Labor Minister and
Shas leader Eli Ishai during an Israeli Cabinet
meeting in Jerusalem June 11.

equally heavy, if not heavier, weight to the peace
process — both with Syria and the Palestinians.
Granted, Barak may possibly cobble together an
alternative government and scrape by in Knesset
votes, at least for the immediate future, with the
help of the 10 Israeli Arab legislators.
But if all the Orthodox parties and their support-
ers line up against him — reconstituting, in effect,
former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-
ist-religious coalition — Barak's prospects of negoti-
ating a peace accord with either Syria or the
Palestinians, and making it stick, will be enormous-
ly diminished.
For one thing, many Israeli settlers on the West
Bank and the Golan are Orthodox. Their homes
and futures are on the line. They will be much
more resistant to peace if they know that the entire
Orthodox camp is united in opposition to Barak.
A government without Shas would have difficul-
ty winning a convincing majority in the referendum
Barak has pledged to hold before finalizing any
land-for-peace deal.
Knowing this, Israel's partners in peace talks will
be all the more cautious about "wasting" their core
concessions to a government that does not have the
internal strength to capitalize on them. ❑

Left: Hundreds of Druse Arabs
withoutermission to enter Syria
of late Syrian
for the
President Hafez Assad shout "with
our spirit and our blood we shall
redeem the Golan" as one waves
a picture of the late president
near the Quneitra, Israel crossincr
between the Israeli annexed Goan
Heights and Syria, June 12.
A delegation of about 100 Druse
Arabs who had permission from
Israel to attend the funeral were
turned back on the Syrian side
of the frontier Monday. Syria said
it would allow 59 people to enter,
so the leaders of the delegation
decided the entire group would
return to Israel.

