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Can a lame-duck
president bring
the Mideast
back from abyss?

DAVID LANDAU
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Jerusalem

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Above: A crowd of Palestinians gather outside the bombed building ofPalestinian
leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement in Ramallah on Oct. 31.

Inset: Passer Arafat flashes a V-sign to his supporters as he

arrives to the mourning of Palestinian "martyrs" in Gaza City on Nov. 5.

ow lame is a lame-duck
president? In their sepa-
rate meetings with
President Bill Clinton at
the White House this week and next,
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and
Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser
Arafat were about to find out.
The hope on both sides of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that a
new chapter can be written in
America's political science textbooks
— a chapter suggesting that the
widely believed weakness of an out-
going president is, in fact, a source
of strength.
Weakness, of course, is a characteris-
tic that all three leaders currently share.
Clinton is on his way out and the
attention of the world is fixed on his
successor. In terms of the Middle East,
Clinton's weakness stems from the ongo-
ing crisis in the West Bank and Gn7n
Strip, which has come close to undoing
all the effort he put into the peace
process during the past seven years.
Barak is also weak — because his
minority government is living on bor-
rowed time. The Orthodox Shas Party
recently gave his government a one-
month "safety net," during which Shas
legislators would not support any
motions to topple him.
Arafat is no less feeble, but for differ-
ent reasons. His fragmented Palestinian
Authority is infinitely weaker, militarily
and economically, than Israel. The
uprising in the territories is causing
widespread suffering to his people

