This Week
Mideast In Limbo
Talks And Terror
Barak, Arafat agree to more talks despite new incidents of violence.
NAOMI SEGAL
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
p
resident Bill Clinton's 11th-
hour efforts to salvage the
peace process have a small
spark of hope still burning.
The White House announced
Wednesday that Palestinian President
Yasser Arafat had given his condition-
al approval to Clinton's proposals for
an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord.
U.S. officials said further talks with
Arafat as well as with Israeli Prime
Minister Ehud Barak were likely in
the waning days of the Clinton
administration.
Political analysts, however, ques-
tioned whether Arafat is courting
world opinion, not wanting to appear
as if he is torpedoing the president's
peace effort.
And Tuesday's talks between Arafat
and Clinton were overshadowed by
the latest terrorist bombing in Israel,
and charges that the Palestinian
Authority is encouraging the attacks.
At least 30 people were wounded
when a car bomb exploded Monday
night in the coastal city of Netanya,
north of Tel Aviv. A day before,
Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane — the son of
Rabbi Meir Kahane, the slain founder
of the outlawed far-right Kach move-
ment — was killed along with his
wife, Talia, when Palestinian gunmen
opened fire on their car on a West
Bank road. The couple's five daugh-
ters were wounded in the attack, but
their only son had been dropped off
at school minutes before and was not
with the family.
The Netanya bombing came four
days after two pipe bombs exploded
on a commuter bus in Tel Aviv,
wounding 13 people, one of them
seriously. A week before that, Hamas
claimed responsibility for a suicide
bombing near a roadside restaurant in
the Jordan Valley in which three
Israeli soldiers were wounded, two of
them seriously.
Regional War
Reacting to the ongoing violence and
terror attacks, Barak expressed pes-
simism Tuesday that an Israeli-
Palestinian peace deal could be
reached before Clinton leaves office,
or before Israel's Feb. 6 election.
Barak has been speaking increasingly
about "separation" from the
Palestinians should Clinton fail to
achieve a peace deal.
During a phone conversation
Monday, Barak told Clinton that
Israel is now focusing on fighting ter-
ror, and that it is unlikely a peace
agreement can be signed in the com-
ing weeks, Israel Radio reported.
Speaking on Israel Army Radio,
Barak accused the Palestinian leader-
ship of supporting the terror attacks.
"The recent terrorist attacks show
that the Palestinians are backing
actions against us," he said Tuesday.
Senior Israeli security officials made
a similar assessment, telling a Knesset
committee that the Palestinian
Basic Questions
Jerusalem proposals push Israelis to re-examine core Zionist beliefs.
DAVID LANDAU
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Jerusalem
T
he angry, anguished cry of
"Uganda" is filling the air in
Israel these days.
It doesn't mean much to
the uninitiated. But for those schooled
in the fundamentals of Zionist history,
this esoteric code word says it all.
Uganda was where the Zionist move-
ment, back in 1903, considered setting
up a Jewish homeland. But the plan was
considered and rejected, as the majority
of the movement overruled founder
Theodor Herzl and held that only Zion
— the biblical name for Jerusalem —
could be the legitimate and practical
goal of Zionism.
From the Knesset plenum to coffee
shops to private homes, Israelis are again
1/5
2001
20
conducting the wrenching, back-to-
basics argument over the heart and soul
of their national project.
The negotiations with the Palestinians
— accompanied as they are by terror and
bloodshed — and the upcoming election
inextricably linked to those negotiations
are forcing every Israeli to examine anew
the tenets of the Zionist credo.
Negotiating Jerusalem
The Temple Mount and the walled Old
City of Jerusalem, focal points of Jewish
longing over the centuries, have been
placed squarely on the negotiating table.
Most Israelis find that shocking, after
33 years of assurances from politicians
of all stripes that Israeli sovereignty over
the Holy City is nonnegotiable.
The Camp David summit in July, for
example, appeared to founder over
Prime Minister Ehud Barak's unwilling-
ness to give up Israeli control of the
Temple Mount.
In addition, while his flexibility on
Jerusalem went far beyond the Israeli
consensus, Barak still appeared to be
searching for ways to give the
Palestinians a say in running Arab
neighborhoods without divvying up
sovereignty in the city.
Now, the turnabout by Barak and his
depleted governing coalition has come
so suddenly that it is hard to gauge the
public reaction with any accuracy.
Polls published last weekend show
that Barak is trailing badly behind Ariel
Sharon, the Likud Party's candidate for
prime minister in the Feb. 6 election.
The polls give Barak the support of just
25-33 percent of the electorate.
However, President Bill Clinton's
peace package, which envisions deep
Authority has released all jailed ter-
rorists and is encouraging attacks
against Israel.
Israeli media provided an even
darker picture, reporting that Barak
has instructed the Israel Defense
Force to prepare for a possible region-
al war.
Clinton's proposals call for far-
reaching concessions by both Israel
and the Palestinians.
Most controversial for Israelis is a
proposal to cede control of
Jerusalem's Temple Mount to the
Palestinians. Israel also would divide
Jerusalem, with Arab neighborhoods
coming under Palestinian rule.
In exchange, the Palestinians would
scale back their demand that descen-
dants of the Arab refugees who fled
or were expelled during Israel's 1948
War of Independence be allowed to
return to their former homes inside
Israel.
Kahane's History
The two killings earlier this week in
the West Bank drew cries for revenge
and further dimmed the prospects for
peace.
Settlers warned of retaliatory
attacks after Binyamin Kahane was
killed Sunday.
Hours later, a senior member of
Israeli concessions in Jerusalem, does
significantly better in the polls than
Barak does. Close to half the country
voices support for the proposals, though
they still have to be precisely defined.
When asked to articulate their con-
cerns, many Israelis say they are unhap-
py with the thought of Jerusalem being
carved into a latticework of sovereign-
ties. Fewer seem overly perturbed by the
idea of ceding sovereignty over the
Temple Mount, site of the biblical
Jewish temples and today home to the
Muslims' Al-Aksa Mosque and the
Dome of the Rock.
According to the polls, even fewer
Israelis seem concerned by the prospect
of giving the Palestinians military and
civilian control over such sacred sites as
the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron
or Rachel's Tomb just outside
Bethlehem.
The Temple Divide
Interestingly, the fault line between
right and left does not correspond pre-
cisely to the religious-secular divide.
While the Orthodox communities are
profoundly attached to the Tomb of the