Palestinian police and citizens look at
damage to the main police station in the
northern West Bank town of Jenin on
Aug. 14. Israeli tanks entered Jenin early
Tuesday morning and leveled the police
station Axing a four-hciir incursion.

Rigidly Flexible

Under fire for his "no talks" policy, Sharon agrees to let Peres negotiate.

DAVID LANDAU
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Jerusalem

rime Minister Ariel Sharon's
policy of "no talks under fire"
increasingly is coming under
fire within Israel.
Initially, Sharon's refusal to hold diplo-
matic talks with the Palestinian
Authority until Palestinian vio-
lence against Israel ceases com-
pletely was supported by Israelis
virtually across the board.
Increasingly, however, it is being
criticized by Israeli opinion-makers,
who cite examples of other nations
that simultaneously fought and talked
with their enemies.
Five months into Sharon's term of
office, pundits note that the prime
minister has restored neither peace nor
security to Israel — and they are won-
dering if it is time to change tactics.
This week, Sharon finally budged.
Amid talk that a frustrated Foreign
Minister Shimon Peres was consider-
ing leaving the government, Sharon
agreed to let Peres meet with the
Palestinian leadership to discuss a
cease-fire.
However, Sharon stipulated that a sen-
ior army figure must be present, ensur-
ing that Peres does not negotiate any-
thing of broader diplomatic significance.
At the same time, however, Sharon
was assiduously courting both the set-
tler-oriented National Religious Party

po

8/17
2001

16

and the moderate Center Party. In
fact, just as rumors flourished that
Peres might pull Labor out of the gov-
ernment, stories began circulating in
the Israeli media that Sharon would
offer the Foreign Ministry to Center
Party leader Dan Meridor as an incen-
tive to join the government.
In any case, Sharon's new-found
diplomatic flexibility has had lit-
tle practical effect, as the
Palestinians now refuse to
talk to Israel. Palestinian offi-
cials said this week that as long as
Israel maintains its "occupation" of
Orient House, the Palestinians' unoffi-
cial headquarters in Jerusalem, the two
sides have nothing to discuss.
The Security Cabinet ordered Israeli
security forces to seize Orient House
and Palestinian Authority offices in
Abu Dis, located just outside the
Jerusalem city limits, after a Palestinian
suicide bomber blew himself up Aug. 9
in a Jerusalem pizzeria, killing 15 peo-
ple, many of them children.
Along with two other Labor minis-
ters, Peres opposed the largely symbol-
ic seizure of Orient House, saying that
it would set back any hope of resum-
ing diplomatic contacts with the
Palestinians.
includ-
But the Cabinet majority
ing Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-
Eliezer, also of Labor preferred this
form of reprisal to a large-scale mili-
tary action that could result in heavy
casualties.

Labor's Warfare

Sharon allowed Peres to launch the
new diplomatic overture after a wave
of unrest within Labor ranks appeared
to threaten the stability of the national
unity government.
Last week, interim Labor leader Peres

Israel Insigat

THE ISSUE

Despite two horrific attacks against
Israeli civilians by Palestinian suicide
bombers in the last week, diplomatic
and media attention in recent days
seems unfairly focused on Israel's
closing of the PLO's offices in the
Orient House in east Jerusalem.

BEHIND THE ISSUE

Since even before the 1993 Oslo
agreement, the Palestinians have been
cultivating international diplomatic
support for their goal of dividing
Jerusalem, to turn the eastern half
into the capital of a Palestinian state.
Israel's closing of the Orient House,
retaliation for the suicide bombings,
extracts a political price from the
Palestinian Authority for its failure to
stop terrorism, reducing Palestinian
prospects for some form of sovereign-
ty in Jerusalem in the future.

— Allan Cale, Jewish Community
Council of Metropolitan Detroit

found himself repeatedly challenged by
party loyalists to demonstrate how
Labor's presence in the Cabinet was
influencing Sharon's policies.
The two contenders for Labor lead-
ership in Sept. 4 primaries — Ben-
Eliezer and Knesset Speaker Avraham
Burg — both say they would stay in
the unity government. However, some
political observers believe that if front-
runner Burg is chosen, he will move to
end Labor's union with Likud.
Prominent party doves like Yossi
Beilin long have argued that Labor is
damaging itself by staying in Sharon's
government.
The prime minister's mantra of "no
talks under fire" has become one of
the main irritants to Laborites.
Sources close to Peres argue that
now, since Sharon has given him the
go-ahead to hold cease-fire talks, the
source of controversy has evaporated.
Granted, Sharon's permission was only
for talks toward a cease-fire, not political
negotiations on wider-ranging issues.
In practice, the sources say, it is
impossible to fully separate military
and political issues. They also hope
that a cease-fire will produce immedi-
ate progress on the recommendations
of a U.S.-led panel, known as the
Mitchell Commission, to bring the
two sides back to peace talks.
The sources say that Peres' influence
in Sharon's smaller, inner Cabinet was
crucial in convincing a reluctant pre-
mier to accept the Mitchell
Commission recommendations. They
include an Israeli military redeploy-
ment, a freeze on Israeli settlement
construction in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip and further confidence-
building measures from each side.
Similarly, they say, Peres' influence
prevented a huge military escalation in
the wake of the June 1 Palestinian ter-
ror bombing outside a Tel Aviv disco
that killed 21 Israelis and wounded
more than 100.
Right now, however, Peres' influenc
is more hypothetical than real, as no

progress has been made with the
Palestinians on the diplomatic front.

