Hazy Crystal Ball

With Arafat's health clouding the picture, Israelis see opportunities and

LESLIE SUSSER
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Jerusalem
sraeli officials are quietly confident that if Yasser
Arafat's health forces him to leave office, new
chances for Israeli-Palestinian accommodation will
open up. But they are aware of a number of pitfalls.
The most serious danger is that any successor to
Arafat may not have the necessary credibility to deliver
on any peace commitments, and that the international
community, liberated from the argument that Arafat is
not a true peace partner, might pressure Israel to make
concessions even without the Palestinians providing
anything in return.
For now, Palestinian Authority officials say Arafat
remains in control, and the true extent of his disability
is unclear. And in the immediate term, Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon is not contemplating any major
policy changes.
There is no question of retracting or postponing the
planned unilateral withdrawal from the Gala Strip and
part of the West Bank just because there may now be a
Palestinian partner. Sharon says he is prepared to coor-
dinate the withdrawal with a more moderate
Palestinian leadership, as long as there is no delay in
the timetable for implementation.
Sharon told the Cabinet on Oct. 31 that if a new
Palestinian leadership moved against terrorism, there
would be a good chance of renewing negotiations
based on the internationally backed road-map peace
plan — but these leaders would have to act, not just
talk.
Since coming to power nearly four years ago, Sharon
has argued that Arafat is the major obstacle to peace.
Since January 2002, when Arafat was implicated in an
attempt to smuggle a huge shipment of arms into the
Palestinian territories from Iran, the United States has
thought along similar lines.
In a major policy statement later in 2002,
President Bush urged the Palestinians to
choose new leaders not "compromised by
terror." Israel and the United States developed policies
designed to circumvent Arafat in the hope that other
Palestinian leaders would be able to stop the violence
and engage in a political process with Israel.
But though confined to his headquarters in
Ramallah, Arafat continued to pull the strings, prevent-
ing two prime ministers, Mahmoud Abbas and Ahmed
Qurei, from developing serious peace policies.
Now, Israeli officials hope that if Arafat's illness final-
ly breaks his hold on power, men like Abbas and Qurei
may be able to emerge from his shadow and take the
peace process forward. If Arafat dies, or is rendered
incapable of continuing in office, Israeli military intelli-
gence chief Maj. Gen. Aharon Zeevi-Farkash told the
government, the four-year-old Palestinian intifada
could come to an end.
With Arafat receiving treatment in France, Abbas

I

Yasser Arafat waves as he leaves his he uarters in
Ramallah on Oct. 29 to go to Paris for medical
treatment.

seems likely to emerge as the most prominent figure in
a new collective leadership. He long has called for an
end to the armed uprising against Israel, which he calls
ca. strategic mistake."
As prime minister from March to September 2003,
Abbas tried to negotiate a cease-fire and take the road
map forward, but he constantly was undermined by
Arafat, and ultimately resigned. If Abbas again comes
to the fore, he likely would try to take the road map
forward with European and U.S. help.
But it's not clear how far Abbas would be
able to go toward a final peace deal with
Israel. He is as fiercely opposed as Arafat to
waiving the demand that Palestinian refugees be
allowed to return to Israel proper, a position that not
even the most dovish Israeli government would accept.
And even if Abbas were ready to make concessions on
this and other key issues, it's unlikely he would have
the authority to carry them through.
"Abu Mazen will not be able to make the tough con-
cessions that Arafat, with all his prestige and authority,
couldn't," says Israel's former foreign minister, Shlomo
Ben-Ami, using Abbas' nom de guerre.
The Foreign Ministry recognizes the problem a suc-
cessor will have in establishing anything approaching
Arafat's authority. Top officials have drawn up a paper
suggesting how Israel could help, without giving the
impression that it is interfering in Palestinian affairs. In
general, they suggest that Israel reduce the level of its

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anti-terrorist activities by refraining, fOr example, from
targeted killings of terrorists, except those on their way
to launching an attack.
There even is talk of Israeli readiness to release
Palestinian prisoners if Palestinian terrorism falls for a
sustained period.
But it won't be easy. Arafat was able to keep the lid
on deep rifts in Palestinian society, and some Israeli
experts expect a prolonged power struggle if Arafat's
restraining influence evaporates. Shaul Mishal of Tel
Aviv University foresees clashes between the older gen-
eration of PLO officials from Tunis, like Abbas and
Qurei, and the younger generation of men who grew
up under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and
Gaza Strip, like Mohammed Dahlan, Jibril Rajoub
and Marwan Barghouti.
Potentially even more divisive, Mishal says, is the
hostility between the secular Fatah movement and the
Islamist Hamas movement. David Hacham, Defense
Minister Shaul Mofaz's adviser on Palestinian affairs,
believes these divisions could result in a collective lead-
ership that embraces young and old, secular and reli-
gious forces. The question is, what kind of policy vis-
a-vis Israel would this leadership be likely to adopt?
In any event, Israeli officials don't expect any
overnight change for the better in Palestinian atti-
tudes, even if Arafat goes. The cultivation of hatred
for Israel — which intensified during the intifada —
is such that no Palestinian leader will be able to make
a fundamental shift immediately.

Policy Shift

Still, Israeli officials do anticipate two significant policy
changes: Palestinian readiness to coordinate with Israel
to take responsibility for Gaza and the northern West
Bank and to relaunch peace negotiations based on the
road map after the Israeli withdrawal from those areas
is completed next summer.
But there is a downside: Should Arafat's illness prove
serious enough to sideline him, American foreign poli-
cy will inherit a situation in which the main reason for
ignoring the Palestinian leadership will have been
removed. Israeli officials believe that could lead to
American readiness to embrace a European initiative
for Israeli-Palestinian re-engagement, without the
Palestinians being required to meet their basic road
map commitments such as dismantling terrorist
groups.
The Europeans make no secret of the fact that
they intend to launch a new initiative immediately
after the American elections. The Israeli fear is that,
with Arafat out of the picture, the Europeans may
overlook ongoing Palestinian terrorism — and that
the American administration may be inclined to fol-
low suit, putting pressure on Israel to negotiate
under fire.

