Mary Mostert, Analyst, www.originalsources.com
October 22, 1998
All day yesterday, as I listened to the news on CNN, I kept hearing that the Israeli delegation, headed by Israel Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, was packing its bags and was about to fly back to Israel because the talks had "broken down." Not once did anyone mention WHY the talks had broken down. As I read the Associated Press Reports, printed after they promised to stay, I STILL didn't know what the problem was.
So, I checked out the Jerusalem Post, for the Israeli news and Ha'aretz, for the Palestinian news on the Internet. Both newspapers clearly outlined what the sticking point is. As Ha'arretz said, "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under heavy pressure from right wing MKs, announced that clinching an agreement was dependent on two key Israeli conditions being met: the Palestinian National Council officially scrapping the clauses in the Palestinian Charter which call for the destruction of the state of Israel, and the extradition of terrorists from the PA to Israel. "Without these demands being met, there will be no agreement," Netanyahu's spokesman Aviv Bushinsky said.
The Jerusalem Post put the same key problem this way, "QUEENSTOWN, Maryland (October 22) - - The Wye summit was in crisis last night, as Israeli negotiators threatened to walk out, accusing the US of going back on its word and the Palestinians of evasion. The future of the talks appeared to hinge on a late night session between US envoy Dennis Ross and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's adviser Yitzhak Molcho, who were working on a legal document aimed at bridging the gaps between the US and Israeli positions.
"Israel sees the Palestinians zig-zagging," said Netanyahu's spokesman Aviv Bushinsky. "They promised us working papers and plans for the fight against terrorism. Until now, we've seen no such thing."
But Bushinsky also indicated in an interview with Channel 2 that the final decision to leave the talks hadn't been made. "We are in a situation of, let's say, engines idling and standing by." At press time, the Israeli delegation had a contingency plan to fly home.
After his meeting with Albright, Netanyahu's office put out a statement saying that the American initiative is unacceptable in that Israel won't withdraw its demands that the Palestine National Council be convened to abrogate parts of the Palestinian Covenant or that terrorists be extradited.
"We are going to leave for sure," a top official told The Jerusalem Post after Albright handed ministers the initiative - but based on an understanding that the Israeli delegation would return in a week or two to conclude the talks.
The US proposal, said an Israeli negotiator, is "completely unacceptable." Another official put it this way: "We have been tricked."
Bushinsky told reporters earlier that in the absence of Palestinian commitments on changing the covenant and extraditing terrorists, there could be no deal.
According to Bushinsky, Netanyahu said exactly this to Clinton during their meeting Tuesday night.
The initiative, said a top Israeli official, included no promises on these matters.
"The Americans have retreated from previous understandings with the Israelis, and the Palestinians are not willing to give clear answers about their commitments on different issues," said another Israeli official.
"For now, we don't see a deal on the horizon, but if there is, it will be on condition that [the Palestinians] fulfill all our security interests," Bushinsky said.
The Israeli threat came like a bolt from the blue at the peace conference, which had broken up for the night early yesterday on a much more optimistic note.
The Palestinians took the Israeli threat more lightly than the US, dismissing it as "political blackmail" and a last-minute tactic to extract more concessions.
"What crisis?" one Palestinian negotiator said. "We were not informed by either the Israelis or the Americans, therefore we believe that the Israelis are trying to press the Americans to blackmail us."
"We think it is a game," said another.
Today's Washington Post observes, about the crisis, "With reporters barred from the Wye River conference site and negotiators accessible only intermittently by cellular phone, it was not possible to establish with confidence the reasons for the sudden crisis today."
The report went on to say that Arafat "sent his close adviser, Ahmed Tibi, to regale reporters with an account of the flowers Arafat had sent Netanyahu for his 49th birthday today, and to denounce the walkout threat as 'political blackmail.'
" 'These new demands are pretexts in order to bring to failure the negotiations,' Tibi said. 'We said yes for the proposals of President Clinton. We are awaiting the yes from Prime Minister Netanyahu, which is not arriving yet.'
How clever! The American media is being used by Arafat to garner support for the "American plan" presented by Madeline Albright. The Israeli concerns, far from being "new demands" are very basic and are go back at least to the 1960s. The so-called "American Plan" caves in to Arafat's refusal to scrap the Palestinian National Council clauses in the Palestinian Charter which call for the destruction of the state of Israel.
Almost anyone, in pre-Clinton days, would assume that "peace" between the Palestinians and the Israelis would have to be built on the notion that neither side planned to destroy the other. If the Palestinians can't agree to that, it isn't surprising that they also refuse to agree to the other sticking point - cracking down on their pet terrorists. I might point out that Monday's grenade attack in the main bus station in Beersheba, a town in southern Israel, according to Palestinian press reports, was done by a Palestinian who hurled two hand grenades into a rush hour crowd at the station, wounding 64 people including around 20 Israeli soldiers. Terrorism is not an issue that Netanyahu and the Israeli people can just shrug off.
As we go to press, so to speak, we are hearing that Clinton is talking about our CIA being the enforcer over in Israel between the Arabs and the Israelis. According to Ha'artz "There is a general agreement that the CIA would act on the ground to verify any security accord by ensuring - via snap inspections - that the Palestinians do not let terrorists out of prison including the 13 currently in the Palestinian security forces. Such a move would preclude the need for extradition. The CIA would also monitor gun collection, and Palestinian action against Hamas infrastructure."
I can't imagine a dumber agreement than putting Americans in the middle between Palestinians and Israelis, while Arafat simply refuses to back away from his "destroy Israel" stance. However, I suspect Clinton would agree to it so he could get pre-election media praise for a "victory" for world peace.
As I've said before, I am increasingly convinced that Bill Clinton wouldn't hesitate to start the war of Armageddon, in the name of peace, if he thought it would help him in the polls back home.
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com