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EDITORIAL: A tardy first step(October 25) - As Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu arrives back home today, no doubt exhausted after nine days of nerve-wracking negotiations at Wye Plantation, he now has to recharge his batteries in preparation for the long road ahead; for which the White House ceremony Friday was just a stepping-stone, albeit an important one. Friday's signing, despite the warm handshakes and ovations, the historic table hauled out of the White House storerooms and the climactic atmosphere, was not a final peace agreement hammered out by long-time adversaries in the presence of a courageous monarch and skillful president. When the harsh light of reality is allowed to break in behind the curtains of staged statecraft, it is but an interim agreement whose details should have been wrapped up many months ago. The really vital issues - Palestinian statehood, the right of return, the settlements, final borders, and, of course, the status of Jerusalem - still lie ahead of us. If it took over a week of intensive, sleepless negotiations to reach an accord on matters that had, in essence, already been agreed upon earlier, then the chances of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's stated aim of reaching a successful conclusion of all final-status issues by May 4, 1999 seem unlikely, to say the least. And yet this weekend's Washington ceremony is not without import. A Likud prime minister, heading a right-of-center government, has committed himself to handing over 13.1 percent of Israeli-controlled territory in the historic, biblical homeland of Judea and Samaria to the Palestinians. Unlike the Hebron Agreement, which Netanyahu portrayed as an unwanted piece of unfinished business left over from the previous Labor administration which he was obliged to negotiate, this interim agreement is his own doing. Netanyahu's critics on the Right have been quick to condemn him for this, arguing, among other things, that he was not elected to follow in the late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin's footsteps. In this, they are wrong. Netanyahu was elected - by the narrowest of margins - precisely because he persuaded the Israeli public that he would indeed continue the process begun in Oslo; but at a slower pace and with less risk to Israel's security. Had he run an election campaign predicated on stopping the Oslo process, he would not now be Israel's prime minister. Netanyahu's bargaining tactics, however, are questionable - his willingness to antagonize not only the Palestinians, but also the world's only superpower, runs the grave risk, if not today then at some future date, of isolating Israel in time of need. But so far, to some extent, his tactics have paid off. The Palestinians have committed themselves, in a more detailed and verifiable way than before, to clamp down on Palestinian terror - a key indication of their commitment to coexist peacefully with Israel. Netanyahu has also succeeded in forcing Arafat to convene an extraordinary meeting of Palestinian leaders, including members of the Palestinian National Council, in which, televised live to the Palestinian public and the world at large, the Palestinian leadership will unequivocally reject those elements of the Palestinian Covenant incompatible to the peace process. Of course, there is a flip-side to all this. Netanyahu's failure to negotiate directly with the Palestinians means that it is the United States - in the form of the CIA - and not Israel, who will be the final adjudicator as to whether the Palestinians are truly fighting the war against terror. President Bill Clinton, meanwhile, will visit Gaza to address the Palestinian leaders' conclave; in so doing he will symbolically strengthen the notion of Palestinian sovereignty ahead of the resolution of final-status issues. Netanyahu's raising of the issue of Jonathan Pollard in the context of an interim agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is also puzzling. No one can deny that Pollard has been harshly punished for spying for Israel; indeed his fate is unjustly unique in modern American espionage history and his continued incarceration is a stain on the American judicial system. The successful conclusion of regional peace negotiations, however, cannot be allowed to hinge on his release. Ironically, on his return Netanyahu will likely find it more difficult persuading his cabinet and coalition colleagues to approve this weekend's interim agreement than winning Knesset and popular approval. The Labor Party has correctly committed itself to providing the premier with a parliamentary safety-net on this issue, for this is the wish of the moderate majority in the country. Netanyahu's political future, and that of the peace process as a whole, now rests in Israeli and Palestinian implementation of the details agreed upon at Wye. If the final-status talks are to have any chance of success, it is imperative that this time, the Palestinians' oft-repeated commitments to fight terror and change their charter are finally and unequivocally met.
Headlines
The Document
Speeches
Analysis
The Pollard Issue
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