A patchy deal can easily unravel

By DANNA HARMAN

(November 6) - The Wye agreement was reached with the help of secret US letters and assurances - but these may end up doing more harm than good.

Some 20 years ago, on the last day of the Camp David talks, the Israeli negotiating team was sitting in the billiard room when they suddenly realized they had a problem. It started when Israeli ambassador to Washington Simcha Dinitz asked to see the contents of the manila envelope held by secretary of state Cyrus Vance. Inside was the draft of a US assurance to Egyptian president Anwar Sadat stating that Washington considered Jerusalem part of the occupied territories.

Dinitz, defense minister Ezer Weizman and foreign minister Moshe Dayan marched into the dining room to inform prime minister Menachem Begin, who was having a leisurely brunch with Aliza. "Pack your bags," said the prime minister to his wife - unwittingly introducing one of the most useful Mideast negotiating tools - "... there are terrible things going on that have been kept secret."

At the end of the day, after arduous hours of arguing and explaining, the crisis was resolved. The Americans reworded the letter, Aliza unpacked, Sadat told Egypt that he had assurances with regard to Jerusalem, Begin maintained there had been no mention of Jerusalem in the official agreement.

Thanks to a certain amount of goodwill, an agreement to disagree, and the ability to ignore promises made to the other side, the Camp David Accords were signed the following morning.

Verbal agreements and side assurances are par for the course in negotiations. Their benefit is obvious when parties don't want, or can't afford, to have their concessions written down in black and white. But there are also inherent problems. The content of these agreements, by definition, is more delicate and explosive; they are often kept secret and are sometimes contradictory, and they usually leave room for misinterpretation.

Did the Palestinians at Wye promise verbally to arrest 30 fugitives and include that commitment as an appendix to their security working plan? The Israeli negotiators say yes. The Palestinian team says no. The Americans, who received the Palestinian working paper without such an appendix and initially pronounced it complete, eventually changed their minds and agreed that "something was missing."

The Israelis dug out their minutes, the Palestinians dug out theirs and the Americans scrambled. Meanwhile, the cabinet ministers, who were meant to convene to ratify the accord, were put on hold, and Week 1 of the carefully planned timetable was spent on mutual recriminations.

The experience, all in all, served to draw attention to major problems with the agreement, and certainly does not bode well for the future.

Sitting at the same walnut conference table where Sadat and Begin sat two decades before them, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat signed the historic Wye document with grand fanfare. The band played, the gilded chandeliers sparkled, President Bill Clinton smiled in relief and exhausted Americans and Middle Easterners patted each other on the back, exchanged niceties and went home.

Both leaders knew the battle wasn't over, but it must have looked different from the banks of the Potomac.

Back in Jerusalem, with settlers yelling "traitor," top ministers pointing out problems with each and every clause of the agreement and members of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee bonding in disgust over his office's translation efforts, Netanyahu must finally have realized what a hard sell he had on his hands.

If anyone could empathize, it was probably Netanyahu's partner Arafat, facing Hamas threats to his life in Gaza, protests in Ramallah, ongoing corruption scandals - and still unable to fly away from it all from his own airport.

Both leaders realized the need to convince their publics that the deal reached at Wye was going to make life better, and both went about it the same way - assuring skeptics that there was much more to the agreement than met the eye, while freely interpreting the sections everyone could see.

"They were negotiating for 39 hours under an enormous amount of pressure and with no rest," said one US official. "Do you think this is conducive to reaching an agreement with dotted 'i's and crossed 't's? If they had stopped to delve into the details they would have never reached the walnut table."

The matters standing between the Palestinians and the Israelis, however, are much greater that a dotted "i."

The capture and imprisonment of the fugitives is of cardinal importance to Netanyahu. Prisoner release and the opening of the safe passage routes are critical matters to Arafat.

Other crucial issues have also been left up in the air, including the question of the maps of the first and second redeployment, the scope of the third withdrawal, the number of Palestinian policemen allowed on the force and the confiscation of arms. Reciprocity when it comes to Israeli extremists, Israel's settlement building policy and Arafat's looming threat to declare a state on May 4 are also unsettled problems.

The memorandum fails to lay specific guidelines, leaving the work up to US letters of assurance (one to each side), US side letters (two to the Palestinians, five and counting to the Israelis) and the innumerable verbal understandings - now transpiring to be more like misunderstandings.

While implementation is bound to run into problems at every stage, the next probable major pothole is the matter of the Palestinian Covenant. The question at hand is which body will uphold a January letter written by Arafat to Clinton promising that the 26 sections of the covenant that call for Israel's destruction will be nullified.

The Israeli understanding is that the PNC will convene to vote on the nullification. The Palestinians, however, say that the PLO Executive Committee and the Palestinian Central Council will meet to do this. The Palestinian National Council, say the Palestinians, will meet only to express general "support of the peace process."

Trade and Industry Minister Natan Sharansky, who played a key role in negotiating the covenant issue at Wye, claims the Palestinians were backpedaling.

"I was present in all the negotiations on this matter," says the minister, "and it is crystal clear as to what was decided upon. They know exactly what was agreed and it is very important that they do not change the story. Only a vote in the PNC is acceptable to us."

The memorandum itself leaves the matter ambiguous, and the separate side letters sent by the US to each side reportedly do not match.

During the heated Channel 1 TV debate on Wednesday between Cabinet Secretary Dan Naveh and Palestinian spokesman Ahmed Tibi, the men read totally different renditions of the very same section of the very same document.

"If you are saying that the PNC will not vote on the charter, we may as well give up the whole process right here," yelled Naveh. To which a screaming Tibi retorted "What vote, what vote? Never."

The crises over the list of fugitives and the PNC convention not only draw attention to the problems inherent in side letters and verbal agreements, they highlight another problematic matter - namely the US role in the whole story.

According to the agreement, the Americans will be playing a very significant part in seeing the deal through. The CIA will be the "fact collectors" in charge of overseeing and monitoring the implementation. They will report directly to the State Department, which, in turn, will serve as mediator, making judgment calls based on the facts received.

The CIA forces are already here, buying ice cream at the corner shop in Ramallah, poring over fugitive lists in Gaza City and typing up reports in Nablus. US special envoy Dennis Ross and his team are also getting into place, having packed enough clean shirts to last them a while. Many Israelis and Palestinians, however, are skeptical about the Americans' ability to play their prescribed role.

"When I say the CIA is not to be trusted, I have something to base that assessment on," said a senior official at the Prime Minister's Office. "They have a clear record of failure - in India, in Kosovo, in Somalia, you name it. They are naive and will never know the difference between Mohammed in jail and his cousin Ahmed in jail."

Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector in Iraq who quit after charging that the Americans were turning a blind eye to Iraqi activities, said that while he trusted the CIA, he was concerned that the State Department - whose main objective is to keep the process going - "won't let the facts get in the way of keeping the ball rolling."

The Palestinians have different concerns.

"Arafat is overestimating Clinton's ability to play a role in this process," said one Palestinian observer. "Clinton may be angry with Netanyahu, he may even be rude to him - but that does not mean that he can tell him what to do.

"The Israelis, who have their own security forces and their own judgment-makers, will simply disregard the US rulings if they don't think they are right."

But a senior US official said in response: "This is not going to be a football match with us handing out red cards and yellow cards and pulling out certain players. We are going to try and get the sides to work things out."

Headlines

• Redeployment could alter US role
• IDF wraps up Wye's first stage today
• First Wye pullout to end by tomorrow
• Settlers scurry to limit pullout threat
• IDF poised to implement first Wye transfer
• Wye redeployment begins today
• PM confident he can sell Wye
• Netanyahu flies to capital to avoid protesters
• Right outraged at Wye signing, Left skeptical
• PA officials pleased, extremists reject accord
• Settler leaders weigh next steps
• US Jewish leaders hail accord

• What's in the accord?

• Text of The Wye Memorandum

• Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's speech
• PA Chairman Yasser Arafat's speech

• A patchy deal can easily unravel
• Strained relations
• Clinton deserves praise for job well done
• Wye deal to launch final talks
• Netanyahu turns centrist, but still faces Right
• Now for the tough part
• REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK: Reflections on Wye

• EDITORIAL: A tardy first step
• The next stage

• Sources: There was a tacit deal to release Pollard
• A Pollard chronology
• Pollard's father disappointed that Israel 'caved in' over release