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Larry Derfner talks to some of Ehud Barak's top advisers and gets some clues about what Israel can expect from the One Israel leader's first 100 days in office. Not only does he intend to carry out his promise to form as broad-based a coalition as possible, that hews to the Center instead of the Left, he evidently intends to court his hard-core supporters' main rival (now that Prime Minister Netanyahu has been defeated) - Shas. MK Yossi Beilin was one of the strongest voices in One Israel against bringing Shas into the government. But after Shas leader Aryeh Deri resigned as party leader - fulfilling Barak's condition for holding coalition talks - Beilin said on a TV post-election panel: "According to my moral standards - which may not be high enough - I'm satisfied." Dr. Alon Liel, a policy adviser to Barak, said, "There is no reason why we can't sit down and talk with Shas." During the campaign, Barak indicated that he would not give Shas the Interior Ministry, and that he might give it to his new ally, Yisrael Ba'aliya. But that was before election day, and before Shas won 17 Knesset seats. Meretz, a supporter and seemingly natural partner of Barak's, has said it won't sit in the government with Shas. Yosef (Tommy) Lapid's Shinui also won't sit with Shas or United Torah Judaism. Yet Barak has his eye on UTJ as well, said Liel. "We want to completely redefine the relations between religious and secular Jews in this country, and it is very important that United Torah Judaism be a part of it," he said. People who've had Barak's ear say he doesn't want a repeat of the Rabin-Peres government - one that thrills half the people and appalls the other half, a government that makes historic decisions with a one-vote majority or that depends on outside support from Arab parties. In his first steps as prime minister, Barak intends to pursue this new, all-inclusive, wall-to-wall strategy with a commando's determination. WHILE Barak is ready to court Shas and UTJ, he's not so sure about Lapid, said Liel. "Lapid's refusal to sit in a government with haredim is unacceptable.... Even if Lapid's seats could give us a Knesset majority, he can't go on tearing at the fabric of Israeli society [if he wants to be in Barak's government]." Barak will offer a place in the coalition to the Likud, Liel continued, especially now that Netanyahu is out of the picture. But he is wary of breaking the unbroken tradition of keeping Arab parties out of the government. "Barak is not committed to appointing an Arab minister," he said. "But at the same time, it wouldn't be right to bring Israel's Jews together while leaving Israel's Arabs out." If Barak countenances appointing an Israeli Arab minister, he would likely look to an Arab in one of the Zionist parties, said Liel. In another TV post-election panel, Center Party MK Dan Meridor counseled Barak to keep in mind that the purpose of a government is not to have as many members as possible, but to get things done. "He has to bring in people on the basis of their political outlook, not because they simply agree to join," Meridor said. The coalition talks will tell whether Barak is interested in such counsel. Most of Barak's domestic agenda is uncontroversial, motherhood-and-apple-pie stuff: More and better education, jobs, health care - everything an economic recovery, if it comes, can provide. The one area where Barak has made waves - and is likely to clash with the haredi parties - is in his commitment to finance part of his social program by taking money away from what he calls haredi "fictitious organizations," distribute in a more equitable way the massive housing subsidies that the haredi sector now enjoys and require young haredi men to do military or civilian national service. His foreign-policy agenda is certainly not parve. As soon as possible, Barak intends to unfreeze the talks with the Palestinians, which have been chilling since December, and with the Syrians, which were on ice for the entire Netanyahu era. THE main order of business with the Palestinians, Liel said, is rebuilding mutual trust. "On election night nobody was dancing in the streets of Ramallah or Jenin," said Liel. "Despite what the Netanyahu campaign tried to make people think, Barak isn't the Palestinians' favorite political personality. They see him as a hawk." The Palestinians aren't altogether wrong. While Barak's platform calls for holding on to "large settlement blocs" near the Green Line such as Ariel, Alfei Menashe and Gush Etzion - implying that some of the smaller, isolated settlements in the interior of the West Bank may have to fold someday - he meant it when he said that Ofra and Beit El would always remain under Israeli rule. "Barak's settlement policy is probably going to get more flak from the Left than from the Right," said Liel. Alon Pinkas, a Barak foreign-policy adviser, asserted that Barak is committed to going through with the rest of the 13 percent withdrawal called for in the Wye agreement - "provided that our security requests are met." Asked if Barak went along with Netanyahu's contention that the Palestinians hadn't lived up to their signed commitments to fight terror, Pinkas said Barak would have to wait until he conferred with General Security Service officials before deciding. Liel, however, suggested that Barak might be looking beyond the Wye agreement - or around it - when he resumes talks with the Palestinians. While the incoming prime minister is not bound by the Clinton administration's pledge to try to settle the final-status arrangement by May 2000, Barak is interested in reaching an agreement with the Palestinians to push the Oslo Accord toward the final-status settlement - in a way that might preempt Wye, said Liel. "We didn't sign the Wye agreement, although we supported it. It wasn't the agreement of our dreams," he said. Asked if Barak would carry out the remaining withdrawals called for in Wye, as well as allowing safe passage for Palestinians between the West Bank and Gaza, Liel replied, "If the Palestinians insist on the implementation of Wye as a means of rebuilding their trust, then I assume Barak would find that acceptable. I'm just saying that once negotiations resume, new ideas could arise and win agreement from both sides that would supersede the Wye accord." THERE is another deadline that Barak has more or less set for himself: June 2000, one year after he takes office, the month by which Barak wants to get Israeli troops out of south Lebanon. He is not talking about a unilateral withdrawal; he needs Syria's cooperation, and to this end Barak intends to get the Syrians talking again. As IDF chief of General Staff, Barak played a crucial role in the Rabin government's talks with Syria, negotiating security arrangements with his counterpart, Hikmet Shihabi. Since then, however, Shihabi has been moved out of his post by Syrian President Hafez Assad, so Barak has lost his best contact. Assad's condition for restarting talks, rejected by Netanyahu these past three years, was that the negotiations resume where they left off under the Rabin-Peres administration. That point, according to Assad's recollection, was where Rabin and Peres had agreed to give Syria the entire Golan Heights. "We don't agree with Syria's interpretation," said Liel. Barak has stated publicly and repeatedly that he is ready for territorial compromise on the Golan, even "painful" concessions. His platform reiterates the formula that on the Golan, "the extent of the withdrawal will match the extent of peace." This doesn't necessarily mean, however, that Barak would give up all of the Golan in return for full, Camp David-style peace with Syria, noted Liel. Israel would have to have its security and water needs on the Golan taken care of. "The Golan Heights is just one element in an overall framework for peace with Syria," he said. What Barak has in mind is kicking off the negotiations by focusing not on what Israel can do for Syria, but what Syria can do for Israel. First, Barak wants to work out Syrian agreement for an Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon by June 2000, just as he promised, and afterward, the focus would shift to a full peace accord with Syria, Liel explained. Yet this would require Assad to give up his leverage over Israel - the fighting in Lebanon - without any assurance that his unchanging demand - full return of the Golan - would be met. Assad has never had a reputation for gullibility, nor for flexibility. Why should he agree? "We think that once Syria sees that there's a new atmosphere in Israel, a new government, one that has a different relationship with the Palestinians, with the Arab world, with the US, we think Syria's position might soften," Liel said. THE incoming Barak government abounds with high hopes. A kinder, gentler Assad; settlements, united Jerusalem and peace with the Palestinians; a government in which 70, 80 or 90 warring Israeli tribesmen and tribeswomen not only sit together, but also propel themselves in the same direction, preferably forward. Compared to all this, Shimon Peres's New Middle East was a modest proposal.
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(May 20) - The tens of thousands of happy people who danced election night away in Kikar Rabin may have thought they'd "taken back the country" from the Right and the religious, but according to all the signs, Prime Minister-elect Ehud Barak may very well disappoint them.
