Democratic Palestine : 37 (ص 4)
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- Democratic Palestine : 37 (ص 4)
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Israel vs. the PLO
Who’s Serious About Peace ?
For months now, the Israeli government’s refusal to even talk peace
has been smoothed over by US-Egyptian diplomacy. The resulting
impasse requires the PLO to rethink its current policy.
If anyone thought that Shamir’s elec-
tion plan was a real peace proposal,
subsequent events have proved other-
wise. Since it was put forth in the
spring of 1989, almost a year has gone
by with the US, Israel and Egypt
quibbling about procedures for further-
ing what they call the peace process.
There has been tons of pressure on the
PLO and continued Israeli brutality to
eradicate the intifada, but literally no
pressure on Israel, only expressions of
minor vexation. This is despite the fact
that a number of PLO leaders have
expressed flexibility about the means
of getting Palestinian-Israeli talks
underway.
Israel categorically rejected Egyptian
President Mubarak’s 10 points which
aimed to market Shamir’s own plan; it
accepted US Secretary of State Baker’s
5 points of October 1989 only condi-
tionally after insisting on a series of
amendments. As of this writing in late
February, it was still impossible to con-
vene a meeting of the US, Israeli and
Egyptian foreign ministers to discuss
the possibility of an Israeli-Palestinian
meeting.
Most recently, Israeli officials tried
to blame the impasse on the February
Sth attack on an Israeli tour bus in
Egypt, in which nine Israelis were kil-
led and another 21 injured, but this
pretext is too transparent to be taken
seriously. The projected US-Egypt-
Israel meeting had already been
delayed until after a Likud Central
Committee meeting originally planned
for February 7th. It is to be remem-
bered that last summer’s Likud caucus
imposed an interpretation of the
Shamir plan that ruled out any efforts
to develop it in a way that might be
minimally acceptable to the Palesti-
nians.
yi
The peace process has been stalled
for months, ostensibly due to pro-
cedural matters such as: What Palesti-
nians can be included in a delegation
to talk to an Israeli delegation? Those
from East Jerusalem? Those who have
been expelled? What is the agenda?
(Shamir says his plan only), etc. But
the real catch is the Israeli govern-
ment’s unwillingness to come to terms
with talking to the PLO in any form,
since it represents the Palestinian
people whose existence as a coherent
national-political body is viewed as the
negation of the Zionist project. This
view is shared, to varying degrees, by
almost all top Israeli officials. As of
now, it has remained basically unaf-
fected by the PLO’s concessions and
flexibility.
Bolstering the Israeli hardcore
On the background of this Israeli
perception, one can analyze the series
of minor crises in the Israeli govern-
ment. The first such issue in recent
months was Ezer Weizman’s alleged
PLO contacts which led Shamir to try
to fire him. Interestingly enough, the
messages Weizman sent to the PLO
reportedly urged the latter to align
with Egyptian policy and accept the
Baker plan. In the face of opposition
to Weizman’s dismissal, a compromise
was reached between Likud and Labor
in early January, whereby Weizman
retains his portfolio as Science Minis-
ter, but will be excluded from the
inner cabinet. Obviously, Shamir
wanted to «protect the integrity» of the
Likud-Labor hardline merger that
really rules Israel today, despite the
divergence of opinion that prevails in
the government and Knesset as a
whole. At the same time, he succeeded
in using the Weizman case to send a
message to the US that Israel is not
about to talk to the PLO.
The second crisis came from the
other side - relatively speaking. The
Likud Central Committee finally met
on February 12th, and Sharon resigned
as minister of trade, transportation and
industry, after failing to rally his party
fellows around his attack on Shamir
for alleged concessions in relation to
the peace process. (In the preceding
days, Sharon had accused Shamir of
accepting to meet with a Palestinian
*
Democratic Palestine, February 1990 - هو جزء من
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