Newsreal: The end

Benjamin Netanyahu's meeting with President Clinton next Tuesday will likely sink the Middle East peace process altogether.

By Jonathan Broder

Jan 16, 1998 | With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington next week, the U.S.-Israeli relationship is hurtling toward its nastiest confrontation since an agitated George Bush stood before White House microphones in 1991 and told Americans that his Middle East peace policies were under attack by the "powerful forces" of the pro-Israel Jewish lobby.

Back then, Bush's nemesis was flinty Israeli leader Yitzhak Shamir, and the issue was Washington's refusal to provide $10 billion in loan guarantees to Israel until Shamir froze Jewish settlement building in the occupied territories. Bush's comment enraged many American Jews, who accused him of anti-Semitism and voted for Democrat Bill Clinton in the 1992 election.

Now the players are President Clinton, probably the friendliest American president toward Israel in its 50-year history, and Netanyahu, considered by many to be Israel's most amateurish leader ever. And the odds are, after the two leaders have met on Tuesday, that the peace process will have sunk beneath the waves.

The final gush of cold water will be delivered by Netanyahu in the form of a proposal transparent in its duplicity and breathtaking in its mockery of the underlying principles of a peace process the U.S. was supposed to guarantee. Rather than the "credible and significant" blueprint for withdrawal from the West Bank that Israel was supposed to come up with -- somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 to 15 percent -- Netanyahu, according to sources, is preparing to propose less than 10 percent. Moreover, the proposal is to be accompanied by 11 pages of fine print -- some 50 specific conditions that Israel says the Palestinians must satisfy completely before any further withdrawal or any further negotiations on the final status of the territories can take place.

Some of the demands, like the curtailment of Palestinian political activities in Jerusalem, are bound to be rejected by Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat, who is scheduled to meet with Clinton on Thursday. According to Israeli commentators, quoting members of Netanyahu's own coalition government, that is exactly what Netanyahu is hoping and expecting.

"The government does not intend to make any progress along the road to a final status agreement with the Palestinians, but is instead intent on sabotaging the peace process and avoiding any redeployment whatsoever," says an editorial in the respected Israeli Haaretz newspaper. "This latest move is designed to anger the Palestinians and cause them to despair of getting anything in the final status negotiating process, so that they can be directly blamed for the breakdown in the peace talks."

Netanyahu denies that is his intention. "There are no ultimatums here," he told reporters in Israel. "We are fulfilling all our commitments and we expect the Palestinians to fulfill their obligations, and we say that if they are indeed fulfilled, we will move forward with the redeployment."

Next Page: Cold shoulder from Clinton, Congress, American Jews

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