Sunday, Sep 7, 2008
Many analysts also question the legitimacy of any peace agreement passed by a lame-duck government in a pre-election frenzy. "Barak will have a public and ethical problem in making an agreement with the Palestinians during an election campaign with the support of only one-third of the members of the Knesset," wrote Shalom Yerushalmi in the daily Maariv. "It is hard to imagine worse opening conditions."
Limor Livnat, a prominent right-wing lawmaker, warned Barak against making such an agreement: "This is something inadmissible, neither moral nor public-spirited, and I am warning Ehud Barak, just as we warned him that he would fall, that he better not try it," she said on television Tuesday.
But few are predicting that a deal will actually materialize in time to save Barak's neck. Indeed, transition periods are hardly the most propitious times for diplomatic breakthroughs.
Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian political analyst, pointed out in a phone interview that transition periods in Israeli politics are usually accompanied by aggressive muscle-flexing toward the Arabs. Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who succeeded Yitzhak Rabin after Rabin was assassinated in 1995, launched a vicious air bombardment campaign in southern Lebanon in 1996, killing in one famous incident 100 Lebanese civilians who had sought shelter in a United Nations base at Qana. When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called early elections in December 1998 and found himself in a position similar to Barak's today, he also bombarded Lebanon's electricity plants, noted Khatib, and halted the implementation of interim agreements signed with the Palestinians.
"Because of the composition of Israeli public opinion, Israeli politicians compete in showing toughness," said Khatib. If Arafat and Barak failed to come to an agreement in July, "there is even less chance now," he said. "Barak will be less flexible in election times and Arafat will also be less flexible because of the intifada." More than 250 Palestinians have died in the current wave of violence and thousands more have been injured. To make up for the spilled blood, any deal will have to improve on the one Arafat refused at Camp David.
Few Palestinians openly lamented Barak's decline on Tuesday. Although Barak's left-wing Labor Party is traditionally seen by Palestinians as a better peace partner than the right-right-wing Likud Party, the last months' deadly clashes have shattered that preference.
"Usually the Palestinians would be worried by the effect of developments inside Israel on the peace process," said Khatib. "But there is no peace process to speak of. The peace process was the victim of Barak. And it's ironic now that Barak is the victim of the collapse of the peace process."
Although Barak is seen in Israel as the man who offered the Palestinians at Camp David a better deal than any previous leader and more concessions than many Israelis were prepared to swallow, Palestinians view him as someone who has repeatedly broken his promises by failing to implement interim agreements and whose offers at Camp David fell well short of what U.N. resolutions have promised the Palestinians since the war of 1967.
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