ISRAFAX EDITORIAL:
Oslo is Dead, Long Live Israel

Frederick Krantz

The Oslo Accords, terminally ill for some time, are now officially dead, buried by Yasser Arafat and his Tanzim. And Ehud Barak, strutting about Camp David just a few weeks ago and offering Arafat a tasty package of "unheard of concessions", is also on his last legs, under 30% in public approval and desperately seeking Ariel Sharon's assent to a national unity government.

Bill Clinton, it turns out, despite the last-gasp Sharm el-Sheik meeting, is also a dead duck. He will have neither another dramatic photo op on the White House lawn, nor a Nobel peace prize to crown his "legacy".

We can probably expect an "embattled" Arafat to proclaim his vaunted Palestinian state, perhaps on November 15, the anniversary of his first proclamation, and to have it approved by the Arab League, the UN General Assembly, and those high-minded Security Council members, France, Britain, Russia, and China.

Meanwhile, many former Peace Now supporters are doing tshuvah. They had rushed in great dudgeon to term any critics, anyone daring to point out that Arafat never honored even one clause of the Oslo Accords, "right-wingers" or, worse, "fascists". Some, like U.S. Labor Zionist head Menahem Rosensaft, or former Israeli Foreign Ministry director and Hebrew U. professor Shlomo Avineri, are now out-Likuding the Likud in their issuance of Oslo death-certificates.

Amidst scenes redolent of 1947-48, Israel is at war. Arafat unleashed it, and through it all the silence of Israel's chosen one, her "indispensable" peace partner, has been deafening. The important thing about the current crisis is whether, amidst the gnashing of teeth and beating of breasts, we really will learn anything from it. What is there to learn? Let me list the ways:

    1. A Jewish state cannot make peace with an antisemitic murderer. When Menahem Begin said Arafat was the post-1945 figure to come closest to Hitler's anti-Jewish blood-lust, he spoke a simple truth. Arafat wants the status quo ante 1947, that is, the destruction of the Jewish state (which means, haverim, the killing of Jews).

    2. You do not give advantageous terms to someone sworn to destroy you. Oslo was signed in 1993 despite the fact that Arafat had not set aside his notorious "Covenant", with its denial of the existence of the Jewish people and of the legitimacy of Israel. (And, despite some PR gestures, the PLO's "Covenant" still stands.)

    3. What your enemies say (repeatedly, and not only in Arabic) matters. Arafat repeatedly affirmed the PLO "conquest by stages" plan, combining negotiating and fighting. He consistently advertized his ultimate plan to conquer "Jerusalem" (not, note, "East Jerualem"). He repeatedly denied the existence of the Temple on the Temple Mount, thus denying the Jewish legitimacy of the Jewish state and capitol.

    4. What your enemy does, does matter. You do not continue a "peace process" in which your interlocutor violates every tenet of the agreement he initially signed. From refusing to extradite to Israel terrorist criminals to maintaining the virulent antisemitic content of his media to violating Oslo's limits on the size and arms of his "police", Arafat thumbed his nose at Israel and its U.S. backers for years, and got away with it.

    5. You do not give quids without receiving quos. Netanyahu was elected in 1996 on this principle ("reciprocity", remember?) and then-under immense U.S. pressure-proceeded to give away a quid (Hebron).

    6. You do not arm and finance your enemy. Israel is being attacked with guns she supplied, and to this very moment continues, incredibly, to give Arafat millions of dollars in taxes collected from Palestinian day-laborers in Israel.

    7. Never put all your eggs into the U.S. basket, however important it is. The U.S. always has its eye on Arab oil-it will not alienate the Saudis, and-despite embargoes-it uses Iranian and Iraqi oil as well. The U.S. abstention on the UN condemnation of Israel was despicable (Canada's support for it was worse); always remember the helicopters air lifting Americans from Saigon.

    8. Recognize when your hopes become illusions, and give them up. It should have been clear years ago that Oslo was a misconceived, and then failed, policy. Had that fact been honestly confronted, there would be no crisis today.

    9. As in real estate, so in security-location is everything. 1992, before Oslo, was more secure than 2000, after Oslo. Go back to 1992.

    10. You do not keep failed leaders in power. Dayan and Golda Meir went after 1973; Peres fell to Palestinian terror bombings, Netanyahu to lack of confidence in his honesty. Barak's suddenly radical peace policy, which threatened the unity of Jerusalem, failed at Camp David, and his handling of the current crisis has since been, at best, erratic. Any unity government must at best be a temporary stop-gap, to be followed by elections and a new prime minister.

Who will replace Barak? Israel desparately needs a genuine leader. My vote is for Natan Sharansky, who seems the only major, principled figure on the horizon capable of rising to true greatness and statesmanship. In any case, Israel's next prime minister must not harbor illusions about a revived peace process with Arafat.

As Shlomo Avineri put it, "What should be done with the Israeli-Palestinian peace process? There is only one solution: Abandon it". In time, over years, if a new status quo and a new and truly moderate Palestinian leadership emerges and leads to renewed contacts, and if it is in Israel's clear self-interest to proceed, this time on a realistic basis, with negotiations, so be it.

Let us, out of the current crisis, rededicate ourselves to the wall-to-wall pro-Israel Zionist unity lost in the divisive rush to, and from, Oslo. Israel, the center of the Jewish people, will prevail, not because of the IDF's strength alone, but because of our shared Jewish determination, and our willed Zionist unity and belief in the justice, and necessity, of our cause. Am Yisrael chai!

(Prof. Krantz is Editor of ISRAFAX and Director of the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research)

FOCUS: OSLO LYNCHED, END OF AN ERA

Israel Government Policy Statements [Excerpts]
PM Ehud Barak: Israel's Compromises and Limits
Acting FM Shlomo Ben-Ami on the PA's Release of Hamas Prisoners
Acting FM Shlomo Ben-Ami Following the Lynching in Ramallah 
PM Barak Interview With Christiane Amanpour
PM Ehud Barak on the Sharm "Truce" Declaration 
Foreign Ministry On Arab Summit 
PM Barak on Peace Process "Time-Out" 

PM Ehud Barak: Israel's Compromises and Limits
(Jerusalem Post Interview by Herb Keinon and Jeff Barak, Oct. 2)

"...[I]f there is an agreement it will include an end to the conflict, permanent borders for Israel recognized by the world, 80 percent of the settlers in Judea and Samaria under Israeli sovereignty...security arrangements principally along the eastern border, and Jerusalem bigger than ever since [the days of] King David-with a solid Jewish majority for generations, united under our sovereignty, and recognized by the world as the capital of Israel...
   "I will not sign an agreement that harm[s] the country's security, unity, or what is sacred to it. If there will be an agreement, I am convinced that it will be very painful, because I am very emotionally tied to every rock and hill in all of Eretz Yisrael...will pass [through a referendum] with a sweeping majority...We will not transfer [the Temple Mount] to any Palestinian or Muslim body..."
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Acting FM Shlomo Ben-Ami on the PA's Release of Hamas Prisoners (Jerusalem, Oct. 10)

"...I am not aware that the PA abides by articles in our joint agreements, such as, for example, the obligation to renounce violence and terror, and take all measures necessary to prevent acts of violence and terror against Israel...
   "Recently they have released Hamas militants...from jail, and Israel is concerned today about the threat of possible acts of terrorism...
   "The same should be said about the Tanzim organization...a Fatah grassroots group that, according to the agreement signed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, should be disarmed and disciplined. [Instead] it is one of the major groups perpetrating violent activities that require the response of the IDF...
   "Some of the leaders who visited us in recent days told us: Maybe Arafat wants to control the territories, but he is incapable. The only answer one can give to this is, if he is incapable of controlling violence in his territory, what kind of a partner is he?...Who will guarantee to us that tomorrow, after we have an agreement, and there is a Palestinian state, that agreements will be respected other than the way you saw the agreements so far have been respected?..."
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Acting FM Shlomo Ben-Ami Following the Lynching in Ramallah 
(Tel Aviv, Oct. 12)

"[The Palestinians today displayed] contempt for human life. This is not how partners for peace behave...This is not how civilized people behave...The desire for peace...cannot co-exist with violence of the kind that Arafat has initiated in the recent weeks. There is no self-respecting sovereign state that can conduct a peace process, when its supposed partner deliberately releases known terrorists and breaks all the rules of political behavior. Responsibility rests squarely with Arafat...
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PM Barak Interview With Christiane Amanpour
(CNN, October 12)

Amanpour: PM Barak, you have just finished saying that this was a limited action, that you did not target PA President Yasser Arafat. But...Israel has never taken this extensive action against the Palestinians. How do you expect them to react?
Barak: We had [this morning] a lynch[ing] of three Israeli reservist soldiers; people came from the home and were lynched, then mutilated and burned. It's something that no government on Earth could accept...Understand that we are living in the Middle East, not in North America and not the Midwest, and this is a place where you cannot expect anyone to respect you, you cannot expect your own people to trust you if cannot respond to such an event. And we responded in a very focused manner...

Amanpour: Nobody would condone what you described as the lynching... But...the last two weeks...the majority of the people who have been killed--nearly 100 people--are Palestinians.
Barak: Christiane...It's like you have lost today at the near Aden port four sailors and some, maybe 12, that disappeared. When you try to ask yourself, what's that, is it something offensive that the vessel had done? It's nonsense. Butchering is the intention of terrorists, to take the life of Americans since you are standing firm for freedom and against terror. And that's exactly what the world expects the leaders of the free world to do...

Amanpour: If you call a national unity government, peace is dead, isn't it?...
Barak: ...I don't think that Likud or right-wing Israel is against the peace. They might have certain differences of opinion with us about...how to approach it...but they're not anti-peace...in my judgment, they are a 100 percent OK, kosher, for a national unity government in Israel to push peace if Arafat is ready. But if he's not ready, let's face the reality, tell the truth and move forward...."
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PM Ehud Barak on the Sharm "Truce" Declaration 
(Jerusalem, Oct. 17)

"US President Bill Clinton today presented the Sharm declaration which gives expression to the obligation of all sides to end the violence, calm the situation on the ground immediately and restore regional stability...
    "As obligated thereby, upon my return to the country, I ordered the security forces to do everything required to implement the Sharm declaration and contact their American and Palestinian counterparts in order to act jointly to achieve this goal forthwith...I would like to emphasize that the IDF and Israel Police will take great care to halt the violence and prevent additional loss of life..."
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Foreign Ministry On Arab Summit 
(Jerusalem, Oct. 22)

"...The decisions of the Arab Summit in Cairo place responsibility for the recent events and the damage to the peace process exclusively on Israel, in a total distortion of reality and in utter disregard for Israeli's far-reaching readiness to move towards an agreement.
    "Israel totally rejects the idea of the establishment of an international commission of inquiry under the aegis of the U.N. and the stationing of an international force in the territories...
   "The decisions of the Arab Summit which call for a freeze of the multilateral talks and of cooperation with Israel...do not assist but rather hinder the efforts to establish a comprehensive and lasting peace in our region..."
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PM Barak on Peace Process "Time-Out" 
(Jerusalem, Oct. 22)

"The Sharm understandings are not being upheld by the Palestinian side. There are preparations for attacks, public incitement, continued mass demonstrations, shooting incidents...Released terrorists are not being detained...
   "[I]t seems that the Palestinians have...turned towards violence in order to try and internationalize the process and secure international support for the establishment of their state without agreement with Israel. After the Arab summit, and in light of its results, we will have to call a time-out, the goal of which will be to reassess the diplomatic process in light of the events of recent weeks...
   "I will strive to expand the government in the direction of a national emergency government. I have no doubt that [such] a government will strive towards an Israeli-Palestinian peace, even if there are differences of emphasis and nuance..."
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