Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 5, 1993 TAG: 9309170431
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: William Safire
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Begin knew that the ``legitimate'' right of Arabs was to self-government, control of local affairs; he doubted that the Palestine Liberation Organization would settle for autonomy but would demand sovereignty over Israel's Judea and Samaria, to him an illegitimate claim. Begin was right: The arrogant PLO rejected its chance to work out self-rule in the disputed territories.
Today's prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, offered Palestinians a new version of step-by-step self-government. When their delegation froze, Rabin sent Shimon Peres on an end run to the PLO, whose aging and bankrupt boss was not about to make the same all-or-nothing mistake again.
As a result, Gaza - containing 800,000 of the two million Palestinians in the territories - is to be PLO-administered, which to Israel is like giving away a permanent migraine headache. Israel also accepted a symbolic PLO presence on the West Bank in Jericho, though autonomy there does not extend to the Allenby Bridge across the Jordan.
The stunner is the mutual recognition being worked out in Norway and likely to be signed in Washington. The Palestinians could tear themselves apart and ruin the deal, but last week Arab-Israeli relations underwent a Mediterranean sea-change.
What we have is the prospect of a separate peace, bugaboo of Arab negotiators. Jordan's King Hussein doesn't like it because he rules the other half of the Palestinians, who will want the same kind of self-rule. Syria's Hafez al-Assad is grumpy because his thunder has been stolen by Yasir Arafat, and he no longer has an excuse to delay a Golan deal. Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists will seek to sabotage Palestinian autonomy.
Our State Department is emitting ludicrous little bleats suggesting that Warren Christopher was the hero because Israel kept him informed of the dealings and he didn't blab. But this is not our deal; it was truly worked out ``between the parties.''
What bugs hard-liners most about taking the PLO as a negotiating partner is not only the memory of the slaughtered Israeli Olympic athletes or the Arabs dancing on the rooftops as Iraqi Scud missiles slammed into Tel Aviv. It is that Shimon Peres, the superdove Yossi Beilin and PLO sympathizers abroad - all of whom would have caved in to Arafat years ago, when he was running terrorists and demanding a state - will now claim to have been right all along.
Having been softened by 15 years of Israeli hard line, Arafat finally appears ready to accept Begin's approach, adding the Gaza-Jericho twist. The irony is that now the Israeli doves will take political credit for the breakthrough when the pressure of time and the loss of dictator sponsors have forced the PLO to become reasonable. No wonder Likudniks are gnashing their teeth: Their tough policy made this possible, and now their opponents are capitalizing on it.
The leader of the opposition in Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, sees it in starker terms: ``The Rabin-Arafat agreement,'' he tells me, ``is a prescription for a Palestinian state under the pre-'67 boundaries. Our concept offered them enclaves of autonomy, but this is just the reverse - culminating in a PLO sea with a few islands of Israeli settlements unable to survive.'' He wants an election now to be a referendum on this national life-or-death decision.
Others are cautiously pessimistic. We know Arafat still plans to sit in Jerusalem as president of Palestine, not be mayor of Gaza. But here's why hope should not be denied: Israeli public opinion, influenced by the PLO's ability to keep local order and to adopt democratic methods, will determine the pace and extent of territorial compromise.
Not the outside coercion of comprehensiveness; not the hearts of Israeli politicians too soon made glad. Before a final deal is done, Israeli voters will speak again, basing their judgment on the results of Rabin's PLO plunge. We can caution them or urge them on, but they take the risk and their hand has not lost its cunning.
It galls a pro-Israeli hawk to say this, but let's hope the slippery Arafat can deliver.
N.Y. Times News Service
by CNB