Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, September 14, 1993 TAG: 9311160233
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It's important to guard against illusions regarding the event's significance. The agreement itself lauches limited self-rule only in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Jericho. The fate of other territories in dispute, which are far less amenable to concessions from either side, has yet to be decided. (Indeed, Israel will be happy to be rid of Gaza, no matter where peace talks go from here. The West Bank is another matter, complicated to say the least by the Israeli settlements there. And this is not to mention Jerusalem.)
Moreover, the authority and ability of both the PLO and the current Israeli government to sustain progress and push peace through are hardly givens. Yasir Arafat's leadership is under challenge by hard-line rejectionists and Muslim fundamentalists. (Indeed, one factor making an agreement possible was the Israeli leadership's realization that the PLO is better than the alternatives, and was on the verge of collapse.
With its Soviet backers gone, and funding from Arab oil sheiks dried up because Arafat supported Iraq during the Gulf War, the PLO was rescued from oblivion by Israel's diplomatic gamble.)
Israel, too, is conflicted about peace with Palestinians. The Labor Party does not enjoy a commanding position in Israeli politics. (Indeed, another reason for Monday's agreement was U.S. interference, for lack of a better word, in Israel's domestic affairs. As the Brookings Institution scholar William Quandt notes in the Washington Post, President Bush did not want to help the government of Yitzhak Shamir by providing $10 billion in loan guarantees as the 1992 elections approached. Bush's refusal hurt Shamir, and it's difficult to imagine the latter, had he won re-election, doing what Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres have done.)
Extremists among both Arabs and Israelis will try their worst to sabotage the peace process, and their chances shouldn't be minimized.
Even so, there is no question that Monday's signing ceremony represented a huge breakthrough. There is cause now to hope for a clearing of the way for Palestinian autonomy over much of the territory taken by Israel in the 1967 war (along the rough lines worked out in the Camp David accords of 1978). There is cause to hope, too, that the momentum for peace will push Syria, the crucial holdout now, into recognizing Israel and coming to a settlement of their disputes.
Courage often is associated with behavior on the battlefield, but it is an attribute of peacemakers as well. As President Clinton has observed, the PLO- Israel agreement is "a very brave and courageous thing." It takes its place, with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's stunning visit to Jerusalem in 1977, as a history-altering mind-bending event that opens new possibilities, engineered by brave visionaries.
Far more credit goes to the Bush administration for setting up these peace talks, to Norway for facilitating the final, secret negotiations, and to the Israeli and Palestinian leaders who forged the deal, than to the Clinton administration, which played little if any role in the past few months.
But there is a reason why Monday's signing ceremony took place where it did. The parties to the pact must depend on the United States and other nations to work hard, and shell out, to ensure that the settlement takes hold and peace spreads in the Middle East.
Great difficulties still have to be overcome, and great perseverence and patience shown to win the day against the rigid and the hateful. But when sworn enemies shake hands and commit themselves to peace, as they did on the White House lawn yesterday, a newness can be felt in the air, and the unimaginable becomes imaginable.
by CNB