Three papers comment on the Wye agreement

Ma'ariv writes that "the most important thing about the agreement that was signed on Friday in Washington is the agreement itself. If the agreement had not been signed, we would be on the road to war, in which we would win little and lose much. Netanyahu did not want to be the
Milosevic of the Middle East, with Israel playing the role of Yugoslavia and the Palestinians being the Muslims of Bosnia or the Albanians of Kosovo." At the same time, the editors point out the deep reservations Netanyahu had in making a deal with Arafat -- "the terrorist whose hands
drip with the blood of Jewish children" -- which "surrenders considerable portions of the Land of Israel ... Even someone who does not believe in the sacredness of the land, should understand how upset the kippa-wearing settlers are, how betrayed and abandoned they feel.

The frustration and shock are even greater, since we are giving up about 40% of the area of the West Bank and receiving in exchange merely promises about stepping up the war against terrorism. We are losing our bargaining assets mid-way, when the difficult problems are still before us the status of Jerusalem, the Palestinians' demand for the return of refugees, dividing water resources, the problem of the Palestinian state and separation borders -- and negotiations on the 'final status agreement' have not yet begun." Although the editors feel that
Netanyahu did not receive anything more from the Palestinians than Labor leaders would have been able to achieve, "more quickly and elegantly" at that, and though it appears that Netanyahu's relations with President Clinton hit an all-time low over the request to free Jonathan Pollard as part of the deal, they say that the prime minister did achieve something very important "the verdict in part of the right-wing camp that was convinced that the prime minister did everything he could to minimize the damage of the Oslo agreement.

The signature of a right-wing prime minister on the second redeployment agreement is worth much more than that of a left-wing prime minister. That was something Netanyahu could not have done more quickly and the price may not have been worth it. However, Netanyahu is paying for this in a big way." The editors discuss the heavy criticism of the agreement coming from elements in the coalition and by the settlers, and the possibility of a vote of no-confidence in the Knesset. However, say the editors, toppling the government and holding early elections would be tantamount to "suicide" for the Right, since "in the event of a split in the Right, Ehud Barak would undoubtedly be elected prime minister."

The paper also believes that the chances of forming a national unity government at this point appear slim. "This is the situation for the short-term. The historic accounting for the long-term requires the Wye Plantation agreement as an important step on the long and rocky road that we can yet expect until we reach the longed-for peace."

Hatzofeh, entitling its editorial "Netanyahu is good for the Palestinians," is sharply critical of the Wye agreement, saying thatArafat has simply promised to do what he already committed to in theOslo agreement and the Hebron Protocol. In addition, President Clintonhas made no clear promise to release Jonathan Pollard, as Israel hasasked, and Prime Minister Netanyahu has signed an agreement without eliciting a commitment from the Palestinians that they will extradite
terrorist fugitives who are living in the areas under PA control. Thepaper concludes by saying that "this agreement is a failure ...Netanyahu gave in, Netanyahu failed."

Ha'aretz says, "The accord does not break new ground on which to base a permanent arrangement between the two peoples. It consolidates an effort to eliminate a long list of obstacles that have held up the implementation of the Oslo and Hebron agreements for many long months."  The paper lists the commitments made by Israel and the Palestinians to move ahead with the second redeployment, freeze settlements, improve security activity against terrorists and put off the declaration of a Palestinian state as the key elements of the agreement reached at Wye. "These understandings ... together with the diplomatic and economic assistance of the United States, create a comfortable climate for the Oslo process to be brought to completion.

Meanwhile, protests by the right-wing parties and settlers demonstrate that the prime minister's tough stand in the talks did not satisfy these opponents of withdrawal. With his many delays in implementing the second redeployment and his inflexible declarations on the long road to the signing ceremony at the White House, Netanyahu lost the trust of many of his political supporters, vexed the supporters of the Oslo accords, and undermined Israel's relations with the U.S., Egypt and the other Arab countries.

The minor improvements that the U.S. agreed to add to the original initiative it presented 10 months ago are not compensation enough for the erosion of Palestinian faith in the will of Netanyahu's government to end the occupation. This government's achievements at the summit - including the deal to re-amend the Palestinian Charter and the Palestinian commitment to detain suspects, which had been included in the security memo of last December - pale compared with the damage brought about by a public confrontation with one of the most Israel-
friendly American administrations of all time. Before the next stages of negotiations with the Palestinians begin, the prime minister would do well to base his positions on the fact that the majority of the population supports the peace process ...

The Wye accord was patterned on the Oslo agreement. It nails down various commitments made under that accord, but utterly lacks the spirit of Oslo, of building trust and conciliation. No guarantees or collateral will be of any use unless the signatories to the agreement take real
steps to breath life into it."

[Translation courtesy of Ha'aretz Web site http//www.haaretz.co.il/eng]

The Wye Plantation agreement appears more like a coerced deal to temporarily restore peace between a couple on the verge of divorce.  The accord has not restored any trust between the leaders, and certainly not between their peoples. Nor has it dispersed the tensions in their relations. To the contrary, the suspicion and tension will now only increase -- with each side using a microscope to examine the actions of the other.

Arafat is certainly satisfied. From his perspective, the top priority is to obtain territory -- which gives cause to continue the political process. As long as he continues receiving territory, even
only 13.1%, he will be prepared to make various concessions.  Arafat now needs a 3-4 month halt to terrorism, during which he will seek to prove that he is fighting Hamas and Islamic Jihad, ceasing incitement, collecting weapons and arresting terrorists here and there -- all with extensive media coverage. This will leave Israel with no choice but to continue upholding the agreement and transferring more territory to his control.

When the second redeployment is completed, Arafat will demand a third redeployment -- not sufficing, obviously, with the 1% that Netanyahu has proposed. Arafat will demand the acceleration of the final status negotiations,including those on Jerusalem, refugees, settlements
and borders -- all extremely problematic issues. Time is pressing for Arafat. His age, health, and mainly the promises that he has made to his people, make it certain that, when the negotiations reach an impasse, he will again threaten to declare independence on 4 May. Once that happens, the negotiations will return to their starting point.
 

The ink on the agreements signed at the White House has not even dried, and already both sides are arming themselves with opposing and and contradictory interpretations of the text. In the best case, we are witnessing the attempts of both parties to take credit for their
accomplishments and to distort their concessions. In the worst case, this will be a giant source of trouble.

One of the more prominent examples of this difference of opinion between Israel and the Palestinians involves the section on the amendment of the Palestinian Charter by the Palestine National Council.  One can dispute the logic behind Israel's insistence that Arafat artificially resuscitate, for the second time in 30 months, this clumsy and antiquated entity to "complete the nullification of those provisions calling for the destruction of Israel." But from the moment that the decision was made, what happens next must be examined well.

The Israeli interpretation of the Wye River Memorandum's section on the Palestinian Charter maintains that Arafat will, in a matter of weeks, again convene all 600 PNC members, who will unequivocally vote for the nullification of the relevant articles. Meanwhile, the Palestinians interpret this section in a more convoluted manner -- it states that Arafat will "invite the members of the PNC" and members of other organizations, including the Palestinian Legislative Council, to come listen to President Clinton and "reaffirm" the nullification of the charter provisions.

To be clear: No "get-together" is required for the sake of nullifying or amending the Palestinian Charter. No additional members or guests in the grandstand are necessary. Only PNC members need be present -- just those who support the Oslo Accords, those who oppose them and, of course, those who are independently- minded delegates.

Even more essential is to convene a two-thirds majority of PNC members authorized to alter the charter. In other words, if there are currently about 600 PNC members around the world, 400 of them must vote to change the charter. And, if Arafat already has 400 such delegates to vote for the change, why does he need Clinton or any other participants? If he cannot guarantee a majority, no cast of external guests will help.  And this is only one example of the sections in the Wye agreement which are sufficiently vague to allow both parties to evade compliance.

Such is also the case concerning the war on terrorism and the third redeployment. No inspection can ensure that the Palestinian Authority will collect weapons, and no power can force Arafat to genuinely combat terrorism if he does not detect a serious Israeli approach to to the final status negotiations. Without the good will of both parties, the Wye River Memorandum will remain nothing more than an ink signature on a piece of paper.

On paper, the section of the Wye agreement dealing with security is very impressive and promising.

The Palestinian Authority signed a commitment to conduct a comprehensive, thorough and continuous war against all terrorist elements and infrastructures, and this time the United States will be the one to supervise and confirm that Arafat upholds his commitments according to a detailed timetable.The details of the Palestinian security commitments,the timetable established for their implementation, which promises reciprocity betweenthem and the Israeli withdrawals, and the American involvement in all stages of security implementation are, from an Israeli standpoint, the main innovations and advantages of the agreement that was achieved.

There are more than a few people who claim that the American involvement is undesirable, since it prevents real dialogue and coexistence between us and the Palestinians, and since it makes us even more dependent on the United States. However, when the issue is security, necessity cannot be condemned. The bus bombings of 1995 and 1996 showed that trust between Arafat and Israeli leaders it not enough. There was a need for secret intervention by President Clinton so that Peres could sign a security memorandum with Arafat in April 1996, and only afterward did Dahlan and Jibril Rajoub begin to act with determination against Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The involvement of CIA personnel will be necessary for Israel, primarily after the withdrawal is completed. When Arafat has no clear interest in carrying out the security commitments, someone with influence will have to remind him about what he signed. It is therefore possible to say that Netanyahu was right in insisting on a new, very detailed text of the security component in the Oslo agreements and on American involvement their implementation.

However, a good paper is no guarantee that implementation of the security commitments will be successful -- especially when talking about the Palestinian Authority and its apparatuses, which are not exactly a symbol of efficiency. Even CIA personnel cannot eliminate overnight the organizational chaos and the internal rivalries in Arafat's camp, which will certainly cause considerable delays to the tight, tough timetable that was established for implementing the agreement. Therefore, in order for the agreement to be implemented, trust between the parties and a lot of goodwill and flexibility are necessary. These are in short supply just now, on both the Palestinian and the Israeli sides, and that already is a good reason to be concerned that delays in implementing the Palestinian commitments or a few attacks will cause the agreement to be derailed or to be suspended with the active encouragement of extremists on both sides.

A further shortcoming of the new security arrangement is that Arafat has a real interest in fulfilling it for only three months, until Israel completes its withdrawals. Afterwards, especially if there are difficulties with the negotiations on the final status agreement, he is liable to become evasive, and this could enable a new wave of violence. Israel would turn to the Americans and if they do not stand at its side, a confrontation could development between Israel and the American administration, which in any case has more trust in Arafat than Netanyahu. Even if the Americans support Israel's demands, it is doubtful if they could, or would want to, completely impose their will on Arafat, with the entire Arab world standing united behind him.

Furthermore, there are a number of mines, any one of which is liable to give Arafat or Israel a pretext to derail implementation of  the agreement. Following are three of the main ones:

* There is no Israel commitment to halt the settlers' race to take control of land. This race is liable to lead to violent clashes on the ground.
* There is no clear commitment by Arafat not to declare a Palestinian state on 4 May 1999, if he sees that there is no progress in final status negotiations.There is only a superficial commitment by both parties not to take unilateral steps.
* There is a tremendous gap between the sides regarding the thirdredeployment.  On the other hand, there is a great benefit, from the Israeli standpoint, to the agreement signed at Wye: it establishes a model and a precedent for a possible agreement between Israel and Syria on the Golan Heights and in Lebanon. Assad will find it difficult to ignore the three fundamental principles determined at Wye: territorial compromise, a strict acceptance of Israel's security demands and economic incentives to both sides to carry out the agreement in word and deed. It is no wonder than Damascus is already loudly condemning the agreement.

The signing of the agreement in Washington is supposed to reduce the likelihood of terrorist attacks. Assuming that a large-scale attack will hold up the implementation of the agreement, Hamas will not wish to be seen by the Palestinian public as the factor which prevented the
handover of 13.1% of the national territory into Palestinian hands. It will also be especially important to the Palestinian Authority to demonstrate to the Americans their determination in the war on terror.  However, the security forces reject assumptions. "In the coming days," a senior military source told Ha'aretz, "the danger of terrorist attacks will heighten. Hamas has an interest in carrying out a large-scale act of terror as soon as possible. Their objective will be
to foil the agreement, in the stage between signing and implementation."  The IDF thinks that in the eyes of Hamas, the agreement is a Palestinian surrender and a "trick", mainly because it includes the freeing of only a minority of the Palestinian prisoners -- the most important issue from the point of view of the public in the territories. The head of Hamas' political department, Khaled Masha'al, expressed the leadership's view at the weekend: Hamas, he said, would avoid a Palestinian civil war, out of a sense of responsibility, but "our rifles will remain trained on the Israeli enemy."

The expected Palestinian Authority's strengthened efforts against terrorism is likely to actually encourage the Hamas to carry out an attack quickly, before the PA changes its deployments and toughens its stance toward the Islamic organizations, and before the agreement is
passed by the Israeli government and Knesset. Their main difficulty is operational: a number of senior operatives in the military wing -- Muhi a-Din a-Sharif, the Adel brothers and Amad Awdallah -- have been killed this year. Others, like Jamal al-Natshe, have been arrested by the PA.

The wave of arrests organized by the IDF and the GSS has also hit at the operational infrastructure of Hamas. The analysis is that the Hamas is finding it increasingly difficult to carry out large-scale terrorist attacks. If indeed the organization is not able to carry out attacks within the Green Line -- and the security establishment is aware of a number of plans to carry out actions of this kind, which have been foiled recently, then the attempts to hit at soldiers and settlers in the territories may be expected to continue. One positive effect of the agreement is likely to be on the activities of the "Tanzim", the Fatah popular movement. In the last two months, the IDF considers, the Tanzim were involved in a number of shooting incidents, mainly in the Hebron area. These actions, in which there were no casualties, showed the frustration in the lower ranks of Fatah at the situation in the peace process. It may now be expected that Arafat will take a harder line and the PA will not permit attacks of this kind.

The security forces are also concerned by the response of the Israeli right to the agreement, especially the settlers. Against this background, monitoring of the extreme right has been increased in the last period. Security sources consider that while the possibility of "acts of despair" by Jewish terrorists cannot be ruled out, the likelihood of this is not high. The assumption is that the majority of the settlers will suffice with non- violent protests, such as
demonstrations and the blocking of roads. Attempts to establish illegal settlements is likely to sharply increase, mainly in areas which are not being handed over to the PA, in an effort to create facts in the prelude to the permanent agreement.

There is likely to be an increase in threats on the lives of the ministers involved in signing the agreement. Two months ago, the papers were full of reports on the increased security around the prime minister and key ministers, out of fear of an attack on them by right wing elements. In retrospect, these publications have been shown to have been based on exaggerations by the various ministries. This time, if the political atmosphere heats up, security really will in all likelihood be beefed up.
 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who returns to Israel today, will be substantively different from the man who left for the summit in the United States 10 days ago. All of the posturing, gamesmanship and the rest of the exercises which accompanied the past week will not succeed in obscuring the new reality that has been created. For many long months, Netanyahu was poised at the brink, shouting and kicking, without anyone knowing where he was heading, but when he finally mounted the bridge over the Wye River, he also crossed his personal Rubicon.

In contrast to the Hebron agreement, the legacy of the Labor Party that was put together in haste and in secret, the Wye River memorandum was signed under the camera lights, in a festive and impressive ceremony. This is Netanyahu's agreement, without excuses, and the public responsibility for it falls squarely on his shoulders. Even if it is found to be difficult to translate the agreement's articles into reality on the ground, as many expect, Netanyahu will no longer be able to deny his signature, which transfers to the Palestinians broad areas of the
Land of Israel, which are so dear to the prime minister.

With all of the cynicism and uncertainty that accompany most of the activities of Netanyahu, the consummate politician, one cannot help but appreciate the personal difficulty that was involved in the step he took, and one should not belittle the personal political risk he took. At a price of theoretical gains in the future electoral market, Netanyahu has now made what is perhaps a final divorce from the base that pushed him into power.

One can admire or hate Netanyahu, but no one can deny that he supplies an ongoing melodrama heretofore unseen on our screens, and whose climax may still lie before us. Netanyahu, for better or worse, gave a consummate performance, and this time he did it without appearing personally in front of the camera.  He pulled the Americans' nerves as taut as they could go, insulted them and played them for fools, and he did not pass over even what appears here to be a political bargaining attack of last resort, in an attempt to free "hostage" Jonathan Pollard from prison. He returns to Israel after reinventing himself, not for the first time, now in the role of a peacemaker who fought tooth and nail up to the last minute.  It is Netanyahu again, and once more we did not know he was like this.