Ha'aretz, Sunday, January 3, 1999
Would you send your kid to this peace camp?
By Gideon Levy
A king was born unto the Israeli peace camp over the weekend. In a
television interview, MK Yossi Beilin (Labor), who is himself a worthy candidate to lead
that camp, declared that "the peace camp has a leader, and his name is Ehud
Barak.".Coming from Beilin, a preeminent statesman of Labor, that pronouncement is
cause for more than a little puzzlement. Ehud Barak? The head of the peace camp? The
explanation must be that with elections just around the corner, Beilin pledged his
allegiance to his party's leader a bit too cogently. But Beilin's declaration was not a
lone voice in what is known as the Israeli left; Meretz leader MK Yossi Sarid has also
proclaimed his support for Barak.
Someone who abstained in the Knesset vote on the Oslo accords; who
religiously shuns meetings with Palestinians; whose soul, he has said, pines for the hills
to the east of his home in Kohav Yair, a community located literally on top of the 1967
Green Line; who spoke of the West Bank settlements of Ofra and Beit El in terms of an
"eternal presence" - this is the person who is suddenly being touted as a leader
by key figures in the peace camp.
Even if they are guided by electoral considerations it is difficult to
grasp their reasoning, particularly when a far more committed Oslo supporter than Barak -
Amnon Lipkin-Shahak - has yet to speak his piece and has at his side a true believer in
human rights in the form of MK Dan Meridor.
In fact, it is very doubtful that Israel has a genuine peace camp at all,
and in any event Ehud Barak is certainly not the person to lead it. Since doffing his
chief-of-staff uniform he has said or done nothing that would qualify him for his new
title. Sometimes he appears not to have internalized the shift - albeit relatively small -
that has occurred in our relations with the Palestinians; he seems to perceive them as
potential enemies, as during his lengthy military service.
The hands are frequently the hands of Barak but the voice is Netanyahu's.
Withdrawal from Lebanon, so ardently espoused by Beilin? On that issue Barak, as he is so
often, is in agreement with Netanyahu. Ditto regarding the Golan Heights. Negotiations
with the Palestinians? There are some minor differences - which emerged when, wonder of
wonders, Barak tried to outflank Netanyahu from the right.
Beginning with the original and unforgivable sin of declining to support
Oslo, and ranging through his criticism of Netanyahu on the eve of the Wye accord, Barak
is doing everything he can to prove that he is not a "leftist," as he was
branded by Netanyahu. And he is definitely succeeding. No wonder, then, that virtually the
entire Palestinian leadership is looking to Shahak. Barak, who so conspicuously refuses to
meet with Palestinians, is anathema to the Palestinian Authority.
This probably pleases Barak no end: if Palestinians expect certain things
of a candidate, this is still taken as a sign of weakness in Israel. But doesn't the
advantage really lie with a candidate whom the Palestinians trust and who stirs hope in
their hearts? Would it not be more appropriate if Barak, the candidate for leadership of
the "peace camp," were seen in that light by the Palestinians too? Would a hair
fall from his security-oriented head if he were to convey a message that under his
leadership peace can be more easily achieved thanks to his flexibility?
Sometimes he uses expressions that recall the old-style, wrongheaded
pronouncements of the Labor Party; sometimes he seems to evoke an even more distant past.
His declaration about the "eternal" existence of Ofra and Beit El was even
moldier than the formulations of the previous Labor Party platform - it was a veritable
fossil left over from the days of the Galili-Dayan-Golda Meir triumvirate.
Barak's assertion that the settlements are a "great enterprise"
should have been enough to spark resistance. His perception has always been that relations
with the Palestinians are a zero-sum game: their losses are our gains. When the United
States proposed, during the exhausting talks on the second further redeployment, an
Israeli pullback of 13.1 percent, Barak maintained his ambiguous approach and did not
support Washington. When asked about this, he replied with his characteristic
retail-minded stance, "How will it look if I support 13.1 percent and Arafat finally
agrees to accept 12.4 percent?"
He has often flayed Netanyahu for bringing about the establishment of a
Palestinian state, while all along we were under the impression that Labor has already
condoned its establishment. He has hardly met with Arafat, and the price he will pay in
the elections for keeping his distance from Israel's Arab population will far outweigh the
imaginary profit he hopes to reap in the center and toward the right. It's worth listening
to what Arab MKs have to say about him.
Ehud Barak is a throwback. Apart from a spate of general utterances about
peace and security, he has not voiced one original - not to mention daring -
political-diplomatic idea so far. No pointless demolition of a home in the West Bank has
moved him to respond, no tormenting of Palestinians has stirred his interest. Has anyone
heard him refer to the release of Palestinian prisoners, for example? Is he for? Against?
His aides will tell you that he is saving these issues for after the
elections - the usual ploy in these parts. The problem is that such ploys could cost him
the election. Without a message that promises a genuine change after Netanyahu he has no
chance of winning the confidence of those voters who want peace - the composition of his
close circle will not be enough to attract them. And for those voters who want peace, the
emerging alternative in the center of the political map looks a bit more promising
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