Untitled Document

Fri, Nov. 29, 2002
URI DROMI

A ray of hope for the Mideast

JERUSALEM -- When these lines are read, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon should have had defeated Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Likud Party leadership race. And if nothing short of a political earthquake happens between now and the elections in January, Sharon is also going to defeat his opponent from the Labor Party, Amram Mitzna, and continue to lead Israel.

In that case, the question of a Palestinian state, which is the hottest issue in Israeli politics today, will be on hold. Although Sharon has made some faint statements favoring a Palestinian state, he has conditioned it on the Palestinians' ending their violent campaign against Israel.

However, that is not how Sharon supporters see things. On Tuesday, pollsters asked Israelis who said that they were going to vote for him in the Likud primaries: ''Should Israel negotiate with the Palestinians even if the violence goes on?'' The results were quite surprising: 51 percent answered that Israel should; 45 percent that it shouldn't; and the rest didn't know. Sharon's constituents, then, seem to be more moderate than their leader.

Some recent developments suggest that interesting things are happening on the grass-root level on both sides.

Take, for example, the unofficial draft for a final peace accord, drawn up by former Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin and the Palestinian Minister for Information Yasser Abed Rabbo. According to this document, leaked to the press this week, the Palestinians are willing to give up on the right of return in exchange for Israel's symbolic acceptance of its ''responsibility'' for the refugee problem and a token number of returnees. This draft is based along the lines of the Clinton proposals and picks up where the Taba talks broke down in January 2001, several months into the current Palestinian uprising.

This is not the first time that Beilin tries to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Ten years ago, he masterminded the Oslo process, which led to the first peace accord signed between the two peoples. In 1995, he has drafted, together with Arafat's deputy, Abu-Mazen, the Beilin-Abu-Mazen, a ''framework for the conclusion of a final status agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization.'' Because this Beilin-Abu-Mazen agreement has created immediate furor, the two partners decided to call it a ''nonpaper,'' half embracing it, half ignoring it.

This week's Beilin-Abed Rabbo deal is totally different. The two people have issued a joint statement, which sounds quite extraordinary:

'Israelis ask why the Palestinian intifada broke out just when it seemed we were so close to an agreement. Palestinians ask why Israel responded with such inordinate military power to the uprising, using planes and tanks against a population largely subject to Israel's security control. The adversaries are like two wrestlers locked in a deadly embrace who continue to inflict wounds on one another, with no benefit to either. If, in two years' time, you show film of the present behavior of both sides, they will not believe they were parties to such stupidity.''

Then they go on to outline a prospective peace settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, again, basically a return to the agreement drawn up at Taba in January 2001.

This is not the only game in town. In September, the details of a proposed Israeli-Palestinian final peace agreement reached by PLO Jerusalem representative, Sari Nusseibeh, and Ami Ayalon, former head of the Israeli ''Shin Bet'' secret service, were published in Haaretz newspaper. The two, who had traveled together in the United States and had made public appearances in which they spoke openly about their joint venture, made no attempt to wash their hands of it. On the contrary: Parts of the plan were even published in Al Quds, the main Palestinian newspaper in East Jerusalem.

On both sides, people rushed to attack the plans and bad-mouth their designers. Beilin and Ayalon (a war hero, with the highest medal for valor) were accused of undermining Israel's position under fire. Palestinians blamed Abed Rabbo and Nusseibeh as betraying the Palestinian cause by giving up the historic claim for the right of return. Yet quite surprisingly, the mainstream crowds were not so worried. It seems that after letting each other's blood for so long, they are not afraid of trying to talk again. In light of what's going on here for the last two years, this is a bit of good news.

Uri Dromi is director of international outreach at the Israel Democracy in Jerusalem.