... AND PEACE
Author:
Date: Saturday, December 10, 1994
Page: 10
Section: EDITORIAL PAGE
The irony is apparent to all, and desolating.
Today in Oslo, Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, PLO chairman Yasser
Arafat and Israel's foreign minister, Shimon Peres, are sharing a Nobel Peace
Prize for negotiating a peace agreement that has not yet led to peace. What is
worse, Israelis, Palestinians and interested outsiders have begun to doubt
that the Declaration of Principles signed by the laureates will ever induce
peaceful coexistence for the two peoples.
The reasons for doubt are not trivial. Rabin and his colleagues blame
Arafat for failing to repress Islamic groups responsible for terrorist attacks
against Israelis, and hence for turning the Israeli public against the phased
plan for a military withdrawal and Palestinian self-rule. Rabin has even
broached the possibility of violating the agreement by keeping Israeli troops
in the West Bank after elections for a Palestinian governing council.
The secretary general of Rabin's Labor Party, showing symptoms of
political panic, has suggested that negotiations with the PLO be suspended
until Israel holds parliamentary elections scheduled for 1996. Since such a
measure would be tantamount to an admission of failure in the most important
action taken by the government, it would be as likely to ruin Labor's chances
in 1996 as it would be to doom the prospects for peace.
On the Palestinian side, Arafat has suffered a swift and dangerous loss of
support. The zealots of Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been able to portray him
as a traitorous lackey of Israel. They revile him for concluding a one-sided
agreement, for having their militants shot and imprisoned, for incompetence
and for corruption. Graffiti on Gaza walls promise Arafat's assassination.
The ceremony in Oslo will serve the cause of peace if it reminds the
international community that the laureates are pursuing a work in progress and
that they need financial and political support. The laureates should be
reminded that they are launched on a common struggle against the forces that
have turned Iran, Algeria and Egypt into charnel houses.
BERGER;12/07 CAWLEY;12/12,18:48 ENOBELS10
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