Riding Two Tracks
By A. M. ROSENTHAL
New York Times - October 8, 1999

 In New York over the past few days, two major opponents in 
Israeli political life separately raised somber and fundamentally 
identical questions about the problems of achieving peace between 
Israel and the Arabs. 

The two men, who spoke before different audiences at different times,
were David Levy, now Foreign Minister under Prime Minister Ehud Barak,
and Ariel Sharon, leader of the Likud opposition. 
If Mr. Barak publicly gives those questions the same emphasis, the 
possibility of a permanent peace would become somewhat more realistic. 
If he does not, or if the U.S. does not agree they are critically 
important, the best that can be hoped for in the Israel-Palestine 
talks would be an interim before another war. 

Paraphrased, the questions Mr. Levy and Mr. Sharon raised separately are: 

What do the Arabs mean by peace? Does it include continuing pressure 
on Israel, continuing opposition to borders safe for Israel, continuing 
to break promises for hate control -- in propaganda and in schools? 

When will the Palestinian Authority reduce its army, as promised, give up 
specified weapons as promised? Can Israel afford to sign a final settlement 
before the Palestinians carry out every promise they have already broken? 
That would be no guarantee for the future, but it would provide the hopeful 
some confidence. 

True, Israelis make promise-breaking easy. At the Wye conference last year, 
the Netanyahu Government and the Palestinians agreed to reciprocity of 
concession. A step-by-step timetable was created -- terrorism control 
tied to land concessions, for instance. That timetable seems to have 
disappeared; zip, like that. 

The questions are not new; most have existed unanswered for almost a 
decade, all through Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. That makes them 
more and more important, not less. 

What is very new and very important is that Mr. Levy chose to talk 
about them, in New York, at a time when the U.N. was smacking Israel 
with its usual package of insult, including a Palestinian delegate's 
reference to Mr. Barak as a provocateur making "crazy" decisions. 

Mr. Levy is sure the Prime Minister believes in the importance of the 
questions his Foreign Minister was asking. But Mr. Barak has not given 
the questions the public attention they need in Israel and abroad. 
There's still time. 

In the world press, Mr. Sharon comes out as a Jewish Patton lusting 
for war. But the truth is he is devoted to protecting the Israeli nest, 
not flooding it with blood by seeking war. 

Mr. Levy, once a Likud leader himself, is portrayed as a heavy, mumbly 
type -- maybe because he has neglected to learn English well enough to 
put himself across to journalists who have neglected to learn Hebrew. 

This is the key to the Foreign Minister: He longs for peace but will not 
accept the two-track system. On track one, Israel makes serial concessions. 
Track two: Arabs keep threatening boycott and violence if they are 
annoyed by Israel. 

Meantime, with the help of member nations, Arabs make the U.N. their 
personal anti-Israeli propaganda machine -- a special committee and 
a special U.N. bureaucratic department for the Palestinian cause, and 
tons of resolutions passed to demean Israel. 

I believe the U.S. should remove the shame of being behind in dues. 
Maybe U.N. members could save a few dollars by eliminating that nasty 
Palestinian apparatus. 

What the U.N. gives Israel is a ghetto. Dore Gold, leaving soon after 
a tour as one of the best U.N. representatives Israel ever had, points 
out that membership in regional groups is a requirement for nomination 
to the Security Council. 

The Mideastern nations won't allow Israel into their group. Normally 
countries outside regional groups because of politics or geography 
are taken in by others. Australia and Canada are in the European group, 
and served on the Security Council. But every year the Europeans 
blackball Israel, leaving it alone in its ghetto. 
Richard Holbrooke, the new U.S. delegate to the U.N., is trying his 
best to break down the European walls for Israel. 

It will be difficult for the Arabs to break the Israeli passion to 
achieve peace. But if they keep riding that track of insult and threat 
at the U.N., who knows, they may accomplish it.