The prime minister also seems to have underestimated the degree to which the United States, the European Union and other interested bystanders are watching every move in his contorted quest for \”peace with security\” — and increasingly concluding that the Palestinians are right to suspect him.
On the eve of the 50th birthday of the Jewishstate, Israelis have seldom felt so lonely. No one wants to come tothe party. Vice President Al Gore is one of the few foreigndignitaries who have accepted an invitation to the April 30 fiesta.The rest are either stalling or saying, \”Thanks, but nothanks.\”
Israel signed the Oslo peace agreement with itsold enemy, Yasser Arafat, because by 1993 the alternatives had becomeinsufferable. The Palestinian intifada, a revolt of thestreet, was sapping the morale of the Israeli army, fighting a futilesix-year battle with one hand tied behind its back. Nightlytelevision footage of soldiers in combat fatigues, chasing teenageboys wielding slingshots and petrol bombs, was undermining Israel\’sdeterrent credibility in its confrontation with the Arab states aswell as its international moral case.
The young Lithuanian woman in the prison libraryhas the narrow chest, hunched shoulders and wary eyes of someone whohas known poverty and is not sure where the next blow is coming from.
After 50 years of evasion, soft sell andhalf-truths, Israelis are coming to terms with the darker side oftheir own history.
Seven years ago, when Saddam Hussein hurled 39 Scud missiles at Tel Aviv, Israel reluctantly refrained from retaliating. The Bush administration convinced Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir that an Israeli blow at Iraq would undermine the anti-Baghdad coalition assembled for Operation Desert Storm.
Over the past two years, Jerusalem alone has beenshaken by two bus bombings and by explosions in the Mahane Yehudamarket and the Ben-Yehuda shopping precinct.
Graham Greene and John Le Carré have been there before: A shadowy source with access to the highest reaches of an enemy regime. A vain, furtive secret service handler with a chip on his shoulder, who insists that the informant will speak to no one but him. A steady flow of alarming exclusive reports, plausible but inherently uncheckable. An intelligence community more concerned with protecting its turf than investigating all the way when suspicions were first aroused.
Binyamin Netanyahu has made peace, for the time being, with his own disaffected coalition by offering the Palestinians a further West Bank withdrawal that is vague, qualified and conditional. But in the atmosphere of distrust generated by the Israeli prime minister, few are convinced that he has advanced the prospects of a wider peace.
The bad news is that the peace process is going nowhere. The good news is that the Palestinians are learning all over again how to enjoy themselves.
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