Reading Bibi’s mind:
Off to London next week to see Albright, and maybe Arafat. London? Nice city. I like it. I like the irony too. Exactly 50 years ago the Brits took down their flag and sailed away from Palestine. Israel declared independence. The Arab states declared war. The world expected us to die. We didn’t. And now they’ve got me to deal with. Fifty years later: an Israeli PM in London, still dealing with the mess left behind.
London’s the place, but the agenda is made in the U.S.A. The Americans want me to give Arafat another 13.1 percent of the West Bank. Point one, mind you. Such precision.
I got my Cabinet to swallow nine. Even that’s a stretch. The difference between our two numbers? The Americans picked theirs. (Out of a hat?) We built ours. From the ground up. I sent out Sharon and Mordechai (my defense minister) and the army guys into the field with binos and surveying equipment, and said: What can we give up at this stage of withdrawal and still maintain security? They added up the pieces and it came to 6 percent. We stretched it to nine.
Thirteen versus nine doesn’t look like a big difference. But it is. Almost 50 percent more.
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Of course, I’ll give more when we get to “final status” negotiations where final borders are put down, with fences, bunkers, roads, listening posts, tunnels and bridges–concrete compensation for lost defensive territory. But that’s different. That’s when we cut into bone. But now? We are giving away land for nothing but promises. That’s where that extra 50 percent hits really hard.
Problem is: The Americans have come out with 13.1. It’s not easy to back off a number. But it’s a political number. It’s got to be finessed.
Everybody is still trying to figure out whether I’m just stalling or whether I’m ready to deal. What do you have to do to be understood around here? I did Hebron, didn’t I? I’m dead serious about the 9 percent or so. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to deal it away for nothing.
And I’m not giving up anything unless I get three things. Arafat has to convene the PNC to change the Palestinian charter (that calls for Israel’s destruction) and do something serious about the terrorists. He is now going through one of his periodic Potemkin arrest phases. Revolving jail door: terrorists come in the front and out the back.
The other thing I’m holding out for is that after this land giveaway, Arafat has to sit down for final talks on a final deal.
Most Israelis understand I’m ready to do it. The West is divided on the question. They don’t get it. I’m the one, the only one to get the deal done. Sure, I stopped Peres’ crazy train of unilateral Israeli concessions. That was just common sense. He was giving away all our bargaining chips for a handshake and a smile. But I’m the one who got the entire Israeli Right on board the peace process. With the Hebron deal, the Israeli consensus for “territorial compromise” became national. Only question is: How much territory and for what in return. I’m responsible for that change.
Not bad for two years. I’m ahead of Labor’s Ehud Barak. I’ve captured the center and kept my right. That’s tough for Arafat to handle. He was waiting for the West Bank to fall in his lap. For nothing.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out Arafat’s strategy. He figures he has three ways to get what he wants cost-free:
1) My government falls and then Labor gives him a free pass. He knows that’s not going to happen now.
2) The Americans deliver me on a silver platter. That’s what he’s hoping to get out of London. But there is no way I’m going to deliver nine or whatever percent unless I get a real terrorist crackdown from Arafat and assurances from the Americans that this is my last land gift before we sit down for final talks in which the questions of Jerusalem and borders and Palestinian sovereignty are settled.
3) Violence. There are two or three spots where our troops are nearby or isolated. Rachel’s Tomb, Hebron. That’s where the stone-throwers regularly make their show. It’s not fun for us. But it’s no intifada. It’s not going to work. Which leaves:
4) He deals with me.
That’s the hope.