MER FLASHBACK - Origially Published 9 April last year: Before the Second Intifada began, before last year's aborted Camp David fiasco, before this year's sweeping victory of Ariel Sharon and the attempt to then position Ehud Barak as Defense Minister, MER was already writing about what was to come while most of the media was sidetracked with and seduced by "the peace process." If you want to stay ahead of what's really happening rather than always catching up and wondering what went wrong, make sure you and your friends receive MER directly to your own email.

"Barak is the most dangerous prime minister in the history of Israel. Already in 1982 he proposed to extend the Lebanon war to a total war on Syria. Then he explained (in a memorandum to Sharon) that the best way to do that is without sharing the plans with the government. Today he is consulting only with the heads of the army and the security services. Never had the army as much grip on Israeli politics as in the times of Barak."
Professor Tanya Reinhart
Tel Aviv University (3/23/00)

MID-EAST REALITIES - Washington - 9 April. The same military, and in fact many of the same persons, who brought us the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and now maneuvering to bring us another Middle East war to start off this new millenium. This is what is really going on behind-the-scenes while CNN reporters parrot press releases and focus on photo opps.

Remember just a few things about the Israelis:

1) The War in 1982 was prepared and ready-to-go just waiting for an excuse. An anti-PLO Palestinian shot the Israeli Ambassador in London and that was used as the trigger for the war. Even though Maggie Thatcher herself, then the British Prime Minister, publicly spoke up to indicate that the PLO had nothing to do with the shooting, the Israelis knew what they wanted to do and there was no one willing or able to stop them. The Americans, professing opposition, actually gave the Israelis the wink.

2) Ariel Sharon was at the time "Defense Minister" and he lead the Israeli Army forward craftily deceiving even his own Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, as he went. Sharon fits the definition of war criminal for many things he has done, including the Sabra and Shatilla massacres in that war. He now heads Israel's Likud Party and wants to be Prime Minister.

3) An important General at the time advocated creating another excuse that could then be said to justify attacking and destroying the Syrian Army and then remolding the politics of the region by Israeli dictate. His name was Ehud Barak. He now heads Israel's Labor Party and is Prime Minister.

As another war begins to be weaved in the Middle East, the Israelis are more dominant now than ever. They have the U.S. by the balls and in the bag -- regular readers of MER know the details. They have the Arab regimes more confused, divided, and infiltrated than ever. They have the military might and the propaganda apparatus to prevail. They know the Europeans will make a few noises but will not do anything serious. And they would probably actually like for the Iranians to dare get involved for they want to take them on as well for in just a few days of battling there are some nuke and missile targets they have in mind. And lastly, the Israelis know there's nothing to worry about from the U.N., a humbled and now graying appendage of U.S. foreign policy that has gotten use to performing elephant wiper tasks when it is assigned the cleanup work after the guns have gone silent and the important decisions have already been taken.

The following column by Professor Tanya Reinhart in Israel a few weeks ago tells part of what's really going on in Israel, smoothed over abit for Israeli sensibilities.

So nothing is going to come out of this peace. Only three months ago it looked so feasible: to bring the soldiers back home, to stop renovating shelters in the Galilee, to forget about the northern border, and afterwards, peace like with Egypt - including, if you wish, visiting the unseen Syrian landscapes. But that's not what will happen.

There are two narratives about what happened in the Clinton-Assad summit in Geneva. Ours - the only one heard in Israel (and on CNN) - is that Assad just doesn't want peace. "The masks have been unveiled", said Barak, "the Syrian position is not ripe for the decisions which are necessary in order to reach a peace treaty". Assad is insisting on those 500 meters in order to humiliate us and derail the process.

The second narrative can be witnessed in Robert Fisk's report in the British "Independent": "The two men held three hours of talks, through interpreters, at the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva, with the Syrian leader patiently explaining he was not going to fall into the same 'peace' trap as the Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat. He will not make peace with Israel before guaranteeing the return of all of the occupied Golan, captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. Mr Arafat signed a peace settlement then failed to gain a majority of the occupied West Bank or a capital in Jerusalem."

In this narrative, the dispute is not over the 500 meters at all ("it was conveyed on behalf of Assad that he is willing to compromise on the withdrawal line, and even to full Israeli control over the whole of the Kineret coast, while continuing to negotiate water rights"). The dispute is over the model of the peace. There are two models in our history: in the Egyptian model, all stages of the withdrawal and guarantees were finalized before the treaty was signed (the later discussions concerned the autonomy for the Palestinians). The withdrawal was set to spread over three years, and only after 2/3 of Sinai was evacuated, embassies were set up. The Taba issue remained. Both sides held it precious, and the Israelis used to spend their vacations on its shores. That's why the decision regarding it was left for the end.

In the Arafat model, the Oslo agreement was signed with almost nothing agreed upon, besides Israeli declarations of principle about willingness for a withdrawal. Seven years later, it turns out that the Palestinians have halted the Intifadah, but Arafat didn't get anything of what was promised to him in the west bank. What was realized was the autonomy plan which the Palestinians always rejected.

Assad is saying that he will agree to a Sadat style peace, and not to an Arafat style one. Barak is demanding that he will first sign, open embassies and fight the Hizbollah. And then, if we will be satisfied, we will withdraw. This is the Arafat model. Barak does not agree to the Sadat model.

So there is no peace. But without peace, Lebanon is the Israeli Vietnam, and life in the northern towns is hell. But it's ok, there is an answer: 'unilateral withdrawal'. The US is threatening Syria that it is supporting this plan, and has already begun to pressure Arab leaders to support it as well. It is a little hard to understand why one needs to threaten anyone to agree to an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon - what everybody in the region has been demanding all along. But "unilateral withdrawal" is the code name for a plan which Sharon has already proposed three years ago: we will withdraw unilaterally while creating some kind of provocation (such as, not fully withdraw) and then, with the first missile, we will go on a total war. The world will be on our side, because we have withdrawn. Since our soldiers are no longer there, it would now be possible to burn the earth from the air.

Barak and others have mentioned this "Kosovo plan" several times. This is what is being prepared in the north. And if it will prove necessary, "we will also attack Syrian targets".

Barak and Sharon are counting on the fact that Assad is currently weak, and his army is not what it used to be. So this time there will be no missiles and no sealed rooms. Maybe they are right, but who wants to check? And if they will succeed this time, how long will it last?

Making peace by the Sadat model would make much more sense. There is still time to stop this summer's war.

[Translated from the original Hebrew in Yediot Aharanot, 30 March]

* Professor Reinhart teaches Linguistics at Tel Aviv University. She can be reached at Tanya@MiddleEast.Org

Mid-East Realities

www.middleeast.org

Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/4/181.htm