With the overwhelming defeat of Ehud Barak, the "peace
process" begun at Oslo is completely over and a new era has
started in Israel and in Israel's relationship to the
world.
As the Israeli prime minister who certainly went far beyond
any of his predecessors -- and, it is likely, any of his
successors for the foreseeable future -- Barak's crushing
defeat by a margin of almost 25 percent represents a clear
message that his approach is not acceptable to the people of
Israel. Almost half of the people who voted for him only a
year and a half ago did not vote for Barak this time. (We
are sure that no small part of this rejection for most
Israelis was due to his "secular revolution, as well.) Now
Barak as a leader is gone.
Since last summer Barak has been declaring that his generous
offers to the Palestinians are part of a package and if they
are not accepted by the other side they do not remain on the
table. Yesterday Barak and his outgoing Cabinet formalized
this commitment with an official decision stating that his
offers and former U.S. President Clinton's ideas are void
and not binding on the government of Israel. All these
somewhat wild proposals are now officially gone.
In Washington, President Clinton is no longer in office.
From the beginning of the Oslo process, Clinton was deeply
involved, doing more than his fair share to try to bring
calm to the area. It was evident that he had a proprietary
feeling towards the Israeli-Palestinian efforts to reach
peace, and he made an intense, but unsuccessful, effort to
reach some sort of closure in the past months. Now Clinton
is gone.
President Bush is here and with him of course a whole new
Administration that is very different from Clinton both in
substance and in style. The new government in Washington
brings a new perspective to the Middle East. They have
signaled clearly that they do not intend to continue the
intense personal involvement that was shown by Clinton and
emphasized with Dennis Ross and Madeleine Albright, the
former Secretary of State. The new Administration in
Washington takes a broader perspective to view the Middle
East as a whole without the extreme focus on the dispute
between Israel and the Palestinians.
Recently, U.S. government spokesmen have declared that they
will introduce a new way of talking about events in the
Middle East. They will refer to the negotiations between
leaders as just that: talks, or summit meetings. But the
"peace process" as a concept with a life of its own, is
gone.
This is certainly a new beginning, though of course history
is not erased. Certain elements will remain, at least for
now, in particular international agreements signed by the
parties and ratified by the Knesset such as the Oslo
Agreements and the Wye Memorandum. Though never fully
honored or implemented, they remain binding.
We are relieved that the "secular revolution" promulgated by
Barak was rejected by some two-thirds of the Israeli voters,
leaving no more residue than the other wild ideas that
floated around during the past months. We have no great
expectations from Ariel Sharon for great achievements in
what really matters, but we will be satisfied, as our
rabbonim said, if he does "not lend a hand to destroy
religion in Eretz Hakodesh."
