			Foreign Correspondent

		      Inside Track On World News
	    By International Syndicated Columnist & Broadcaster
		 Eric Margolis <emargolis@lglobal.com>

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SOLD DOWN THE RIVER JORDAN
by Eric Margolis
October 3, 1996


ZURICH -  Most summits are designed to win favorable media
attention for politicians, and give the impression they are
accomplishing something. 

This week's hurriedly concocted Mideast summit in Washington
was no different.  After last week's violent rioting in the
West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem, President Clinton needed to 
show American voters that the Mideast peace process, for
which he has taken undeserved credit, was not a failure. 

So Washington pleaded with Israel's rightwing Likud
government, which receives US$6 billion annually in US aid,
and Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, now a diplomatic
and economic stepchild of the United States, to meet in
Washington. Jordan's King Hussein came when summoned, but
Egypt refused to attend the charade. 

The expected promises to hold more talks to try and defuse the
crisis were made.  Yet none of this resolved the underlying
problems facing Israel, the Palestinians and the United States -
the three members of this dysfunctional family.

Ever since summer, Israel's new Likud government has 
relentlessly backtracked on the peace agreements so
painfully and courageously realized by the Labor government
of the late Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres.  Israeli PM
Benjamin Netanyahu was sticking to his long-standing, bitter
opposition to the Oslo accords that granted limited
Palestinian autonomy on the West Bank and Gaza.  Likud has
repeatedly vowed to kill the Oslo agreement.

But, of course, no government can appear to oppose peace, so
Likud set about undoing Oslo by gradual sabotage.  Israel's
pledge to  pull out of Hebron was `delayed.' Palestinian
workers were not allowed into Israel, creating a massive
economic crisis on the West Bank. New settlements, and
enlargement of Jewish Jerusalem were announced.  Arafat was
humiliated at every turn.   

And so it went.  Likud's objective was threefold: show
Palestinians who was boss; underline Likud's determination
there will never be  a Palestinian state, and certainly no
Palestinian Jerusalem; drive infuriated Palestinians to an
explosion of violence.

Netanyahu knew exactly what he was doing when he approved 
opening of a tunnel alongside the Al Aksa Mosque, Islam's 
third holiest site - akin to Muslims or Christians boring
next to the Wailing Wall.  This calculated affront produced
the anticipated result: a prison riot, writ large..  

Months of repressed Palestinian fury erupted into vicious
rioting. PLO police fired at Israeli soldiers, who were 
firing bullets at rock-throwing demonstrators. Israeli
helicopter gunships turned their machine guns on Arab
civilians.  

Israel and its foreign partisans denounced Palestinian
violence, claiming it proved no more concessions could be
made to `terrorists.'  The PLO sought to enlist world
sympathy  to push Israel into honoring the Oslo pact. But
Bill Clinton, the only leader capable of influencing Israel,
ducked and merely issued mealy-mouthed platitudes.  

Clinton was not going to risk the wrath of Likud's American
supporters right before elections.  President George Bush
and Secretary of State James Baker were viciously slandered
as `anti-semites'  when they tried to press  Israel to
curtail settlements on Arab land by threatening to withhold
loan guarantees. 

So is the peace process dead? No, but barely alive.  Likud's
wants to keep the only part of Oslo it likes - self-policing
Palestinian `reservations' on the West Bank and Gaza. 
Meanwhile, Likud will push to keep overall Israeli military
control of the West Bank; refuse to return Golan to Syria;
make Jerusalem ever more Jewish; accelerate Jewish
immigration and settlement on the West Bank..

Though half of all Israelis back the Oslo peace process,
Likud and its far right allies are holding all the cards.  
The Washington summit won't change the growing Palestinian
feeling that they and a helpless Yasser Arafat  have been
betrayed, and sold down the River Jordan. 

This, of course, opens the door to the bombers of Hamas and
Islamic Jihad, a fact that Likud understands perfectly well. 


Copyright E. Margolis, October 1996


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