Ahead of Annapolis Talks, Barak Emerges as Skeptic

WASHINGTON — The Israeli leader who once offered Yasser Arafat half of Jerusalem is emerging as a skeptical hawk in anticipation of the peace talks scheduled for December in Annapolis, Md.Ehud Barak will meet today with Vice President Cheney and members of the House Armed Services Committee to make the case that a multi-tiered missile defense system in Israel should be a precondition for any withdrawal required by a final status solution with the Palestinian Arabs. That position would make any final status agreement contingent on the Jewish state’s acquisition of technology that would not only defend against advanced Iranian-made rockets from southern Lebanon, but also the hand-held World War II-era Katusha rockets favored by Hezbollah in Israel’s war with Lebanon 15 months ago.Mr. Barak, who is now the Israeli defense minister, is credited in Israel’s defense community with turning around that ministry and spearheading the air raid into Syrian territory that is believed to have destroyed a clandestine North Korean-supplied nuclear project. But before he took over the ministry, he was Israel’s prime minister as the Oslo process collapsed in 2000 at Camp David. Even after the Palestinian Authority sanctioned the start of the second intifada, Mr. Barak still sent emissaries to Taba to try one last time for a peace deal. His decision to go for talks in the midst of war was exploited by Ariel Sharon, who won the election for prime minister a few weeks after the Taba parley.Today, Mr. Barak is emerging to the right of Mr. Sharon’s former deputy, Prime Minister Olmert — the former mayor of Jerusalem — who is now pursuing negotiations after having had to abandon his, and Mr. Sharon’s, initial plan of unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank.On Sunday, Mr. Barak, for example, met with Secretary of State Rice for two hours. The Israeli press reported that during this meeting, Mr. Barak linked a missile defense system for Israel to a withdrawal from the West Bank and also said the Jewish state would not agree to any proposal that did not grant the Israel Defense Force freedom of movement in that territory.The linkage between missile defense and withdrawal is in part due to the barrage of rockets Israel has withstood from Gaza, territory it relinquished in 2005 under Mr. Sharon, and also in southern Lebanon, the territory the Israelis left in 2000 when Mr. Barak was premier. Hamas has controlled Gaza since June when their gunmen took over the security services America built for Fatah in the 1990s. Hamas is no longer part of the Palestinian Authority as a result of the June coup, and it will not participate in the planned negotiations in Annapolis.An Israeli official yesterday told The New York Sun that advocacy for the missile defense system was the top priority in Mr. Barak’s talks this week in Washington. “When he talks about the multi-tiered missile defense, he is talking about [everything from] defense against the shortest-range Katusha to defense against the Iranian Zilzal and advanced missiles from Iran.”The House Armed Services Committee, headed by Rep. John Murtha, the Democrat of Pennsylvania who has become a hero of the anti-war left, authorized $150 million last month in the 2008 budget just for Israeli missile defense. Part of Mr. Barak’s mission this week is to thank lawmakers for this proposed part of the aid package.A senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, David Makovsky, yesterday said he thinks there is an understanding between America and Israel that Israel will not relinquish military positions in the West Bank in the near term. “I tend to believe there is a genuine understanding between the United States and Israel, given the unresolved situation in Gaza, that the IDF is going to be in charge of security in the West Bank for the foreseeable future. I do not see the United States trying to press Israel to become more vulnerable,” he said.Mr. Makovsky said Mr. Barak is trying to refashion himself politically in Israel as “Mr. Security.”“Barak in a certain way is running for the position of Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon as being Israel’s Mr. Security, and to that end to expunge any public reminiscence of him when he was seen by some in 2000 as making concessions under fire. It’s a fascinating analogy of Rabin who left in 1977 and was not seen to be successful, returning seven years later as defense minister, and focusing purely on security issues,” Mr. Makovsky said.Rabin went on to embrace Arafat as a peace partner when he became prime minister again in 1992, leading Israel into the Oslo process that ended in 2000. A Jewish opponent of Oslo, Yigal Amir, assassinated him in 1995 at a peace rally in Tel Aviv.

Ahead of Annapolis Talks, Barak Emerges as Skeptic

Ahead of Annapolis Talks, Barak Emerges as Skeptic

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