JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees himself in a no-lose position as the election campaign nears the homestretch.
Battling for all he’s worth to retain power in the May 17 elections, he managed to put a favorable spin on this week’s diplomatic maneuvering between the United States and the Palestinians.
As President Clinton sent off a letter to Yasser Arafat urging both sides to “avoid unilateral acts and declarations,” the Israeli premier was hailing his own steadfastness in facing down the threat of a Palestinian declaration of independence.
Netanyahu has been making Arafat’s stance on statehood a central issue in his campaign.
That issue, along with his cabinet’s decision to reassert control over Jerusalem by closing the Palestinians’ offices at Orient House, gave him what he perceived as a win-win situation in the elections.
Had Arafat not decided to back down on calling for a Palestinian state May 4, Netanyahu was prepared to argue that “a strong leader” — his election slogan — is required to face down the Palestinians. Labor Party candidate Ehud “Barak will sell out to Arafat,” is another Likud Party election slogan, plastered on billboards across the nation.
Now that Arafat apparently has called off the May 4 pronouncement, Netanyahu is also trumpeting victory. The prime minister claims he was the one who forced Arafat into changing course.
Tuesday, as the Palestinian Central Council began deliberations in Gaza on a statehood declaration, Arafat indicated that he wants to postpone a unilateral declaration.
“We are going through a very delicate period in the history of our people, a period during which we cannot afford making any mistakes,” he said.
“We don’t need to affirm our state because we are actually exercising statehood.”
The Palestinian Central Council’s deliberations are expected to drag on for many weeks without a decision, precisely to bypass the date of the Israeli election.
Or perhaps Arafat will succeed in persuading his tense and divided constituency that Clinton’s letter, with its broad hints at eventual Palestinian independence with U.S. support, is worth another year’s delay.
Clinton’s letter, leaked in the Israeli newspapers Ha’aretz and Yediot Achranot on Monday, is reported to contain a new target date of May 2000. The United States reportedly pledges in the letter to work for a quick resumption of accelerated final-status negotiations after the Israeli elections.
The Yediot Achranot report of the letter was particularly resonant: It had Clinton paraphrasing the words of “Hatikvah,” the Israeli national anthem: “Am hofshi b’artzam” (a free people in their land), to define Washington’s vision of the Palestinian future.
“It’s a Balfour Declaration to the Palestinians,” said Knesset member Shlomo Ben-Ami of the Labor Party, congratulating Netanyahu on his role in the creation of Palestinian sovereignty.
But Israeli government officials signaled they could live with the letter — Netanyahu said he was “satisfied” with its content — since the target date seemed more in the nature of a hope than a binding deadline. The Israeli position is that the final-status talks have no cutoff date, and that Palestinian rule in parts of the West Bank and Gaza continues in effect unless it’s replaced by a new agreement.
Beneath the surface, however, there was consternation among Israeli officials at the extent of Clinton’s reported presidential promises to Arafat.
Observers noted that this was the first instance of such a letter of assurances to the Palestinians without parallel assurances offered to the Israeli side.
Netanyahu, however, insists that it was he who brought about the recent diplomatic events in the first place. He assured a radio interviewer Monday that Arafat’s decision not to make a unilateral declaration was the result of the premier’s own dire threats to take swift and tough action and possibly annex the West Bank.
“As a result of this statement and our stance for the past few months,” Netanyahu said, “the Palestinian Authority realized that it had to back down.”