JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak is determined to forge ahead with his troubled peace process despite a dramatic blow from the Knesset.
On Wednesday, the Knesset passed a bill that could kill the chances of a peace deal with Syria.
The bill requires that a referendum by Israelis on a withdrawal from the Golan Heights be approved by more than 50 percent of all eligible voters, rather than by the standard majority of those who actually cast ballots.
A peace treaty with Syria has to go through three stages: cabinet approval, passage by 61 of the 120 Knesset members, and the referendum.
“No parliamentary trick will block the will of the Israeli people,” Barak said after the vote.
Three parties in his governing coalition — Yisrael Ba’Aliyah, Shas and the National Religious Party — supported the opposition-sponsored bill.
The vote — 60-53, with one abstention — raised doubts about Barak’s ability to deliver on the promises he makes when and if the now-suspended negotiations with Syria resume.
The bill must still pass additional Knesset votes and two committees before becoming law. That process can take months, and the bill may never reach that stage.
During the debate prior to Wednesday’s vote, Justice Minister Yossi Beilin attacked the bill as a “racist law,” saying it would assure that the votes of Israel’s Arab minority would not tip the balance in the referendum.
Predicting that the bill would be overturned in future Knesset votes, Barak also expressed confidence that the Israeli people would pass a peace referendum by a “landslide.”
The Knesset vote came three days after an important cabinet meeting, where Barak announced that Israel is prepared to withdraw from the whole of the Golan Heights to the border that existed before the 1967 Six-Day War.
The offer is still somewhat ambiguous because, in Israel’s view, that border is yet to be precisely demarcated. Moreover, Barak still insists that he will not hand over any of the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee to Syria.
Barak also proclaimed that his four predecessors had all, in effect, secretly offered Assad this same total withdrawal.
Damascus viewed his comments as the first confirmation of a long-held Syrian contention that former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had told then-U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher he was willing to cede the Golan to Damascus in return for a full peace.
Barak’s position now includes:
*Phased Israeli withdrawal from the Golan to the pre-war line.
*Extensive demilitarization and limitation of forces on the Syrian side of the line.
*Other security arrangements, including an Israeli presence for a period of years at the Mount Hermon surveillance station, which would be operated by the United States.
*Diplomatic relations at an early stage of the withdrawal process.
*Other elements of normalization, including trade and tourism.
*Agreement among Israel, Syria and Lebanon that would end the fighting in southern Lebanon and enable Israeli troops to return home by the summer.
Barak maintained during Sunday’s cabinet session that Yitzhak Shamir had implicitly agreed to a total Golan withdrawal back in 1991, when he consented to attend the Madrid Peace Conference on the basis of an invitation that referred to the U.N. Security Council’s land-for-peace Resolution 242.
Rabin, said Barak, told Christopher that Israel was ready in principle to pull back to the June 4, 1967 line if all the other elements of the peace package fell into place.
Shimon Peres, Barak went on, endorsed Rabin’s position.
And Benjamin Netanyahu, Barak’s immediate predecessor, conveyed to the Syrians his willingness to withdraw to the pre-war line in a secret dialogue conducted by U.S. businessman Ronald Lauder.
Shamir and Netanyahu flatly denied Barak’s version of history.
“I was always against any withdrawal on any front,” the still-feisty Shamir declared.
Netanyahu, reacting from New York, said his secret negotiations failed precisely because he was not prepared to commit to total withdrawal.