There is reportedly puzzlement and consternation that Arafat continues to reject what is presumably the best offer an Israeli leader can make.
Israeli officials are still hoping that international pressure on Arafat will force him to take a more flexible position or that new “creative” ideas will emerge from the continuing contacts.
Israel is accustomed to hostile treatment by the United Nations. But in meeting after meeting last week with heads of state from Jacques Chirac of France and Gerhard Schroeder of Germany to Yoshiro Mori of Japan and Abdurrahman Wahid of Indonesia, the Israeli delegation was surprised by how well its peace efforts have been received.
“It’s almost not even necessary to convince people of our position,” said Colette Avital, a former consul general in New York and a Knesset member who traveled with Barak. “They see we’ve done our utmost and that the ball is in the other court.”
Still, world opinion may not be enough to keep Barak in power. So it is not surprising that Barak soon appeared to be turning his focus to Jewish public opinion and Israeli domestic issues.
Barak spoke twice at length to American Jews on Sunday: for 90 minutes to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, then for another hour in a folksy gathering of students, volunteers and professionals of the United Jewish Appeal of New York.
During the meetings, Barak, appearing upbeat and good-humored, defended his apparent willingness to compromise on Jerusalem, touted his economic record, pledged to heal Israel’s religious-secular schism and vowed to fight attempts to bring him down.
At the first meeting, held in a glittery hotel conference room, the audience, perhaps cautious not to antagonize the Israeli premier, asked generally gentle, softball questions.
Yet the niceties ended with a question from Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America. He pressed Barak on concessions he has been willing to make regarding Jerusalem’s religious sites and historic quarters.
Klein noted the opposition Barak’s stance has generated from Shimon Peres, Leah Rabin and one public opinion poll. Rabin, in fact, was quoted last week saying her late husband would be “spinning in his grave” if he knew what had been offered to the Palestinians. Klein then went one step further, asking Barak what mandate he has to even offer such concessions.
“I have a mandate through the ballot, not the polls,” Barak responded, adding that he operates “not by weather vane, but by inner compass.”
He had earlier spoken of the “calculated risks” he was ready to take to achieve peace, but now, shaking his fist as if banging an invisible gavel, Barak declared, “There will never be an Israeli leader who will give up sovereignty over the Temple Mount to the Palestinians.”
The statement drew loud applause, as it did at the second gathering, when Barak repeated it almost verbatim. Afterward, dozens of Jewish leaders crowded around Barak to shake his hand.
The second event, at UJA headquarters, was held under tight security. Invitation-only guests, numbering some 300, began arriving 2-1/2 hours early, as security guards swept through the building with bomb-sniffing dogs.
Barak sat on a barstool, surrounded by the crowd, in a town hall-style meeting.
The pluralism issue was a hot topic at both meetings.
While threatening to abolish Israel’s Ministry of Religious Affairs, Barak said he “never initiated a secular revolution.” Rather, he will work to create Israel’s first constitution and a “modern, democratic state,” while being sensitive to and balancing the needs and traditions of the fervently religious.
“We do not intend to separate religion from the state,” he said. “We are more modest. We intend to separate religion from politics.”
The UJA crowd gave Barak three standing ovations.
However, even as he vowed to fight on, his former cabinet minister, Natan Sharansky, predicted Monday that a national unity government is imminent.
Speaking before another gathering of the Presidents Conference, the former interior minister gave a hint of how emotional domestic debate would be if the fate of Jerusalem were determined by referendum.
Sharansky, who described himself as a “dove” among the Soviet emigres in Israel, said Jerusalem is the “common denominator, the glue” that holds Jews together, and Arafat wants the Holy City because “Jerusalem is our soul, and that’s how he can destroy us.”